As an anecdote, since July they've started showing me ads for body armor almost nonstop whenever I actually open the app. Just the other day it was a body armor ad then an ad for a tactical communication earpiece.
The companies selling the suppressor kits claim they are legitimate auto parts. They clearly aren't.
Some people have claimed that it would be legal to buy these if you applied for a license to manufacture a suppressor, but good luck arguing that in federal court, especially since these are manufactured in China. Both the import of these goods, and buying without the correct federal license are felonies....
And yet they are all over Facebook. And people are buying them.
Here is the crazy thing. I enjoy shooting as a hobby, and could understand if FB chose to show me adds for legitimate firearm accessory companies.
I am not a car guy.
Either FB add targeting is terrible, or they can connect the dots between these obviously illegal "solvent traps" and people who are interested in firearms.
This isn't a post made by a random FB user, it's an ad on their ad network on their platform. At what point does FB facebook become culpable?
Over half a century of life might not have made me much of a programmer, but one thing it has taught me time and again is that if an amateur lawyer says something is “legal if...” and your gut said otherwise, go with your gut. It is as if they forget that the argument is not with me, but the hypothetical judge they’re going to stand before (as you point out).
A lot of "if" statements in your comment.
The ones I saw were clearly not manufactured in the USA, and based on the comment sections were clearly understood to be suppressor components.
Lots of YouTube/internet "I'm not a lawyer, but..." comments floating out there.
Even if we were being extraordinary charitable, all plausible deniability goes out the window with even a cursory reading of the the description and the comments for these items.
I guess my life is more boring than I thought or the Facebook containers on my computer and phone do a really good job of keeping FB in the dark.
The companies had targeted me by gender and age, and a couple of other broad identifiers I cant remember, but nothing about my hobbies, search history, or political orientation.
It's possible that FB didn't show me all of the criteria used to target these ads.
That still doesn't take away from the question of at what point do they become culpable with facilitating a felony offense?
Just because something is hard to do at scale (in this case review ads for illegal behavior), doesn't absolve a company from the responsibility to act.
To be clear, I don't know the answer to this question. Parlor got dumped for not doing enough (and personally I'm okay with that), but how do we determine if Facebook is doing enough?
(Not 100% sure of the last one, but I know I'm close.)
The most disconcerting to me was an ad showcasing a "tactical hooded trench coat"[0], with the model holding an AK in the FB ad. I mean, nobody is going hunting, or defending their home, with their tactical hooded trench coat. Seemed pretty squarely targeted at the aspiring insurrectionist crowd.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for letting people buy whatever strange clothes they want. If I have any point here it's that maybe FB doesn't get to claim the moral high ground when they're pushing ads using AKs as props, targeted at the crowd that stormed the capital (also, they need to fix their algorithm if they're pushing them to me).
TBH I was expecting to see actual trench coats but they all seem like normal tight-ish fitting jackets in various grays, greens, browns and camo.
But I did screenshot it previously: https://imgur.com/gallery/bxcK7zb
If that's the look of the HN demographic, I'm even more out of touch than I thought I was.
[1]https://danielkquemist.artstation.com/projects/lVx8Ne?album_...
[2]https://www.nikiluwa.com/products/mens-tactical-hooded-jacke...
[3]https://www.blaroken.com/products/mens-tactical-hooded-jacke...
I was seeing stuff like this which albeit somewhat tacky doesn't exactly scream IRA like that does.
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1nW0maN_rK1RkHFqDq6yJAFXaa/Fre...
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB19LG5p3MPMeJjy1Xdq6ysrXXaY/Tac...
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/oqoAAOSwGj9dpoA7/s-l300.jpg
https://image.dhgate.com/0x0s/f2-albu-g6-M01-FD-51-rBVaR1rw2...
People put those ads there and maintained them there for a reason, and that reason is those ads are working.
Edit: Fortunately I find Nigel Farage trying to sell me financial products fairly amusing...
https://www.webfx.com/social-media/how-much-does-facebook-ad....