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Earlier today, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, responding to the terror in Orlando, launched a filibuster in the hope of pushing Congress to work toward meaningful gun control. Fellow Democrats joined him throughout the afternoon and said all the things you'd expect lawmakers to say. Then Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts took the floor.

"We need to ban gun sales on sites on the Internet like Facebook and Instagram," he said. "Right now, anyone can do a search for 'AK-47' or 'AR-15' or even 'guns for sale' on Instagram and find guns for sale."

He's right. Even now, years after the issue of gun sales on social media platforms came to light, you can still find plenty of them available. We searched #gunsforsale on Instagram minutes after Markey’s comments and got nearly 8,000 results. The listings ranged from handguns of every description to a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun.

But then, in real time, the results began to shift for people throughout the WIRED office. The number of results dwindled with subsequent searches, then disappeared entirely before reappearing a short time later with the addendum "Recent posts from #gunsforsale are currently hidden because the community has reported some content that may not meet Instagram's community guidelines." Instagram, and its parent company Facebook, didn't say so, but it appeared that Markey illuminated an unintended use of the platform and the company was struggling to keep it in check.

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But a cursory search of “#gunsforsale” or combinations including “#guns,” “#forsale,” “#ak47,” or “#ar15” yielded results from users who clearly are not licensed firearms dealers, and who specifically offer to conduct business through direct messages within Instagram. That violates the platform's user agreement and terms of service, but unless they are reported by other Instagram users—or mentioned, say, on the Senate floor—those posts may never get removed.

Instagram is not intended to be a marketplace. But having users police ads that violate guidelines suggests there is an acceptable amount of content that evades detection. It’s time for social media platforms to stop relying on users and start looking for these things themselves.

Additional reporting by Charley Locke and Angela Watercutter