A lot of people may not be aware of this, but Facebook hasn’t allowed anyone to buy or sell guns on the social media platform since 2016. To some, this might seem like a no-brainer, but to others a bit more familiar with Meta’s often seemingly arbitrary and inconsistently enforced policies surrounding misinformation, free speech, and violence, it’s actually somewhat surprising. Pleasant surprise, in this case, will be short-lived, given a new report from The Washington Post that reveals one jaw-dropping fact: A user can hypothetically violate Facebook’s policy 10 times before getting banned.
Facebook, for its part, didn’t dispute this 10-strike policy — not only that, it attempted to justify it by claiming that many of its gun-seeking and selling users still aren’t fully aware of the website’s commerce rules. Call me a stickler, but anyone who needs to be reminded nine times that they can’t sell deadly weapons on a social media site probably shouldn’t have access to said platform or guns for that matter.
