Facebook Shoots Down Giveaways of Assault Weapons
The months since the Newtown massacre have seen an explosion of gun
and ammo giveaways on Facebook. For some gun enthusiasts, scoring a free
AR-15 assault weapon has been as easy as clicking a "like" button on
the Facebook page of a firearms marketer such as 556 Tactical,
Pittsburgh Tactical, or AR15News.com. Since December, the number of gun
and ammo giveaways on the social networking site has increased
seven-fold, according to research by the media startup Vocativ:
Facebook has allowed companies to give away guns as sweepstakes
prizes since 2011. However, a Facebook spokesperson told Vocativ that
the sweepstakes in question are technically ads, and therefore still
violate a Facebook policy banning "the promotion and sale of weapons."
As of yesterday, the Facebook pages of the three major firearms
marketers had been taken down, though Facebook apparently still allows assault weapons giveaways as long as they aren't used as tools for selling guns.
