Straight Source: Full Discussion with Facebook/Instagram Regarding Live Animal Sale Ban

[Michael]

Hi All,

I have recently been in contact with facebook in an attempt to get some clarity about the live animal sale ban and the associated impacts. Below is the full correspondence between me and facebook:

Me to Facebook, 5/25/19:

Thanks in advance for your help with this... a slightly sticky subject. As you are aware, facebook instituted a ban on live animals a few years ago, but has been cracking down on it more recently. Some business pages and groups have been deleted for violating the rules of the live animal ban, but some have not, leading to a great deal of confusion.

The way the policy is written is that posts promoting the sale of live animals are banned, but there is a bit of a gray area here. For example:

- Does this cover animals being adopted or fostered? Because it would be easy for people to say that animals are "up for adoption", and then charge sale price types of adoption fees (more expensive). If "adoptions" are allowed, how will this be regulated?

- Lets say there is an external classifieds website for a type of animal, such as birds. These types of websites exist outside of facebook and are where many people bought and sold animals BEFORE moving to facebook. Can people post links to those pages on personal and/or business pages, and in groups? Or is that considered promotion?

What I'd really like to understand is:

- Can people post links to external animal classifieds websites at all?
- Can people post any type of live animal for sale on their personal page?
- Can people post any type of live animal for adoption on their personal page?
- Can people post any type of live animal for sale on their business page?
- Can people post any type of live animal for adoption on their business page?
- Can people discuss live animal sales via personal messenger?
- Can people discuss live animal sales via business pages messages?


I know these are technical questions but I am looking forward to your feedback so that I can share with the broader reptile enthusiast community, as there is still great confusion over what is or is not allowed.

Thank you in advance,
Michael

Facebook replies to me, 5/26/19:

This is Chris from Facebook Ad Support, thanks for reaching out about your questions!

When it comes to our policy/community standards, these are generally reviewed by Specialist who are fully privy to all they entail, and we generally reserve final judgement to be made by said team.

In terms of information I can give you:

https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads - Advertising Policies
https://www.facebook.com/policies/pages_groups_events/ - Page/Groups/Events Policies
https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/ - Community standards

I did some digging on my own and checked out quite a few pages for local and non local adoption centers, a common theme I noticed is that while yes there are posts on the Page indicating adoptions are available, there is no Advertising that has been done for the Adoption directly.

After reaching out to a specialist, I was informed that both the Adoption/Sale of Animals is strictly prohibited to advertise.

Posting, and conversations would be exempt from this Advertising Ban, but you wont want to post in the Marketplace or as an Offer as that would fall under the Advertising Policies again!

If you have any further questions/concerns, or I wasn't clear, please reach out and let me know!

If you would like, please feel free to leave us your feedback regarding Making the policies for Animals more clear at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/help/127103474099499/. Any feedback or suggestions that you have are always welcome and will help us to improve the Facebook experience! You'll receive a link to our survey in the next few minutes about my performance.

Thank you for contacting Facebook Ad Support,

Chris
Facebook, Global Marketing Solutions

Me to Facebook, 5/27/19:

Hi Chris.

Thanks so much for your reply. I read it carefully and still have a few questions.

You mentioned that posting and conversations about live animals is allowed, but advertising or Marketplace offers for live animals are not. There are several facebook groups that have been created, groups called things like "High End Crested Gecko Classifieds" or "Ball Python Classifieds," that have all been shut down because of this ban, but in my eyes, those would be considered conversations since there is no paid promotion behind them and they aren't in the Facebook Marketplace. It is generally people sharing available animals, asking questions, etc.

Also, some of these groups are being completely deleted, and others are being suspended with the opportunity for admins to remove posts and then apply to have them reinstated. What is the process for determining if a group is deleted vs. suspended with the ability to be reinstated?

A number of business and personal pages are suffering the same fate as these groups being deleted or suspended. Those are business and personal pages that are posting about animals, sometimes for sale, but in an organic fashion without paid promotion.

Would it be possible to get feedback or speak with a Specialist about what specific things they are looking for when shutting down or suspending groups, personal pages and business pages? While that may read like I'm trying to find ways to get around the rules, I am actually trying to figure out how to work within them without being deleted. Many of us have spent years building up facebook audiences and followers to help drive our businesses forward, so without specific information about what, when, where and why, this feels like a big brother crackdown and less like an attempt to prevent animal smuggling and black market commerce.

