UK Politicians Accuse Facebook Of Selling Amazon Forest

UK POLITICIANS accuse Facebook of selling large chunks on the Amazon forest through secret adverts

Facebook is in the news again today, but for a rather unlikely reason. Politicians throughout Britain have taken to social media on Friday, February 26 accusing Mark Zuckerberg’s company of facilitating the sale of large chunks of the Amazon forest, some the size of 1,000 football fields, through illegal adverts. The BBC broke the story when they discovered several ads on Facebook marketplace purporting to offer plots of the Brazilian rainforest for sale.

Facebook said it was “ready to work with local authorities”, but added that:

“Our commerce policies require buyers and sellers to comply with laws and regulations.”

In this case, the ‘laws and regulations’ refer to the sellers’ need to have a land title to the property for sale, which of course they don’t have, as the forest is a protected area.

Following the revelations, the Labour party in the UK issued a statement calling on Facebook’s “moral duty” to address the dangerous situation.

“The Amazon is our planet’s green lung and it’s vital we protect it from destruction. Social media companies have a moral duty to ensure their operations are not enabling deforestation and illegal sales of forest. The Government must urgently act to make sure that UK companies do not trade on the back of rainforest destruction,” Labour shadow MP Luke Pollard said in a statement.

Labour politicians David Lammy and Ed Miliband also took to social media to express their concern over the worrying development.

“The Amazon rainforest must be protected. Social media companies should not be enabling people to make illegal sales of forest land on their sites. Governments around the world must act to stop this,” David Lammy wrote.

________________________________________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to read this news article “UK Politicians Accuse Facebook Of Selling Amazon Forest”. For more UK daily news, Spanish daily news and Global news stories, visit the Euro Weekly News home page.