- People are bypassing Facebook's marketplace policies and selling guns by pretending to sell stickers, The Wall Street Journal reported.
- The outlet found four people advertising stickers with gun makers' logos, priced at hundreds of dollars. The sellers confirmed when contacted privately that they were actually selling firearms, The Journal said.
- Facebook prohibits the private sale of guns and ammunition on its marketplace, a policy that sellers have skirted in the past by advertising gun cases to sell guns.
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Some people are advertising stickers of gun makers' logos to sell guns on Facebook, in violation of the company's marketplace policies.
A new investigation by The Wall Street Journal found listings that appeared to advertise stickers promoting gun makers such as Ruger. The Journal said that when it contacted the sellers, they said they actually intended to sell guns.
A Mississippi seller posted a $450 sticker sporting the Glock logo and asked interested buyers to message them privately for more details. When The Journal contacted the seller privately, he said he was really selling a .40-caliber pistol.
Three other sellers told The Journal that they were indeed selling guns, not stickers. The newspaper said it also found more than 40 results for "gun sticker" and "stickers" that included photos of gun makers' logos.
Facebook prohibits the private sale of firearms and ammunition on its marketplace. As The Journal noted, Facebook said in a quarterly report in early August that it had removed 1.3 million firearm-related pieces of content from April to June.
But this isn't the first time that sellers have finagled their way around the policy. A Journal report last year found that sellers had listed gun cases or boxes at high prices, and, when contacted privately, said they intended to sell firearms — including, in one case, a semiautomatic AR-15.
The revelation prompted a slew of Democratic senators — including Kamala Harris, now the 2020 vice-presidential candidate — to demand an explanation from Facebook about how it moderates gun sales on its marketplace.
A company representative told Business Insider in an email that Facebook takes "action against anyone we catch trying to sell guns on our platform," adding, "We've removed listings that were flagged and will continue to investigate."
As the Journal report noted, firearm sales have spiked in recent months, partly prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdowns. One analyst recently pointed to widespread civil unrest and demonstrations against police brutality as contributing to the increasing number of gun purchases in the US.
Facebook has struggled with content moderation on its platform, including policing the spread of coronavirus-related conspiracy theories and those from far-right extremist groups like QAnon. The company employs both artificial-intelligence algorithms and human moderators to sift through posts on the site.