Facebook Will Take Action Against Unlawful Amazon Rainforest Sales

Share Us

4098
Facebook Will Take Action Against Unlawful Amazon Rainforest Sales
11 Feb 2023
7 min read

News Synopsis

Latest Updated on 11 February 2023

According to a Business Blog post posted on Friday, the struggling Social Media giant Facebook declared it will explicitly forbid the illegal Sale of protected Amazon rainforest land on its site.

A BBC inquiry found that the company's Marketplace Program was being used to facilitate sales of protected properties, including Indigenous territories and national forest reserves. This resulted in the decision. Brazil's Supreme Court opened an investigation after the revelations, but Facebook stated at the time that it would not take any action on its own about the matter.

Facebook did not disclose the reasons for its change of heart, although the company's dedication to Sustainability was highlighted in the blog post.

According to the article, "We're committed to sustainability and to protecting land in ecological conservation areas." We are changing our corporate practices to specifically forbid the sale or purchase of any land in environmentally sensitive regions on our social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

According to Facebook, it will "now compare listings on Facebook Marketplace against an authorized database of protected regions maintained by an international organization to identify items that may violate this new policy." That database, which lists protected areas, is maintained by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, according to a story from BBC News.

However, since Facebook does not require users to provide the coordinates of the land they are selling, analysts instantly challenged the strategy's Success.

According to Brenda Brito a Brazilian Lawyer and scientist, "Any attempt to block them would be incorrect if they don't make it mandatory for sellers to disclose the location of the area on sale." Even if they have the best database in the world, they need geolocation references for it to work.

This week, whistleblower France Haugen, a former product manager on the civic integrity team at Facebook, disclosed how the company actually encouraged the dissemination of false information across its platforms to increase "Engagement," knowingly enabling illegal activity and Priority Profit over the social assistance of its users. As a result, Facebook is reeling.

However, Facebook has already come under fire from Environmental Groups and media outlets before the newest reports for limiting and blocking the circulation of information about Climate Change and other environmental issues.

Last Updated on 09 October 2021

Selling the Amazon, a BBC Our World documentary released in February, found that rainforest tracts the size of 1,000 Football pitches were being advertised on Facebook's classified advertisements site. The BBC set up meetings between four sellers and an undercover operator posing as a lawyer who is representing wealthy investors to establish the advertising was genuine. Facebook has announced that it will begin cracking down on the unlawful sale of Amazon rainforest-protected zones on its platform. The new regulations will only apply to conservation zones, not public lands. And it will only consider Amazon, not other jungles or wildlife areas throughout the world.

Facebook did not say how it expected to uncover the unlawful advertisements, but it did say it will "attempt to detect and prohibit new listings" in Amazon rainforest protected zones. Facebook is using a database maintained by the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre to try to catch unlawful sellers. It is the most "complete" database of its sort, according to UNEP, and is updated monthly based on reports from "a variety of government and other institutions."

Facebook told the BBC that it did not aim to force sellers to reveal the actual location of advertised land in response to an inquiry from Brazilian lawyer and scientist Brenda Brito. Against the backdrop of widespread deforestation in the Amazon and repeated congressional attempts to remove protection measures, environmental groups in Brazil are hailing Facebook's announcement as a modest triumph.

You May Like

TWN In-Focus