Ancient Mideast treasures looted on Facebook

Ancient relics, antiquities and treasures from the Middle East are being looted and trafficked on Facebook, according to a new report by the ATHAR Project. It found extremist groups and criminal organizations are selling pieces of history like mosaics, statues and historical architecture online. The project's co-directors, Amr Al-Azm and Katie Paul infiltrated the illicit black market and highlight Facebook's role in the trafficking.

An analysis of 95 Arabic Facebook Groups involved in antiquities trafficking shows that the administrators managing the Groups are highly interconnected and have a global reach. There are 488 individual administrators controlling a collective 1,947,195 members across these 95 Facebook Groups.

And that is just the Arabic pages. Globally, the use of social media like Facebook is having devastating effects on the archaeological record.