Facebook will ban the sale of protected Amazon rainforest land on Marketplace

Facebook will ban the sale of protected Amazon rainforest land on Marketplace

Users' ability to sell large parcels of land in the protected Amazon rainforest through Facebook's e-commerce platforms is being curtailed, according to the company.

According to a blog post published by Facebook on Friday, "we're announcing measures to halt attempts to sell land in Amazon rainforest ecological conservation areas on Facebook (FB) Marketplace." The company also stated that it will "explicitly prohibit" the sale or purchase of land designated for ecological conservation on its platforms, and that it will update its commerce policies to reflect this (including Instagram and WhatsApp). Land is just one of the many products available on Marketplace, which also sells everything from furniture to used cars and everything in between.

Following a BBC investigation, which revealed large parcels of land for sale on Facebook Marketplace, including some covering hundreds of acres within national forests, the announcement was made.

There is no independent verification of the Marketplace listings by CNN.

In a statement issued Friday, Facebook stated that it will compare listings with the United Nations Environment Program's "authoritative database of protected areas" to determine whether they violate the new policy.

"We are announcing this today, and enforcement will be ramped up immediately," according to the company statement. "We will monitor the effectiveness of this process over time and make any necessary improvements," says the team.

Following whistleblower Frances Haugen's Senate testimony about the harms caused by Facebook's platforms, as well as Monday's massive outage of its major services, the company made the announcement at the end of a particularly trying week for the company.