Facebook is cracking down on online gun sales, announcing Friday a new\u00a0policy than bans individuals from advertising or selling firearms on the social media\u00a0platform. Facebook has long been a convenient platform for users to post\u00a0advertisements in an effort to make product sales. Many Facebook users utilize the\u00a0website to sell or trade everyday items such as bicycles, sports equipment,\u00a0textbooks, and yes, even firearms. Facebook has been working to increase\u00a0commerce on their website and hopes to see businesses transactions increase on\u00a0the site overall. Last summer, Facebook expanded its digital payment services to\u00a0allow Facebook users to make payments to one another, encouraging even more\u00a0people to turn to the social media site for business. However, not all business\u00a0exchanges are welcome.
\nIn 2014, Facebook enacted one of its first policies restricting the sale of\u00a0firearms by private citizens on Facebook. Facebook said it would block minors from\u00a0seeing posts that advertised guns. This policy restricted only the audience of\u00a0advertisements, still allowing the advertisements to be posted but monitored so as\u00a0to ensure minors would not see them. At that time, however, private sales of\u00a0firearms had not yet been prohibited and users could still discuss a sale using the\u00a0website. The 2014 policy change centered on protecting minors and had not yet\u00a0entered into the realm of a blanket prohibition on sales.
\nThe most recent policy change, announced on Friday, January 29, purports to\u00a0prohibit the sale of guns by private citizens all together. In the wake of increased\u00a0illegal firearm sales, sparked through Facebook advertisements, the company\u00a0decided the threat of such sales was dangerous enough to prohibit sales by private\u00a0citizens entirely. This means that if a Facebook user wants to sell his gun, he cannot\u00a0make a post describing the firearm as for sale and he must turn to a different\u00a0platform to make the sale. Facebook has not, however, made any restrictions on\u00a0advertisements by licensed firearm retailers. The policy aims to decrease illegal\u00a0firearm sales, not legal, by the book dealers.
\nUsers could not actually buy and sell firearms on Facebook, even before the\u00a0new 2015 policy, but many users connected through Facebook to then make the sale\u00a0in person. Federal Law enforcement agencies and Facebook believe that prohibiting\u00a0any advertisement of private gun sales will limit illegal firearms sales and help to\u00a0protect the public. There have been at least two cases in which private citizens used\u00a0Facebook to connect with a firearms dealer, purchase a firearm illegally, and then\u00a0kill someone. There is an obvious and significant interest in protecting the public\u00a0from this type of illegal transaction and the often-horrific consequences such a sale.\u00a0Many gun control activists praise the new policy as an appropriate response to a\u00a0situation that made it very easy to skip a background check and purchase a firearm.\u00a0The public safety concern is one of Facebook\u2019s top priorities so as they enhance\u00a0their sales and exchange capabilities, the company focuses on the impact the\u00a0changes might have on public safety as well.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, with out downplaying the important interest of\u00a0public safety, this policy may be at odds with First Amendment protections of free\u00a0speech.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Even prior to the policy, Facebook users could not make the\u00a0actual sale on Facebook. Users merely advertised firearms, needing to move off of\u00a0Facebook to make the actual sale. With the policy in effect, advertisements are now\u00a0prohibited as well by private citizens. Licensed firearm dealers may still advertise\u00a0the sale of guns. In effect, this policy is limiting and restricting the free speech of\u00a0private citizens by prohibiting a certain topic of conversation \u2013 the sale of guns. The\u00a0National Rifle Association has closely followed Facebook\u2019s developments and has\u00a0scrutinized the company for restricting free expression.
\nIf this new policy is a violation of First Amendment freedom of expression\u00a0rights, a balance must be struck between protecting public safety and promoting\u00a0freedom of speech. Facebook recognizes the complexity of the issue and cited the\u00a0need to balance free expression with public safety when it announced the 2014\u00a0policy change in a blog post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook is cracking down on online gun sales, announcing Friday a new\u00a0policy than bans individuals from advertising or selling firearms on the social media\u00a0platform. Facebook has long been a convenient platform for users to post\u00a0advertisements in an effort to make product sales. Many Facebook users utilize the\u00a0website to sell or trade everyday items such as …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7254,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869\/revisions\/7254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}