There is a lot to consider with this ban: personal pages, business pages, groups, messages, organic vs promoted, outbound links to other websites, etc, so I am hoping that someone can give me specific rules about exactly what is and is not allowed.

Thank you again!
Michael

Facebook to me, 5/27/19:

Hi Michael,

Thanks for reaching out, I did a quick check of the Community Standards and was able to find this:

https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/coordinating_harm - Indicates Inciting or promoting Violence Against animals can be a breach of community standards, having animals in unacceptable living conditions would also be considered under this

https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/regulated_goods - Indicates Content that attempts to sell live animals between private individuals.

https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/promoting_publicizing_crime - Indicates Poaching or selling endangered species or their parts, as well as Acts of physical harm committed against animals except in cases of hunting, fishing, religious sacrifice, or food preparation/processing. This would also fall under unacceptable care/living conditions.

Based on the Above, if you've seen Groups etc get removed/deleted without Advertising, it was more than likely there was content pertaining to one of the above posted. More than likely it was due to attempts to sell live animals between private individuals.

In terms of reaching out to the team directly, there is no way of doing this. If something is posted and gets flagged for community standards, or policy it wouldn't be an immediate ban, they would simply request to remove content if it was first offence etc.

Thanks,

 

[Michael]

***BREAK***
Let's take a look at the community standards for regulated goods referenced above:

5. Regulated Goods
Policy Rationale

To encourage safety and compliance with common legal restrictions, we prohibit attempts by individuals, manufacturers, and retailers to purchase, sell, or trade non-medical drugs, pharmaceutical drugs, and marijuana. We also prohibit the purchase, sale, gifting, exchange, and transfer of firearms, including firearm parts or ammunition, between private individuals on Facebook. Some of these items are not regulated everywhere; however, because of the borderless nature of our community, we try to enforce our policies as consistently as possible. Firearm stores and online retailers may promote items available for sale off of our services as long as those retailers comply with all applicable laws and regulations. We allow discussions about sales of firearms and firearm parts in stores or by online retailers and advocating for changes to firearm regulation. Regulated goods that are not prohibited by our Community Standards may be subject to our more stringent Commerce Policies.

Do not post:

Content about non-medical drugs (other than alcohol or tobacco) that

• Coordinates or encourages others to sell non-medical drugs
• Depicts, admits to, attempts purchase, or promotes sales of non-medical drugs by the poster of the content or their associates
• Promotes, encourages, coordinates, or provides instructions for use or make of non-medical drugs
• Admits, either in writing or verbally, to personal use of non-medical drugs unless posted in a recovery context

Content that depicts the sale or attempt to purchase marijuana and pharmaceutical drugs. This includes content that

• Mentions or depicts marijuana or pharmaceutical drugs
• Makes an attempt to sell or trade, by which we mean any of the following:
  • Explicitly mentioning the product is for sale or trade or delivery
  • Asking the audience to buy
  • Listing the price
  • Encouraging contact about the product either by explicitly asking to be contacted or including any type of contact information
  • Attempting to solicit the product, defined as:
    • Stating interest in buying the product, or
    • Asking if anyone has the product for sale/trade
• This applies to both individual pieces of content and Pages and Groups primarily dedicated to the sale of marijuana or pharmaceutical drugs

Content that attempts to sell, gift, exchange, or transfer firearms, firearm parts, ammunition, or explosives between private individuals. This includes content that

• Mentions or depicts firearms, firearm parts, ammunition, or explosives and a product unrelated to firearms, and
• Makes an attempt to sell or transfer including any of the following, unless posted by an entity representing a brick-and-mortar store, legitimate website, or brand:
  • Explicitly mentioning the product is for sale or trade or delivery
  • Asking the audience to buy
  • Listing the price or noting that the product is free
  • Encouraging contact about the product either by
    • Explicitly asking to be contacted
    • Including any type of contact information
  • Making an attempt to solicit the item for sale, defined as
    • Stating that they are interested in buying the good, or
    • Asking if anyone else has the good for sale/trade

Content that attempts to sell, gift, exchange, transfer, promote or otherwise provide access to instructions for 3D printing or computer-aided manufacturing of firearms or firearm parts.
Content that depicts the trade (buying or selling) of human organs and/or blood where trade is defined as:

• Mentioning or depicting the human organs and/or blood, and
• Indicating that human organs and/or blood are available for selling or buying, or
• Listing a price or expressing willingness to discuss price

Content that encourages contact to facilitate the trade of human organs and/or blood

Content that attempts to sell live animals between private individuals.

