Facebook is taking a stance against gun sweepstakes. The social network has removed at least five pages that were claiming to give away guns to network users.
In one case a gun giveaway page was prepared to hand over an AR-15 rifle alongside several smaller weapons.
The gun giveaway pages were being operated by gun shops and weapon industry news sites who were attempting to promote the sale and use of guns.
Each page offered users the chance to win a gun by “liking” the page in question. The pages were pulled for violating internal Facebook advertising restrictions.
New York-based news startup Vocativ was the first to report the gun giveaways. The publication noticed the gun sweepstakes after news of their closure were reported on web forum postings.
Facebook’s rules of operation state that page operators can not promote weapons, tobacco, prescription drugs, and gasoline.
Vocativ took the time to chart the number of Facebook gun giveaways since July 2012:
I am glad that facebook is taking this stance.
I've seen sweepstakes to win guns before and I always was a little concerned by them. No problem with this FB policy!