Trading Faces: A Rapid Assessment on the use of Facebook to Trade Wildlife in Peninsular Malaysia Autor Krishnasamy K., Stoner S. Fecha 2016 Fuente IUCN (ID: MON-092700) Editor | Lugar de publicación Traffic | Cambridge, United Kingdom Páginas 44 p. Tipo de documento Monografía/libro Idioma Inglés País/Territorio Malasia Materia Especies silvestres y ecosistemas Palabra clave Productos silvestres Recopilación de datos/informes Protecíon de las especies Comercio de especies Resumen The rapid growth and widespread use of social media has allowed these new platforms to facilitate wildlife trade, both legal and illegal. Market leader Facebook was the first social network site to exceed the one billion marker of user accounts just eight years into its existence. In Malaysia, over 80% of the internet users are reportedly active on Facebook. Given its popularity and scope, it is not surprising that this site is being used to conduct illicit wildlife trade. The threat of undetected illegal online wildlife trade is real and very relevant and is further compounded by the internet’s ability to reach a wide audience within a short time frame. It is suspected that the use of online social networks to conduct wildlife trade is increasingly common. Although reports on the misuse of the internet for the trade in illegal wildlife exist, there has been a distinct paucity of research that examines the prevalence of such trade on access-limited social media sites. Where research does exist, it is often unable to quantify the scale of this trade comprehensively. With this in mind, TRAFFIC undertook a rapid assessment to monitor wildlife trade occurring on 14 Facebook groups in Peninsular Malaysia, conducted over approximately 50 hours during a five month period (November 2014 – March 2015). The majority of the groups investigated were “Closed”, meaning only members of that group can view activity on its page. At the time of monitoring, there were 67 532 active members in these 14 groups, one of which was particularly substantial, with over 21 000 members. In total, 236 individual posts of live wild animals being offered for sale were captured and documented from the 14 Facebook groups during the assessment period (an average of 30 minutes a day), with an average of 47 posts per month. A minimum of 311 and a maximum of 380 individual animals from 80 different species were observed for sale. The highest proportions of wildlife recorded were birds (44%), followed by reptiles (34%) and mammals (22%). Close to half of the trade recorded is deemed to be illegal, involving 39 species for which trade is prohibited in Peninsular Malaysia. All animals offered were live, with posts sometimes referring to them as “tame”, indicating a proclivity for the pet trade. Página web www.traffic.org