When Facebook announced in late January that it was banning private gun sales on its site and on Instagram, the company stepped into the deep end of a controversy into which it had previously only dipped its digital toes. In 2014, the social media behemoth had prevented minors from seeing pages advertising guns for sale, but banning private sales entirely — while allowing licensed dealers to continue selling — was seen by both critics and supporters as a major change.

"Today's announcement is another positive step toward our shared goal of stopping illegal online gun sales once and for all," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement to The New York Times. Gun safety advocates similarly lauded the plan, while many gun enthusiasts said they'd take their business to other sites, which they soon did.

In the wake of Facebook's announcement, though, it remained unclear whether the social network could successfully police the private sale of guns among its members. Rather than actively monitoring for violations of the ban, Facebook said it would rely upon its users to report and transgressions; any transactions conducted via Facebook Messenger, the contents of which aren't scanned, would likely be invisible to the company. Soon enough, reports emerged that buying a gun on Facebook was about as easy as it had always been. Administrators could simply set their gun-selling groups' privacy settings to "secret," removing them from the prying eyes of any users who might report them.

In the wake of the recent mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, Mike Monteiro decided to take aim at the remaining Facebook gun sellers. The San Francisco web design director recruited his 57,700 Twitter followers to begin finding and reporting groups and users who had violated the ban. "At this point, I think we've gotten more than 1,200 gun sellers suspended from Facebook," he says. "We're not trying to get them to change any guidelines, we just want them to enforce the guidelines they have now."

He's complained that even after groups have been reported, Facebook's enforcement of its own rules has been inconsistent. "Yesterday I was told nine groups with 'gun sales' in the name were within guidelines," he tweeted. He also tweeted that "Somehow TEXAS GUN SALES doesn't violate @facebook's ban on gun sales," to which another user responded, "after reporting five or six groups, I have no idea how they decide."

More frustrating than this inconsistency may be a report that one of Facebook's own has been working hard on behalf of groups that actually have been banned. According to Forbes, Chuck Rossi, a director of engineering and an avowed gun enthusiast, heads a secret Facebook group for administrators of gun enthusiast pages; he's also helped reinstate pages that have been shut down.

In February Rossi wrote on the group's page, "I am 100% laser focused on getting your groups back to you so you have a chance to get them to comply with the new policy. It is my sole freaking purpose in life until it is done. I'm dumping extra work on my mangers (sic) and my teams to cover for me while I take on this new role." He also made clear his feelings about his employer's decision, writing, "I know this new policy sucks. I personally don't agree with it and everyone in Facebook is pissed about how it was rolled out."

Read the rest of this story at The Kernel.