Social media giant Facebook is reportedly enforcing age restrictions on business posts relating to alcohol and tobacco in order to restrict content to people aged 18 and over…

Here’s the deal…

As first reported by CNN, Facebook, which also owns Instagram and messaging service WhatsApp, has implemented a number of changes to its policies on alcohol.

The new policies, which went into effect on July 24 ban all private sales, trades, transfers and gifting of alcohol and tobacco products on Facebook and Instagram.

As Craft Beer & Brewing reported Facebook “had already prohibited the sale of alcohol and tobacco in its Marketplace section of the site, but this regulation change extends it into groups and what the company calls ‘organic content,’ which includes comments and posts.”

A spokesperson for Facebook told CNN that “groups may be deleted from the site if they violate the company’s terms.” Facebook will use “a combination of technology, human review and reports from our community to find and remove any content that violates these policies”.

The new policies, which effectively shut down numerous beer trading groups which have flourished on Facebook platforms, especially after Reddit cracked down on similar practices in 2018.

Facebook’s new policy announcement comes as the company has been “ordered to pay a record US$5 billion fine to settle privacy concerns,” according to the Drinks Business.