Content that coordinates or supports the poaching or selling of endangered species and their parts

Me to Facebook, 5/28/19:

Thanks, Chris. This is extremely helpful and I really appreciate you going into detail with me.

With this rule about the sale of live animal sales being prohibited as per regulated goods guidelines, I assume that any personal page, business page, group or private messages selling animals can be subject to infractions, be that warnings or suspension. Is that correct?

Thank you again!
Michael

Facebook to me: 5/28/19:

Hi Michael,

Thanks for reaching back out!

You are correct, as the sale of animals by a private seller is part of the community standards, this would be applicable to all areas of Facebook.

With Ads, they are subject to both the Community and Advertising Standards, where as Profiles/Pages/Groups/Events do not fall under the Advertising Standards.

You will see some Pages that post about Adoption, but the only way to do this without risk of a Community Standards flag is to ensure you're representing a legitimate business licensed to sell said animal.

Ex. A Page representing a Business that creates a group linked to said page and has posts about Adoption in the group would be exempt. As long as other users are not allowed to cross sell. Moderation of this group would fall under said Pages/Creator's responsibility and all attempts by users trying to sell/auction would have to be removed promptly and said user removed from group.

You'd want to ensure strict group rules are listed, and enforcement is up kept regularly.

TL;DR: Live animal sales, discussion about live animal sales, trying to sell live animals discreetly is NOT allowed on facebook and can be flagged on: Business pages, personal pages, groups and private messages.

To inject some bittersweet humor: NOTHING IS SAFE.

 

[Michael]

Me to Facebook, 5/28/19:

OK, one more question: I assume this also applied to Instagram?

Facebook to me, 5/28/19:

Hi Michael,

This is Chris from Facebook Ad Support, thanks for reaching out!

When it comes to Instagram, the community standards still apply, but there are a few others included to!

https://help.instagram.com/477434105621119 - Instagram Community guidelines
https://help.instagram.com/581066165581870 - Instagram Terms of use

Thanks,

Chris
Facebook, Global Marketing Solutions

***BREAK*** Let's take a look at those Instagram Community Guidelines and Terms of Use:

Community Guidelines - Section 4 under "The Long":

• Follow the law.
  Instagram is not a place to support or praise terrorism, organized crime, or hate groups. Offering sexual services, buying or selling firearms and illegal or prescription drugs (even if it’s legal in your region) is also not allowed. Instagram also prohibits the sale of live animals between private individuals, though brick-and-mortar stores may offer these sales. No one may coordinate poaching or selling of endangered species or their parts.
  Remember to always follow the law when offering to sell or buy other regulated goods. Accounts promoting online gambling, online real money games of skill or online lotteries must get our prior written permission before using any of our products.
  We have zero tolerance when it comes to sharing sexual content involving minors or threatening to post intimate images of others.

There has been some back and forth about this concept of brick and mortar stores being able to continue to sell animals, and while I cannot find that in Facebook's terms of sale or guidelines, it is clearly stated by Instagram above.

TL;DR: If you have a physical business location, you can continue to sell animals on Instagram. If you don't, you can't, and overall animal sales are banned on the platform for private individuals. How this is enforced - certificates, licenses, etc - I do not know.

 

[Michael]

This article adds some helpful context to the overall situation:

Why are ANIMAL FOR SALE Posts Being Deleted By Facebook?
What is Happening? Facebook users, particularly those who have been using Buy & Sell Groups to sell their animals for years, are suddenly seeing the response you see in this image.

This rejection does not come from the group admins, but rather directly from Facebook.

Where is this happening?
All over Facebook, but focus appears to be on Buy & Sell groups through Facebook, all over the world that use the “Sell Something” feature to list animals, animal services and even some animal products for sale or adoption. The example you see was an ad for riding lessons.

But where is this rule? I cannot Find it in the Community Guidelines!
And you won’t find it there. The rule exists on Facebook’s Commerce Policy page. It is virtually an “orphan” page it is not linked to by any of Facebook’s Help pages. In fact if you use a Backlinks checker, it appears everyone else links to it except the rare instance on Facebook.

