Amid reports that talks between Facebook, Instagram, and gun control groups are “progressing,” a Facebook spokesman says the social media site is not an online retailer and does not sell anything–including guns.
On February 25th, Breitbart News reported that Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (MDA) were pressuring Facebook and Instagram to “prohibit the private selling or trading of guns on [their] platforms.”
MAIG and MDA said the social media sites “[enable] people to sell weapons, often with no questions asked and no background checks required.”
But during the last week of February, a Facebook spokesperson told Venture Beat News (VB) that Facebook “is not an e-commerce site and doesn’t sell anything,” as paraphrased by VB.
The spokesperson protested, “You can’t buy things on Instagram and Facebook, nor can you promote the sale or use of weapons in advertising. We encourage people who come across any illegal activity to report it to us.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.
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