Facebook Bans Historical Artefacts Trade

Finally, Facebook has banned the trading of historical artefacts on the site. The social platform took the decision after a campaign by academic researchers who exposes how items looted from Iraq and Syria were sold on Facebook.

Facebook Bans Historical Artefacts Trade

One of the experts has suggested that to bring a change it is important that Facebook should invest in “teams of experts to identify and remove networks rather than playing whack-a-mole with individual posts”. However, Facebook has confirmed that all trade in ancient artefacts is banned on its platforms. The changes can be seen in a new set of Facebook Community Standards that published by the company on Tuesday.

Facebook has banned all the content which “encourages or attempts to buy, sell or trade historical artefacts” or “attempts to solicit historical artefacts”. Items that were sold by traders include ancient scrolls, manuscripts, mummified body parts, and ancient coins.

Facebook public policy manager Greg Mandel said: “Historical artefacts hold significant personal and cultural value for communities across the globe, but their sale often results in harmful behavior. That’s why we’ve long had rules preventing the sale of stolen artefacts. To keep these artefacts and our users safe, we’ve been working to expand our rules, and starting today we now prohibit the exchange, sale or purchase of all historical artefacts on Facebook and Instagram.”

Facebook is claiming that it had removed 49 groups but researchers are continuously providing the evidence that trade is still ongoing.

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