- Security expert says Facebook new Marketplace does not have secure payment system
- Users posted illegal and adult items violating Facebook policies
- Facebook apologizes for illegal and adult items posted by users on the site
Security experts have warned users to exercise caution on the newly launched Facebook Marketplace, which doesn’t have a secure payments system or user rating systems like eBay and Amazon.
“It’s not like Uber where there’re registered people, it is up to users to see if someone is fake,” said David Emm, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab. “It’s also easy to post a picture of something and charge money for something even if the real goods don’t exist, or they are stolen.”
In line with the position, Facebook said it does not facilitate the payment or delivery of items in Marketplace. “We’ll continue to build new options and features to make this the best experience for people.”
Meanwhile, just a few hours after the launch, Facebook users were already going extreme, violating policies, of which users post illegal and adult items that violate Facebook’s terms of service, although the company apologized.
“As a result of a technical issue in the reviewing system, individual posts with content that violated our policies were made visible to people visiting Marketplace,” said Mary Ku, Director of Product Management at Facebook. “We apologize for this issue.”
The social media giant said it is working on a fix and will be “closely monitoring” the service manually to identify and remove posts that violate its terms before Marketplace is available to more users.
Meanwhile, the largest social media network, Facebook launched it’s new marketplace on Monday to allow users buy and sell locally, a start that has been identified as a move to competitive bigger online marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist.
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Facebook created the marketplace in response to some 450 million people who already use its Groups to buy and sell things.
Users can browse goods on Marketplace, which is available in the UK, US, Australia, and New Zealand, that are in their local area. The social network will show users items it thinks they will be interested using its algorithm. If they see an item they want, they can message the seller directly and arrange the purchase.
Facebook said smartphone App would be made available in the next few days with a desktop version due in the coming months.
