20,000 ads, 2,60,000 products: Report exposes Meta's wildlife trafficking market

A report by several NGOs on Monday accused Meta of hosting the world's "largest single known illegal wildlife trade market" on its Facebook platform, with conservationists saying the company effectively encourages the trade by allowing users to monetise content.The report follows research by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), which found over 20,000 adverts for more than 260,000 wildlife products on social media platforms between April 2024 and March 2026 . Nearly three-quarters of the advertisements were on Facebook, with researchers describing the platform as "the central public infrastructure through which online wildlife trafficking is being concentrated, discovered and scaled".The illegal wildlife trade generates up to $23 billion annually, with approximately one million plant and animal species threatened with extinction, according to a United Nations Environment Programme report . Facebook's Restricted Goods and Services Policy prohibits the trade of endangered species, but enforcement has been described by experts as "sporadic and insufficient".Conservationists say Meta's monetisation policies incentivise traffickingMeta declined to respond to questions from AFP, pointing to its policies that restrict the sale of endangered species on its platforms . However, conservationists argue those policies have done little to prevent the trade from flourishing."Even the unredacted accounts and groups we reported on publicly in the report are still live and active," said Russell Gray, a data scientist and ecologist who co-authored the GI-TOC report . Gray noted that moderation appears to be primarily in English, while most wildlife trade posts are in other languages.Conservationists say Meta is not only failing to remove violating content, but may effectively be encouraging it by allowing popular accounts to monetise through advertising revenue and subscription models . Daniel Stiles, an independent wildlife trafficking investigator who co-authored the NGO report released Monday, said: "The more interaction and engagement they get on their account, the more money they can make".Researchers found that about 84% of animals offered for sale on Facebook are banned from commercial cross-border trade under CITES, with more than half being endangered or critically endangered species . The total advertised value of products detected exceeded $66 million.Animals and parts openly sold across platforms despite policiesThe trade spans live animals and wildlife products, including pangolins stripped of scales, rhino horn for traditional medicine, chimpanzees intended as pets, and protected birds . While some content is oblique, much of it is explicit — including public Facebook accounts offering dead pangolins and monitor lizards for consumption in Thailand.Meta was among 11 tech firms, including Google, TikTok, and Alibaba, that announced earlier in June they would work to eliminate wildlife trafficking on their sites during London's Climate Action Week . The alliance also includes crypto analytics firms such as TRM Labs and Chainalysis to disrupt financial flows linked to the trade.However, Meta has been a member of the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online since 2018, and the problem has continued to grow . Steve Galster, founder of Freeland, warned that the latest announcement risked being "more lip service"."Until Meta is compelled to rid its platforms of illegal wildlife trade, and prove that it is not profiting from it, the online wildlife trade will only get worse," Galster said.