Facebook to prohibit private firearm transactions on its service

San Francisco – Facebook on Friday set out to block people from using the leading social network and its Instagram photo-sharing service for private gun sales. The US government would treat failure to comply by firearms salespeople as a criminal matter.

“We spoke with Facebook regarding this important new policy decision and I appreciate the company’s willingness to work with my office over the past two years on this issue”, said NY attorney general Eric Schneiderman. This is the first product to be banned from peer to peer sales; Facebook also bars prescription drug sales and marijuana sales. Only one company was showing off new smart-gun technology during CES, the largest tech expo in the country, and none were at the largest gun show.

Though Facebook isn’t directly involved in gun sales, gun buyers have used the platforms to negotiate private transactions person-to-person.

Licensed retailers will still be able to advertise firearms, Bickert said.

The California-based social network on Friday updated its policy for managing regulated goods to prohibit people who aren’t gun dealers from using Facebook to offer guns for sale or negotiate private sales of firearms.

Facebook had announced some restrictions on gun sales and advertising in 2014, saying it would block minors from seeing posts that advertised guns.

The local Facebook gun exchange groups have changed their status from closed to secret.

But the complete ban is still a big move for the company, which has been pressured by gun control advocates to do more to stop these kinds of sales.

Facebook is the world’s most popular online social network, with 1.59 billion users across the globe, 219 million of them in the United States and Canada.