Rejected post made by an Equine Coach offering riding lessons in a Facebook group using the “Sell Something” feature

But I just want to sell a bunny, I’m not in business. This Commerce Policy doesn’t apply to me!
Yes and no. The rule has been sitting there quietly unenforced for several years. While the Commerce Policy has not been applied much to Facebook groups, it has been used in the screening of promoted posts and other advertising on Facebook. As of October 2016, Facebook has a new reason to apply the rule to group posts.

What changed? Why are they now enforcing the ban on selling animals and animal services on Facebook?
Facebook Marketplace. That’s what changed. When Facebook launched it’s Marketplace in the fall of 2016, they wanted to bring to the world a powerful resource for buying and selling everything from pots and pans to cars and houses. Except animals. And, of course, all the usual banned items such as guns, drugs, sex and all the illegal or regulated things of the world.

Their aspirations were to take on the big hitters in the industry like CraigsList, Ebay and Kijiji. The potential revenues from a successful platform that has billions of ads was mind blowing.

But the launch of Marketplace was a bit embarrassing. Facebook’s own Mark Zuckerberg had to make a public apology for the rather appalling and often ridiculous content

In Pittsburgh, a can of beer was listed for $25. In London, someone was trying to “sell” his pregnant girlfriend for $400. And in New York, someone listed “About 6 Oz. Water (Bottle Not Included)” for $56.

Facebook’s guidelines prohibit a dozen categories of products from being sold on its platform, including drugs, animals, “adult items or services,” alcohol and weapons. Although Marketplace is a new feature, people have always been able to buy and sell things on Facebook. Stopping things like private gun sales has been a problem before.

But Why Animals?
The competitors that Facebook is taking on, have already taken steps to squeeze out or highly regulate anyone selling animals.

Craigslist does not allow pet sales and restricts the amount charged on adoptions. From a partial list of goods, services, and content prohibited on craigslist:

pet sales (re-homing with small adoption fee ok), animal parts, stud service

Kijij has taken a bit of a different stand, buy allowing pet sale ads but charging a fee and banning free pet ads.

Of course, on eBay, animals are just plain not allowed. Except worms. You can sell worms on eBay.

NOT WHY…WHO
Pressure from animal rights activists, lobbyist groups and the general public. bad thing happen to innocent animals advertised for sale in faceless classified ads.

Many of those voices are honest, caring people looking out for the best interest of the animals. Others are sinister activist groups hell bent on forcing their personal views that people shouldn’t own or eat animals. Period. Those groups use the the honest caring people by manipulating emotions to suit their own agenda.

Right or wrong, in order to present a platform that could compete, Facebook had to remove the animal factor from the start. Unfortunately they failed miserably.

We at PETA very much love the animal companions who share our homes, but we believe that it would have been in the animals’ best interests if the institution of “pet keeping” — i.e., breeding animals to be kept and regarded as “pets” — never existed. The international pastime of domesticating animals has created an overpopulation crisis; as a result, millions of unwanted animals are destroyed every year as “surplus.”

Source: http://www.peta.org/about-peta/why-peta/pets/

WHY AREN’T ALL THE ANIMAL ADS BEING DELETED?
Give them time. Facebook has addressed the issue in two primary ways. With millions of ads to go through, it just means if they haven’t deleted your animal for sale ad yet, it’s only a matter of time.
First was rapid implementation of algorithmsto detect ads with anything to do with animals and animal services. It is overkill, rejecting all kinds of ads because of key words or even images. A man posted a horse buggy for sale with a picture of a horse pulling it. The horse was not for sale, just the buggy. It was rejected until the animal policy.
Second was the development of a new report option and encouraging Facebook users to help them comb the Facebook groups to report ads selling animals.

What can I do to prevent my posts from being deleted?

DON’T list in any groups using the Sell Something feature, select “discussion” instead. Discussion posts are not fed to the Marketplace. This goes for ANY ad posted to do with animals. Stud services, coaches, trainers, even tack and supplies. This is not guaranteed to work, but it may help you stay under the radar for a while.

DO consider posting your animal for sale on an outside platform and sharing the ad to your Facebook Groups that allow that. Again, this is the type of post that does not get fed to the Marketplace.

CAN I DO ANYTHING TO CHANGE THIS?
Maybe. Although it is unlikely Facebook’s stand on no animals or animal services in the Marketplace will stand, we can still lobby Facebook to come up with a compromise that will allow us to continue using the groups and our own profiles and pages to buy and sell animals of all kinds, without the ads being fed to Marketplace.

