Facing heat from anti-gun groups such as Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Facebook is currently mulling over policy changes regarding pro-gun fan pages on the social networking site.
The groups are pushing for an outright ban of these pages. Will Facebook cave, and will these policy changes result in the removal of some pages?
Via Venture Beat (h/t Weasel Zippers):
Facebook may announce company policy changes for gun-related pages in the coming weeks, VentureBeat has learned.
The social network has been under pressure from the powerful Mayors Against Illegal Guns and the Moms Demand Action civic group to ban gun-themed fan pages on the site.
“Talks are progressing. The discussions are ongoing; there have been positive developments,” sources close to the conversations told VentureBeat.
An extensive VentureBeat investigation last week revealed that adults and children were making arrangements to buy, sell, and trade guns through the many Facebook fan pages devoted to guns and the people who use them, sometimes in violation of federal and state gun laws.
[…]
The two advocacy groups recently joined forces to pressure “Facebook [to] get out of the gun business.” Mayors Against Illegal Guns was cofounded by former NYC three-term mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg along with Boston’s then-mayor, Thomas Menino, in 2006. Mayors of more than 1,100 U.S. cities belong to the organization.
Meanwhile, Facebook is apparently still okay with this page, affectionately titled George Zimmerman Must DIE.
Facebook has argued in the past that they are not an e-commerce site, and members who make transactions of any nature are doing so directly with one another. Individuals are left to follow their own state laws, which is as it would be for anyone buying or selling a gun at a store.
Has that changed?
Mayors Against Illegal Guns has recently come under fire with one mayor being sentenced to prison time for a gun crime, and another claiming the group wanted to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens.
Cross-posted at the Mental Recession
