Facebook: Weapon ads put on hold this week
Facebook says it is temporarily banning ads that promote weapon accessories and protective equipment in the United States ahead of Inauguration Day and at least through Friday.
The company said in a blog post Saturday about Wednesday's inauguration preparations that the move was being made “out of an abundance of caution.”
“We already prohibit ads for weapons, ammunition and weapon enhancements like silencers. But we will now also prohibit ads for accessories such as gun safes, vests and gun holsters in the US,” Facebook said.
Facebook previously announced it is cracking down on the “Stop the Steal” rallying cry in an emergency move to head off potential violence before President Donald Trump leaves office and President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in to take his place.
Facebook has said that it would be “monitoring for signals of violence or other threats” both in Washington, D.C., and across all states and has “implemented a series of additional measures to continue preventing attempts to use our services for violence,” which include its ongoing pause of all political advertising.
One of the newly announced measures blocks “the creation of any new Facebook events happening in close proximity to locations including the White House, the US Capitol building and any of the state capitol buildings through Inauguration Day.” Facebook also said it is conducting a “secondary review” of all Facebook events related to the inauguration and removing ones that violate policies.
Facebook says it has “implemented specific measures to reduce opportunities for abuse in Groups” and is restricting features for some “based on signals such as repeat violations of our policies. These restrictions include blocking these accounts from creating live videos or creating an event, Group or Page.”
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, said l Facebook has “no plans” to lift Trump's suspension from either the platform or Instagram.
“This showed that even a president is not above the policies we have,” Sandberg said of the suspension.