You can sign this petition on Change.org
Get Facebook to rescind the ban on animal sale posts

Facebook has banned animal for sale ads, it will cause more horses being slaughtered, dogs and cats being dumped.

This change is bad for both pets and livestock. The opportunity to screen homes and get to know buyers and sellers will be gone . Small, reputable breeders and farmers will lose their primary place to market their animals to good homes, forcing them to turn to high risk alternatives like auctions. But the puppy mills and the irresponsible breeders will continue as they always have, making money off the uninformed.

This change hurts everyone — pets, sellers, and buyers alike.

Source: https://medium.com/seriously-youre-...-posts-being-deleted-by-facebook-e3971dbf3593

 

[Michael]

My take:

There are ways around these rules, but it remains to be seen how long it takes until facebook catches on. People are doing a lot of "PM for more info" but as we can see above, facebook is monitoring messages as well so I don't really think that is safe. Some folks are putting prices on images but there are ways to scrape images for numbers/symbols, and I would expect Facebook to implement something like this long term.

If you really want to stick to trying to bend the rules, I know that many of you are creative and can figure it out, but at what risk? Being deleted and having years of hard work building a fanbase, organizing albums and engaging with followers just to make a sale... is it worth it? I think the biggest issue is that our entire community left the forums and turned to Facebook, and Facebook has turned its back on us. Whether it's fauna classifieds, Geckos Unlimited, Morph Market or something else, we are better served to invest in the communities that support our hobby. Of course, I would love to have the Chewie folks here for the long haul, but in a broader sense, Facebook is not our friend anymore. Most importantly, I will never spend another dollar in FB advertising.

Going forward, I will be using my facebook page to drive engagement and attempt to convert people to my website (once it's up) or these forums, where we can share knowledge and available animals alike.

For those who want to continue to try to sell animals on facebook, I would recommend that you post a photo or two, a brief description, and then provide an email address for people to follow up and state "NO PMs." I still think FB will ultimately catch on, but it at least keeps numbers, dollar signs, and common sale terms out of your messenger, likely making you less of a target.

 

[Fairy tale geckos]

The petition is closed with over 40.000 signs, nothing has changed :-(

Sadly greetings

Jenny

 

[Michael]

The petition is closed with over 40.000 signs, nothing has changed :-(

Sadly greetings

Jenny

Unfortunately, I don't expect that petition to change much. There are 2.4B people who use facebook per month, so 40K is barely a drop in the bucket.

I think the biggest thing is figuring out how to use facebook in the "new normal" for each of us. The reality is anything we do on facebook, even uploading pictures, is helping to bring people to their platform, driving traffic and earning them money. Let alone things like spending our businesses to promote ad campaigns.

It sucks to spend money at businesses that don't support yours ...

 

[Fairy tale geckos]

I still don`t understand (as a not native speaker, maybe I did`nt saw it) if it`s allowed to post a link to a selling website on my personal account?

Greetings Jenny

 

[Rufus]

I'm a member of Chahoua geckos for Sale - group on Facebook. But people seem to be listing geckos on there with no issue. Just curious why....is it because they are registered businesses or is it that Facebook are only cracking down on some groups?

 

[Michael]

I still don`t understand (as a not native speaker, maybe I did`nt saw it) if it`s allowed to post a link to a selling website on my personal account?

Greetings Jenny

Hi Jenny,

Despite my best efforts, I am not clear on that either. I *THINK* it's permissible to post third party links so long as those things aren't listed on facebook.

I'm a member of Chahoua geckos for Sale - group on Facebook. But people seem to be listing geckos on there with no issue. Just curious why....is it because they are registered businesses or is it that Facebook are only cracking down on some groups?

I think it's going to take a bit of time for facebook to get to everyone, but I personally think they will ultimately succeed and squash all groups, pages and people who are not compliant with this ban. If you think about ALL of the types of animals people sell - birds, dogs, cats, horses, reptiles, fish - it should take them some time. I manage the "Chahoua Keepers & Enthusiasts" group on FB and today, for the first time, we had a post that got flagged and removed just for saying "Available" and "PM for more info." They're watching.

I know the Leachianus Classifieds is still up also, so it doesn't surprise me that the "Chahoua for Sale" group is as well. The issue will be for groups that are ignoring the ban, because from what I can tell, most of these groups have to delete ALL posts that are noncompliant before they can be re-instated. The more content you have, the longer that's going to take.