Owen Guns takes on Facebook over ‘censorship’

The social media platform has banned the business from uploading images of its stock, which in this case, is guns.

The social media platform has banned the business from uploading images of its stock, which in this case, is guns. Picture: Megan Owen

THE owners of Owen Guns in Gympie voiced their annoyance at Facebook yesterday when a post they made was prohibited from being uploaded because it breached "community standards".

Megan Owen said Facebook would not let the post, which featured images of new guns, be uploaded.

"It was immediate," Ms Owen said. "I tried it on my phone as well and it wouldn't work."

Running a legitimate gun shop for nearly 47 years, Ms Owen said it was frustrating to be placed in the same category as illegal drugs and guns.

"I guess they've just got these robots that go through it ... but I put posts up like that all the time and it never has done this before," she said.

Ms Owen said the notification wasn't a shock, as she was used to her father being censored on social media for what he said.

"It's almost to be expected, we cop a lot of negative feedback from people and we get a lot of good people too but it's not that shocking to us because we've been censored before with Facebook," she said.

"We will always fight against that kind of thing."

The message Megan Owen received from Facebook after trying to upload the post advertising the guns sold at her family’s business. Picture: Megan Owen

Ms Owen said Facebook eventually let the post through after she left a review saying she was "not pleased".

"I also took a picture of what they did and put it on our Facebook but then they okayed the post and let it through," she said.

Not wanting to be treated differently than other businesses, Ms Owen expressed her frustration on Facebook.

"We are a business and have to compete with other shops that post similar posts," she said.

"Please tell me what makes this any different to what other shops post or what I have previously posted."

Ms Owen said all gun shops relied on Facebook heavily for their advertising and said it "hopefully" wouldn't happen again.

Originally published as