Facebook, the world’s largest social media website, has moved against America’s legal gun owners. In a surprise announcement, Facebook and Instagram immediately banned posts about guns offered for sale between private parties. The ban extended to gun parts and ammunition. Offers that were all completely legal. There was no explanation of what prompted the Facebook policy change, but Obama has long railed against the legal private sales of firearms via the Interwebs; objecting to the lack of a FBI background check. White House spokesperson Josh Earnest applauded Facebook’s action, but smugly would not say if Facebook's decision was the result of any specific request from the administration.
The impact has been immediate, broad and severe. Facebook started pulling down gun sales posts instantly. Many gun or gun-rights oriented groups were banned outright, removed for what Facebook called violations of its terms of service. Facebook has unjustly equated firearms with marijuana, pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs and groups that are hateful, threatening or obscene. Members of the Bradys, Bloomberg’s Demanding Mommies and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, as well as many so-called Social Justice Warriors swarmed Facebook, reporting anything remotely gun related. Facebook’s notorious “Ban first - ask questions later” policy resulted in the wholesale elimination of a large swath of gun groups, many with no connection to gun sales.
Facebook gun group administrators fought back by tightening their rules, eliminating questionable posts, refusing new members and changing the groups names and keywords to limit notice by the SJWs. Often, those efforts were not enough. Many gun groups are going elsewhere, to private websites, forums and friendlier social media sites like GunDistrict, Myspace and MeWe. This fragmentation has already caused a negative impact to the effectiveness of the gun culture.
It should be noted that as a private company, Facebook has every right to regulate its business as it desires. Should they be limiting free speech about a lawful, enumerated right is an entirely different question. However, any government coercion aimed at chilling lawful conduct is at best unethical and certainly an abusive use of executive power. We must be on our guard.
The impact has been immediate, broad and severe. Facebook started pulling down gun sales posts instantly. Many gun or gun-rights oriented groups were banned outright, removed for what Facebook called violations of its terms of service. Facebook has unjustly equated firearms with marijuana, pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs and groups that are hateful, threatening or obscene. Members of the Bradys, Bloomberg’s Demanding Mommies and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, as well as many so-called Social Justice Warriors swarmed Facebook, reporting anything remotely gun related. Facebook’s notorious “Ban first - ask questions later” policy resulted in the wholesale elimination of a large swath of gun groups, many with no connection to gun sales.
Facebook gun group administrators fought back by tightening their rules, eliminating questionable posts, refusing new members and changing the groups names and keywords to limit notice by the SJWs. Often, those efforts were not enough. Many gun groups are going elsewhere, to private websites, forums and friendlier social media sites like GunDistrict, Myspace and MeWe. This fragmentation has already caused a negative impact to the effectiveness of the gun culture.
It should be noted that as a private company, Facebook has every right to regulate its business as it desires. Should they be limiting free speech about a lawful, enumerated right is an entirely different question. However, any government coercion aimed at chilling lawful conduct is at best unethical and certainly an abusive use of executive power. We must be on our guard.
This was a warning. Gun Culture 2.0 is in many ways a child of Al Gore’s internet. The new ability to find one another, organize and communicate significantly changed the game from when communication was largely controlled by a hostile mass-media. To illustrate: gun rights advocates have repeatedly frustrated the current administration by quickly distributing information and coordinating a response to their excesses. However, the new capabilities rely on an internet largely controlled by the left-leaning elite of Silicon Valley. Facebook CEO and majority stockholder Jeff Zuckerberg, recently anointed as the fourth richest man in the world, could indulge a whim or pressure and ban every mention of firearms, self-defense or rights on his site. Other social media sites could follow suit, effectively eliminating most firearm and rights related communication. The remaining sites and forums would also be at risk where the government controls the internet Off Switch and the UN has been given control of what goes on the world wide web. It could happen tomorrow. It’s in our best interest to begin to develop our own secure, gun and free speech rights friendly websites and communication channels.
We have been warned.
We have been warned.
Posts related to guns is simply very sensitive as the environment nowadays is really tensed because of all these terrorist activities so it may simply be a safety measure from the technical of Facebook that not even a single message regarding guns is passed to the general public.
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MA Gun License
It has nothing to do with terrorism or illegal gun use. It has to do with liberal tech company owners wanting to impose their beliefs on their customers, even though we are the ones making them rich.
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