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Facebook Government Social Networks United States News Politics Technology

Small and Heavy Arms Traded On Facebook By Libyan Militants (rt.com) 60

Posted by BeauHD from the weapon-trafficking dept.
An anonymous reader writes: A report entitled "The Online Trade of Light Weapons in Libya" on Thursday revealed machine guns, grenade launchers and anti-tank missiles are being traded in Libya via Facebook. Some of the weapons include those supplied by the U.S. allies to their Libyan proxies, while most come from raids by militants on the arsenals of former Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. "Many of the players in this new market began to use new technologies to hawk their wares," the paper says. Online sales from social media platforms such as Facebook "are one of the tools currently being used for this purpose." Machine guns made up the bulk of the Facebook offers, including six Soviet-made 12,7mm DShKMs, 11 14,5mm KPVs, and one Belgian 12,7mm FN Browning M2-type heavy machine gun. Large-caliber anti-material sniper rifles and a handful of other weapons have also been advertised on Facebook, according to the research.
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Small and Heavy Arms Traded On Facebook By Libyan Militants More

Small and Heavy Arms Traded On Facebook By Libyan Militants

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  • Its crazy to think that people would discuss a business transaction using a web based communication platform.

  • Ridiculous! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is a lie! Trading guns is illegal and not allowed by Facebook!

    • Well, maybe in the US where it's essentially exercising 1A and 2A rights - that should be banned, after all. But it's fine in Libya and other places overseas because it's part of their culture and Facebook would show microaggressions if they didn't allow such trades and discussions to take place.
    • Facebook should have never added the "buy this weapon" button. What did they think people were going to use it for??

  • Plutonium? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So can we now finally build a timetravelling delorean with plutonium stolen from libian terrorist ?

  • Jokes on them... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I gave them a shoddy bomb casing full of used pinball machine parts.

  • terror book

  • How 'bout all of them? Russia's share of the market has dwindled significantly during the Obama years. Hillary's legacy [nytimes.com] is one to be real proud of, eh?

  • Oh my god... (Score:5, Funny)

    by thedarb ( 181754 ) on Friday April 08, 2016 @03:31PM (#51870681)

    they found me, I don't know how but they found me. Run for it, Marty!

  • How is Zuck going to monetize this?

    • Facebook VPN only $4.99/mo and we will never give the backdoor to the FBI, CIA, NSA, KGB, SAPD, LAPD, MI6, etc.

  • This was Hillary Clinton's war to prove her foreign policy bona fides for her presidential run. What a disaster !

    • Trolling pretty hard today, aren't you?

      If we use the assumption this was Hillary's fault (it isn't but go with me), then we can also state with equal certainty the invasion and occupation of Iraq was entirely Bush's fault as was the rise of ISIS which was a direct result of his lies.

      Well done Bush. What a disaster!

  • 18 machine guns? (Yawn!) (Score:3)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Friday April 08, 2016 @03:49PM (#51870787) Journal

    Wow: A whole 18 machine guns - man-portable ones from 1933 and 1938, and a vehicle-mounted version from 1949 (suitable for taking potshots at WW II aircraft, if you have a set of four working together, mounted on a trailer behind your Jeep).

    There are collectors with far more than that many. I think typical shipments from nation-states to their anti-establishment proxies have more than that many per package.

    Somehow I don't think they've found the underground arms market that's arming any major insurgency.

    • The Browning .50 dates to WW I. We *still* use them today, and as far as I know there aren't any plans to replace them. Weapons in this class are simply nowhere near obsolete.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swb ( 14022 )

        But those particular guns might be if they're that old. Barrels and the moving parts of the system can wear out, rendering them either less than useful or maybe even dangerous to the operator.

        It's not like the military is necessarily fielding the *same* .50 Browning machine guns they used circa 1920. Even if they were, it would kind of be like ship of Theseus. The same gun, maybe, but with all new parts.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Tuidjy ( 321055 )

          I wish people would make at least an attempt at informing themselves before they try to be authoritative about things they do not understand.

          First of all, the Dushki in questions are Ms, which means that they are not from the Thirties. They date at the very least from the late Forties, and were manufactured well into the Eighties. I remember when we started replacing them in Bulgaria, and we were manufacturing the NSV (Nikitin-Sokolov-Volkov) ourselves. Countries that did not manufacture the superseding

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by swb ( 14022 )

            I don't doubt East Bloc design heavy machine guns are simple and reliable, but they're still machines, and in the case of Libya, being stored and operated in one of the worst environments for any machine with moving parts and mating surfaces.

            And for the last couple of years, used, maintained and stored by irregulars without any specific education in their operation and maintenance. I'm sure even conscripts in Bulgaria were basically mechanical engineers in comparison to their recent Libyan operators.

            Basica

    • Wow: A whole 18 machine guns - man-portable ones from 1933 and 1938, and a vehicle-mounted version from 1949 (suitable for taking potshots at WW II aircraft, if you have a set of four working together, mounted on a trailer behind your Jeep).

      There are collectors with far more than that many. I think typical shipments from nation-states to their anti-establishment proxies have more than that many per package.

      Somehow I don't think they've found the underground arms market that's arming any major insurgency.

      , , , and MANPAD and antitank missiles.

      From second link; "The research group recorded 1,346 sales over the course of the last 18 months and found between 250 and 300 sales posts went up each month." That's maybe not huge, but more than you've quoted.

      • Eh, about what 2 local-to-me FB groups had for "gun for sale" posts up until the recent policy change... I even bought and sold a couple via them. Only 2 machine guns listed in the whole time I remember... buddy of mine bought one of them, he's still waiting on his tax stamp but the FFL/SOT he's using for the transfer has a range so at least he has "visitation rights" until the stamp comes in. I should buy him a "stamp collector" t-shirt....

      • From second link; "The research group recorded 1,346 sales over the course of the last 18 months and found between 250 and 300 sales posts went up each month."

        And how does that compare to, say, the classified section of (the somewhat misnamed) Shotgun News?

    • rt.com is Russian state propaganda. You should know it is bogus when you see the domain.

      I only came in to see if anybody noticed. No, they were too busy making jokes I guess.

  • Is there a link to this Facebook weapons bazaar?
  • The landing of the first stage on a freaking barge was pretty damn impressive.

  • with Facebooks real name policy. /s

  • Cool. Do they take PayPal?

  • A Libya in perpetual civil war (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Pentagon's mission accomplished. The world needs to wake up and stand united against the U.S and their proxy wars and illegal invasions.

  • arms are big money in the USA. From certain point of view you could say our main exports are maiming and death.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alumoi ( 1321661 )

      It's not only the US.
      Any large arms manufacturing corporation is more than eager to star wars in order to sell wepons/ammo. Coupled with the desire of countries to test new weapons/ammo and you've got the explanation for all the wars/armed conflicts/police actions in the world.
      Oh, yeah, tinfoil on.

      • if you add greed for resources to the list of desires I'll agree. Usually the same groups invest in that along with the arms

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