Editor’s Note: Facebook, like Google, has a long track record of profiting from crime. See, UPS Was Fined Nearly a Quarter-Billion Dollars for Facilitating Cigarette Trafficking. Is Facebook Facing Similar Liability? and What is Facebook’s Responsibility for Serving as the Sales Platform for Radioactive Counterfeit Cigarettes?
From: The Times
Illegal tobacco sellers use slang to beat Facebook ban
Gabriel Pogrund
Sellers of unlicensed tobacco on Facebook’s Marketplace app are sidestepping the social media giant’s safeguards by misspelling brand names, using foreign languages and communicating in slang.
A Sunday Times investigation found hundreds of results for illicit tobacco on Facebook using search terms deliberately designed to circumvent the rules.
