[Calvin02]

I'm genuinely curious. How would you propose Facebook enforce this?

People selling bikes include both first-hand buyers and second-hand buyers (people who bought it from someone else).

Without a central registry like what we have for cars, I don't know what Facebook could do.

[8note]

Disallow selling bikes. If you can't figure out a way to only allow legal resales, you shouldn't be in the business

[Calvin02]

If the question is: how do we prevent sale of stolen bikes, I’m not sure how that solves the problem.

Is there a possible way for FB and other similar places (offerup, pawn shops, etc.) to verify without some central registry?

[jcrawfordor]

Traditional retailers of used goods like pawn shops are usually subject to pretty stringent regulation - not necessarily to determine if goods are stolen, but to record identification of the seller to enable an investigation later. In some places this does include proactively sending a report of items to the police for checking against stolen reports. So there's a pretty clear precedent for regulation of this kind directed towards online marketplaces, but you can no doubt predict the questions around the difference between a pawn shop (being the seller) and Facebook (being not the seller but just a provider of listings).

[bhance]

bike index has an open API

[novok]

And hurt everyone who is legit selling their own bike too.

[bhance]

States enforce pawn laws through electronic systems like LEADS. FB, offerup, and every other platform out there letting thieves fence things with impunity could implement same.

[Calvin02]

How does LEADS work and how could FB and OfferUp use it?