Facebook announced Friday the company would no longer allow private gun sales through the social media platform or through Instagram, the New York Times reports.
Though Facebook isn’t directly involved in gun sales, gun buyers have used the platforms to negotiate private transactions person-to-person. Sales negotiated through the social platforms are often conducted without background checks. The New York Times reports that in 2014, Facebook was the biggest marketplace in the world for private gun sales.
Facebook said in a statement released Sunday that gun sales through the site are increasing.
“Over the last two years, more and more people have been using Facebook to discover products and to buy and sell things to one another,” said Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of product policy. “We are continuing to develop, test and launch new products to make this experience even better for people and are updating our regulated goods policies to reflect this evolution.”
This new ban tightens up an existing effort in 2014 by the company to limit gun sales and keep minors from seeing pages advertising guns for sale.
Buzzfeed reports that the new ban will only apply to individual private sales and not to licensed firearms dealers, who can continue to advertise their products on the platforms as long as no sales are conducted through the sites.
President Obama and gun safety groups had been pressuring the company to stop allowing posts offering guns for sale to circulate on the site, according to the New York Times.
The company has already banned private sales of illegal drugs.
WSBTV
