Facebook doesn’t want users to share links to 3D-printed gun files

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As the debate over 3D-printed guns is taking shape in the United States, Facebook has decided to ban sites that host and share instructions for creating 3D-printed weapons.

“Sharing instructions on how to print firearms using 3D printers is not allowed under our Community Standards,” the company said. “In line with our policies, we are removing this content from Facebook.”

A federal judge recently granted a temporary restraining order to prevent Defense Distributed, an open-source organization that created the first completely 3D-printed gun, from publishing the gun code. The instructions, however, are widely available online, on sites such as “CodeIsFreeSpeech.com — which hosts plans for parts of an AR-15, a Beretta, and Defense Distributed’s Liberator,” according to BuzzFeed News.

In a post on its website, the Firearms Policy Coalition, an advocacy organization that is behind CodeIsFreeSpeech, termed the Facebook ban as “an outrageous display of censorship and bias.”

“This is not an algorithm-based issue. Facebook’s complete and total takedown and block on CodeIsFreeSpeech.com is without question a human policy decision by Facebook executives to single us and our speech out for especially disfavorable treatment. And Facebook did not just block CodeIsFreeSpeech.com prospectively. In an outrageous display of censorship and bias, Facebook forced a company-wide — Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram — takedown of content about and inclusive of CodeIsFreeSpeech.com,” it added.

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