Meta, which earlier was accused of promoting drugs via Facebook, is failing to uphold its policies or enforce minimum moderation.

New research by Digital Witness Lab at Princeton University reveals that WhatsApp, a popular communication application owned by Meta, has become a thriving marketplace for illegal firearms. The findings, which were reported by an Indian investigative portal, is based on an extensive analysis of thousands of messages across more than 200 publicly accessible groups on WhatsApp.

The Digital Witness Lab, a program at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, said some group names and descriptions explicitly reference gun sales, making them easily detectable by Meta. Similar ads exist in groups run by users in the European Union and North America, in spite of Meta’s anti-weapons policies and strict gun regulations in many countries.

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The research, which was conducted between April 2024 and January 2025, documented over 8,000 gun sale messages in 234 groups, some them with hundreds of members. The actual number of such exchanges is likely higher, highlighting how easily these groups operate.

This scale of gun sales wasn’t possible before WhatsApp, said Surya Mattu, a data journalist who led the study.

He noted that content moderation is challenging due to WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption, but group names and descriptions—unencrypted data—clearly indicate gun trade. The fact that Meta has not acted on this suggests a failure to implement even basic moderation measures, he told RestofWorld.

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Researchers also observed a pattern in gun sale messages, with many starting with the phrase: "Greetings, my brother who wants stuff 🔫"—accompanied by a gun emoji. Their findings are based on posts containing this phrase, meaning the true scale of WhatsApp’s illegal firearms marketplace may be even larger.

This isn’t the first time Meta has been accused of facilitating firearm sales in India—its largest market with over 400 million users. In 2023, Uttar Pradesh police dismantled a gang selling weapons through Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. The Wall Street Journal also revealed that Meta only removed gun-sale posts in extremist forums after being contacted for comment.

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A 2024 study found that Meta approved gun-related ads in the E.U., and a 2022 report documented firearms listings on its e-commerce platforms in the U.S. Additionally, Meta has previously faced accusations of enabling drug sales, including cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, and opioids.

Meta did not respond to specific queries about the research but stated it cooperates with Indian law enforcement and bans accounts engaged in illegal activities.

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