Facebook was quick on the trigger over sales of the Confederate Flag.
Via IBT:
Gun shows aren’t the only places to score weapons. Although Facebook recently imposed a ban on such transactions, terrorists like the Islamic State group have been setting up online bazaars on the social media network, offering everything from handguns to guided missiles.
The New York Times reported Facebook shut down six of seven suspicious groups the newspaper pointed out this week, based on a study in Libya by Armament Research Services (ARES) and Times reporting on similar groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
“All social media networks are at the core just communications platforms, and there is no reason why people wouldn’t use them to trade in arms just like they trade in anything else,” Ian McCollum, author and editor of the blog Forgotten Weapons, said during an open Reddit question-and-answer session Friday.
During the rule of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, the arms trade was tightly regulated in Libya, the ARES study noted, but after his ouster in 2011 military stockpiles were raided, sending light weapons and small arms into the hands of armed groups and private sellers.
“From a virtually nonexistent domestic market, the revolution and its aftermath paved the way for a large illicit arms trade to emerge,” the study said. “Many of the players in this new market began to use new technologies to hawk their wares. Online sales via social media platforms are one of the tools currently being used for this purpose.”