The petition reads:
We urge Facebook to publicly commit to
ensuring that the legal marijuana industry and
advocacy community are not discriminated
against on its platform, arbitrarily or
otherwise.
This includes not suspending marijuana-
related pages and profiles without due
process, fair warning, and evidence of
wrongdoing; allowing ads from legal
marijuana
businesses
and
advocacy
organisations; and making sure that Facebook
users can search for marijuana-related terms
without “shadow banning” or system
interference.
When a cannabis page doesn’t show up in
search results, even when the specific name of
that page or group is entered in the search box,
some refer to this as “shadow banning.”
This means your page hasn’t been taken
away, but it’s much more difficult to locate it
on the platform.
“As it stands, Facebook supposedly stopped
shadow banning a few months ago, and last
week reported that they were going to start
easing restrictions on legal cannabis business
profiles, but still no word on advertising,
boosted posts, or exactly how they are going
to change their protocols regarding general
cannabis-related content,” Morgan Fox,
media relations director for the NCIA, tells
Big Buds.
Facebook lifted a so-called moratorium on
cannabis-related searches back in October,
but many in the cannabis community are still
noticing problems.
Presently, it’s unclear how much has
legitimately changed.
They remain hopeful that Facebook’s recent
announcement will mean they can finally
reach the audience they know they should
otherwise reach.
Dalton says Facebook’s policies make it so
you have “no reach, no fans, no engagement
[and] no chance to get your message out.”
He adds that you basically “can’t generate
traffic in any way.”
As we’ve previously reported, Facebook’s
policies have also been a major headache for
people who work in public relations for
cannabis businesses.
Not only are they unable to advertise on the
website, but people who endorse cannabis
products sometimes have their pages taken
down simply for featuring the product in any
way.
“I’ve had to spend a ridiculous amount of time
trying to circumvent the fact that we can’t
advertise,” Cynthia Salarizadeh, CEO of
cannabis public relations firm Axis Wire, tells
Big Buds. “We’ve gotten so used to not being
able to advertise that we used social media as
a crutch, and then they take that way, and we
literally have nothing.”
Facebook has become a primary online
destination for many people throughout the
world. Users rely on it for news,
communicating with friends, making
purchases and learning about things they’re
interested in.
Facebook’s policies have harmed the
cannabis community’s ability to do those
things effectively. Perhaps with a little more
applied pressure, Facebook will follow
through and make these long overdue
changes.
https://bigbudsmag.com/facebook-may-soon-allow-
cannabis-related-pages/