Facebook has apparently become a giant online supermarket for weapons, especially for militants

If you want to buy an AK-47, anti-tank rocket launchers, grenades, or mobile anti-aircraft missiles and you live in Libya, Iraq, Syria, or other areas with a heavy Islamic State presence, look no further than Facebook, The New York Times reports, citing its own research and a recent study by the Armament Research Services, a private consultancy. Across the Middle East, Facebook "has been hosting sprawling online arms bazaars" in private and secret groups, says C.J. Chivers at The Times, and because Facebook has barred the private sale of weapons on its site since January, the social media giant shut down six of the seven groups the newspaper brought to its attention.

"It is not clear how extensive arms trafficking on the site has been, but the rate of new posts has been unmistakably brisk, with many groups offering several new weapons a day," The Times reports, with ARES documenting 6,000 trades across the region, including up to 300 arms sales posts a month in Libya alone. Handguns for personal protection are the popular item in Libya, explains ARES director Nic R. Jenzen-Jones, who helped write the report. In Syria and Iraq, many of the arms up for sale obviously were provided to security services by the U.S. military, then either stolen or sold for cash.

This is a relatively new problem for Facebook, says Monika Bickert, a former federal prosecutor who oversees and enforces Facebook's content standards. "When Facebook began, there was no way to really engage in commerce on Facebook," she tells The New York Times. But the company began allowing payments through its Messenger service in the past year, among other additions aimed at facilitating sales. Like a lot of things involving the Middle East, the Facebook arms bazaar seems to be an unintended consequence. You can read more at The New York Times.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up