John,

Pangolins look almost like they sprung from the imagination of a small child; they’re covered in scales and roll up in a little ball when they’re scared.

But they’re real — and they’re the most trafficked animal on the planet! Up to 2.7 million of these little guys are murdered every year by poachers hoping to profit off butchering them and selling their parts to traditional medicine shops.

Now a new report says Facebook is making it worse, letting traffickers sell pangolin parts right on their platform!

This madness has to stop. Facebook is already signed on to an international coalition to stop this kind of trafficking, so all they have to do is enforce their own rules. Let’s up the stakes with a massive international campaign:

Click to tell Facebook to shut down its disturbing pangolin trade

It’s bad enough that this extinction-threatened animal is slaughtered in the millions for its meat and parts. Even worse, pangolins are considered to have a possible connections to the Covid-19 outbreak and may host other coronaviruses that could pose a threat to humans!

So this isn’t *just* a trafficking threat, it’s a global health threat too.

Facebook’s community standards ban the sale of endangered species, but report investigators didn’t have to look very hard. They just searched translations of the word “pangolin” in different languages and found listing after listing!

The ongoing sale of pangolins on Facebook even with this heightened attention on the animal is just another example of Facebook’s inability — or unwillingness — to police its platform and block illegal activity. Let’s tell them we’ve had enough:

Click to tell Facebook to stop helping wildlife traffickers

Facebook made almost $20 billion last year — they can afford to ensure that their own health and safety policies are strictly followed. Yet over and over again we see them trying to get away with lax enforcement. Good thing our community is so good at holding corporate giants to account.