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Facebook Bans Sites That Host Blueprints of 3D-Printed Guns (cbsnews.com) 214

Yesterday, Facebook said it's banning websites that host and share blueprints of 3D-printed guns. "Sharing instructions on how to print firearms using 3D printers is not allowed under our Community Standards," said a spokesperson in an email statement. "In line with our policies, we are removing this content from Facebook." BuzzFeed was first to report the news: The move comes amid a rush by states to block these instructions from being posted. A July settlement between the State Department and Defense Distributed, an open-source organization that created the first completely 3D-printed gun, cleared the way for the group to publish the gun code. However, that was stalled when a federal judge on July 31 granted a temporary nationwide injunction that prevented Defense Distributed from uploading the plans. The injunction prevents Defense Distributed from publishing the plans. But the instructions 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. Attempts to post the site on a user's News Feed, through Facebook's Messenger app, or on Instagram (which Facebook owns) produce a variety of error messages. Other sites that host the files can still be posted through Facebook. Specifically, Facebook says that 3D-printed guns violate the regulated goods section of the social giant's community standards, which limits gun sales and exchanges to licensed dealers.
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Facebook Bans Sites That Host Blueprints of 3D-Printed Guns

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  • Yawn. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Alypius ( 3606369 )
    More posturing by SJWs who think their opinion is important. The plans have been out for a while now and we hardly need FB's help to find them. Alternatively, we can go to an actual dealer [80percentarms.com] and get blanks to make our own non-novelty gun.
    • Armilite pattern rifles are fine, but I'd rather just make an AK pattern out of a shovel blade hammered flat and cut into a receiver. Throw on a parts kit and you've got a working rifle. http://militaryhumor.net/homem... [militaryhumor.net]

      Rifle is fine!

    • Fuck you. Have you ever thought that they don't want to contribute to violence? If there's a possibility that one asshole won't get their hands on a gun, it's a good thing. It's called making the world a better place.
      • Gun ownership isn't for everyone. Fortunately ownership is voluntary. I'm happy for you that you're self-aware enough to know that it's not for you.

        Still, you're not the Arbiter of Truth for the country. There's a lot of places that don't count as downtown SF/LA/NYC.

      • Fuck you. Have you ever thought that they don't want to contribute to violence?

        No.

        If there's a possibility that one asshole won't get their hands on a gun, it's a good thing. It's called making the world a better place.

        They're doing nothing to keep guns out of the hands of the police, who have repeatedly demonstrated their inability to handle the responsibility.

        • This has always amused me.

          These people don't want to get rid of guns. They just want only government to have guns.

          What an amazingly stupid idea.
    • by sd4f ( 1891894 )
      I think it's more because internationally, jurisdictions have outlawed and made possession of said plans illegal. I don't know how many jurisdictions, I know in my state in Australia possession of digital 'blueprints' are illegal and a jailable offense. I think for a platform like FB, they have no interest in this stuff, so blocking it probably best covers them.
  • Sitting back and muching popcorn and a shot of tquila as Slashdot erupts in 3...2....1....
    • I approve! Though I have homebrewed IPA instead of tequila.
      • The funny thing is that 90 years ago in the US, that homebrew beer recipe you used probably would have been considered to be more dangerous than the homebrew gun recipe that we’re talking about now.

        I can only imagine what the controls of Social Media would look like in a modern country with Prohibition today... it would probably make this story look like a nothingburger in comparison.

        • Oh God yes. I remember reading The Complete Joy of Homebrewing [amazon.com] when I first got into it about ten years ago. The quality of the ingredients available today is simply not comparable to when Papazian wrote his first edition in the 70's. Fast-forward to today, the quality is such that if you have the skills to make orange juice from concentrate, you can make good beer.

          Heck, even the equipment is different. Sure, if you want to go pro, you can do the traditional three-vessel approach and can make it as complica [blichmanne...series.com]

        • 50 years ago we saw the Gun Control Act of 1968 get passed into law. Many of the reasons for it passing were because of the Black Panther Party being formed in California a few years earlier. This was spreading quickly and there were bands of armed Black men patrolling the streets to maintain order because the police were not keeping people safe. The police could not arrest someone for carrying a weapon, and they could not stop anyone from buying one, since there was no law against it.

          What had been estab

      • I approve! Though I have homebrewed IPA instead of tequila.

        A great alternative. Prosit!

  • Facebook does not have 'sites' that it can ban. They might host 'pages' that people are foolish enough to consider their 'sites.'

    If you want a host a site, rent a server or a spot on a server and host your site. Facebook has no say in what you host on it.

    • Facebook is actually banning any reference or link to their independently hosted site. It's the Facebook equivalent of nuking them from orbit. People can't even discuss anything about the site, because references to it, including non links and non URL looking text references cause people's posts to get deleted or shadowed. So yeah, this doesn't have anything with third party hosting.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10, 2018 @08:00PM (#57105152)

    all of us libtards who were up in arms over DeCSS, free speech flag, 'illegal prime numbers', wtc, we have to realize that essentially, a 3d printed gun file is simply a number. in other words, its just another kind of illegal number, along with the Playstation encryption keys or decss code or whatever. at some point we have to face the fact that information in pure form can be deadly , thats what a virus is basically, just DNA inside of a dumb casing. like the flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people... thats technically just a number, not a very big one, GATCTCTAGC etc etc. its not enough to decry gun nuts as moron wackjobs. we have to deal with the fact that our society has evolved to a point, our species, where it could more easily wipe itself out than ever before. solving nuclear weapons proliferation was not the end. it was the beginning. we have no idea what we are doing and no idea what will happen next.

