Facebook Bans Kodi Box Sales From Marketplace

Facebook Ban Sales Of Kodi Boxes

Facebook’s marketplace is a rather unique sales service through which you can sell your products online. It is a format that has several positive bonuses. For a start, you’re dealing directly with the person and as such, you can have a brief and frank conversation about the product which, if you wish, you can keep a record of. Secondly, being based on the social media site, you can pretty certain that the person you are dealing with IS a person and not a faceless online company.

I’ve bought several things from it and generally have nothing but positive things to say about it. Facebook is, however, on something of a crusade to try and improve its image. The latest bout of this comes in a report via Metro in which the social media site has begun banning the sale of pre-loaded Kodi boxes on their marketplace.

Piracy!

Kodi, in itself, is a perfectly legitimate media player. It is, however, commonly used to Stream illegal pirated content online. I only add this as some people begin frothing at the mouth at the mere association between the two. A popular item for sale in all online retailers recently has been the pre-loaded Kodi boxes. These are usually an Amazon Fire Stick which has Kodi installed with all of the illegal content added to it. The sale of these items is, generally speaking, illegal. We have already seen a few instances in the UK of people being prosecuted for it.

As much as this doesn’t directly involve Facebook since they are only a facilitator, they seem to want to distance themselves from this. As such, all sales of such items have now been banned.

Why It’s A Smart Move

While I don’t think Facebook would have been in any specific legal trouble over it, the banning of such items removes a grey area for their marketplace. It allows the social media site to preemptively stop what could likely be the next bad story. Lord knows they’ve had more than enough of them in the last 12-months.

While Facebook hasn’t outright declared war on Kodi or Amazon Fire Sticks, it has made a point very clear. Items that are capable (or more accurately) are predominantly known for piracy are no longer welcome. You can take that sentence apart to include a lot of other technology here. I think though that we all know what they mean here.

What do you think? Is this a smart move by Facebook? – Let us know in the comments!