Health authorities around the globe are begging people not to hoard face masks and hand sanitiser. Nevertheless, not an hour goes by without a new ad appearing on Facebook offering people the opportunity to do just that. There are hundreds of advertisements selling dozens of bottles of hand sanitiser at one go, or ads selling face masks that often have misleading information or unfounded claims regarding their effectiveness.

Then too there are the advertisements for flat out quack products, such as home UV lights promising to kill viruses or bacteria. Just today, ads started to appear offering Chinese home testing kits for the Corona virus. When questioned about why they are on the public market instead of in the hands of the doctors who need them, the seller claimed hospitals didn't want them because there was no paperwork for them. For all purchasers know, the box contains a pregnancy test or the kits are defective in some way. 

Facebook has a responsibility during this public health crisis to not encourage hoarding behaviour, and not to permit con artists to take advantage of the frightened and ill informed. I - like many of you - have vulnerable and elderly family and friends. Our priority needs to be to protect them, as well as the nurses and doctors on the font lines against the virus. That needs to be Facebook's priority as well. Not profiting from the current crisis via ad revenues.

Advertisements for all medical products should be reviewed before their placement on the platform, and those for bulk orders of resources required by health care professionals denied. So too any ad promoting products making unfounded claims about viral detection, protection, or cures. 

Thank you for reading, and please sign the petition.