  • The fact that they are censoring certain sites and not others shows a couple of things:

    * They are a bunch of children who think they have the moral right to be the thought police. What gives them the right to decide what is acceptable or not?
    * There are FAR worse sites that are allowed to be linked -- why aren't THOSE also removed?

    Since corporations are ...

    * legal entities
    * have the same free speech rights as individuals (2010 ruling of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission with a 5-4 decision)
    * a

    • It's scummy, anti-American, and highly partisan, but Facebook is a private entity and can do what it pleases with its platform. This is not a First Amendment issue.

      Of course, you are also entitled to take your business elsewhere, which I highly recommend.

      • Yes. It is quickly becoming a first amendment issue because if they censor then it means they are publishing their opinion and that means they are liable for any illegal activity on their site. If they are a public neutral forum then they are not liable.

        Even if this wasn't a first amendment issue the entire culture surrounding censorship in SV is disturbing considering how much they can influence our elections because they are the de facto town square of public discourse online. In some instances they have

        • They are not the "town hall" for anything. They are a private sideshow.

          The right to speak freely is a function of natural law, not the constitution. The actual text says "congress shall make no law", which mean it is a prohibition on the government- not that it "permits" an individual from speaking. So in that sense, you are correct.

          Congress has made no law abridging the freedom of speech, therefore, not a first amendment issue.

          Some of the co

      • It's scummy, anti-American,

        A massive, powerful, incredbly rich American company is about the most American thing you can get.

    • Is Facebook a "common carrier" or not when they have become a de facto Common / Town Square?

      Assumes facts not in evidence. When was it determined that Facebook is a de facto Town Square? Who made that determination?

      So, no. Facebook is not a common carrier.

      * Facebook.com and its 100 or so associated domains are blocked on my network.

    • * They are a bunch of children who think they have the moral right to be the thought police. What gives them the right to decide what is acceptable or not?

      No, they are a bunch of adults who run their own website and can choose what can and can't be put on there.

      So owning Facebook is what gives them the right.

      ... does that mean they are infringing upon the rights of others when they block OTHER free speech rights?

      No, because they're not blocking others' free speech rights, any more than I would be blocking your free speech rights by making you leave my house if you started pontificating on the finer points of Kirk vs. Picard.

      Is communication on FaceBook's platform considered to be on "private property"?

      Yes.

      Is Facebook a "common carrier" or not when they have become a de facto Common / Town Square?

      No.

      If they acted like adults, why can't they allow the link but ALSO put up a banner saying "We believe this link to be irresponsible" .. and then let the user decide if the link is worth clicking or not?

      Because they don't want to, and there is no onus on them to do otherwise. Someone else can do that if they want to.

      The fact that they are censoring communication that they (politically) disagree with just proves that they are immature and scared and operating under the modus operandi of "CYA".

      Would you say the s

  • The good news is that you can still see photos of your friends' new babies every day ad nauseum.

  • by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Friday August 10, 2018 @08:30PM (#57105272)
    3D is old hat. 4D is the future. Then I will be able to shoot into enclosed spaces without hitting the walls or roof.
    • Yeah I think I saw that upside of DS9. Some shell shocked Vulcan decided to off people using a rifle with a transporter built into it.
  • Now grandma can't get her copy of a 3D printed gun! How will she ever make that one-shot pistol she's always wanted? Seriously though, Facebook is losing relevance and traffic by the day and parading stuff like this around isn't going to help them. Nobody was going to Facebook to find links to 3D weapons blueprints before, and they still won't now. Short your Facebook stock now while they're still swirling in the toilet.
  • You do know that these are being distributed* embedded in plain old graphics files? Better block all those cute kitten pics right now!

    *Just to prove a point. The gun plans have been out there for years.

  • We should probably try to create more of those URL shortener redirect thingamajigs. It will really throw a wrench into attempting to censor certain sites/URLs from being shared.

  • by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Friday August 10, 2018 @11:36PM (#57105890) Homepage
    Please folks, let's get back to reality. First, it is completely legal in the United States to build your own firearms ( https://www.quora.com/Is-is-tr... [quora.com] )-- anyone with access to basic machinery tools can do it -- think Zip Guns created by prisoners for the ease of creation. Second, plastic 3D gun are terrible.I would rather have a 1700s musket instead. The 3D printed guns have more in common with ancient firearms than modern firearms. It is cheaper and simpler to buy a fully built AR-15 than it is to "print" your own firearm from files downloaded off the internet. And if you really want to make your own M16 based pistol, Google will provide you detailed plans from their own servers: https://patents.google.com/pat... [google.com]. You provide the tools and skill, Google will provide the detailed schematics. Will Facebook now block Google?
    • It may be legal to make your own guns, but it is illegal to make guns out of non-ferrous materials, because of metal detectors.

      • The gun needs to be detectable, not made of metal. A fully functional Liberator can be made entirely from plastic, but to keep it legal an utterly non-functional metal plate is epoxied into a slot on the frame. The metal has enough mass to trigger the metal detector.

        • EDIT: The Liberator can't quite be entirely made of plastic; it needs a nail for a firing pin. But the nail is too small to make the gun legally detectable.

        • It also needs to be detectable by xray machines with a gun shape. A rectangle is not that shape.
          • The four ounce chunk of metal doesn't matter - the entire gun will show up on the x-ray. This article [blogspot.com] specifically shows the infamous "invisible" Glock 7 in a conventional x-ray; this page [teledyneicm.com] shows how to detect metal, plastic, and organic (e.g., explosives) items in a color coded airport x-ray device.

            [Other sources do indicate that it is possible to crank the power up and/or modify the sensitivity enough to ignore plastics, but did not supply comparison images. Also, the minimal detection law specifically r

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