Facebook And Instagram Seem To Have Stopped Censoring Search Results For ‘Marijuana’ And ‘Cannabis’

Meta—the social media juggernaut behind Facebook, Instagram and
Threads—appears to have rolled back a restriction on searches for words
like “marijuana” and “cannabis” after criticism that the company’s
censorship was overbroad and limited access to education, public health
information and political advocacy.

At the beginning of this year, Meta—the social media behemoth behind
Facebook, Instagram and Threads, among others—announced it would change its
content moderation policies, “getting rid of a number of restrictions…on
topics…that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate.” It
was part of the company’s move away from intensive moderation of
controversial topics like immigration and gender.

But the company didn’t immediately change its practices around marijuana,
continuing to block search results on its platform for terms such as
“marijuana” and “cannabis” and instead displaying a notice encouraging
users to report “the sale of drugs.”

Now that appears to have changed, however. Searches that were blocked
earlier this year currently yield results without the warning that was
previously displayed.

While many platforms have policies against the illegal sale of drugs or
require age-gating for content around controlled substances, critics say
Meta’s filtering has often been overbroad, censoring content focused on
education, political advocacy and public health.

Earlier this year, for example, Facebook queries for “Massachusetts
Cannabis Control Commission,” “Marijuana Policy Project,” or “Marijuana
Moment,” for example, would return no results and instead display a notice
encouraging users: “If you see the sale of drugs, please report it.”
[image: If you see the sale of drugs, please report it]

Users who included terms like “marijuana” or “cannabis” in their Facebook
searches earlier this year instead served this notice that encouraged the
reporting of illegal drug sales.

The warning no longer appear for those searches as of Friday.

It’s unclear when Meta may have enacted the change. Meta and Facebook press
contacts on Friday did not immediately respond to a requests for comment
from Marijuana Moment.

Morgan Fox, political director at the advocacy group NORML, said earlier
this year that it was “incredibly disappointing” that cannabis-related
accounts were dealing with ongoing restrictions, adding that search
restrictions were “still preventing advocates from being able to get
exposure to the general public and the huge number of people that use these
services.”

In an email Friday about the company’s seeming removal of the search
restriction, Fox said he hoped the search issue had been fixed for good.

“I hope these apparent changes are permanent and pervasive, and not just a
temporary fix with limited scope—which we have seen in the past,” he wrote.
“Without structural changes to content moderation and a clear process for
addressing instances of inappropriate censorship in a more systemic manner,
advocates and educators are going to have to remain vigilant to ensure that
social media platform users can continue to effectively access their
information.”

Kat Murti, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, called
the updated search function “wonderful news” but noted that there are other
ways Meta continues to interfere with access to even public health-focused
information about drugs.

“We had met with Meta over a year ago and brought up the issue of both the
search—the lack of ability to find things in the search—as well as how the
algorithm was shutting these [accounts] down,” she said in an interview.
“They’ve been shutting down access to businesses that are in full
compliance with local laws, but also harm reduction groups that are working
to save lives, drug education groups [and] folks who are working on policy
change.”

“Meta is one of the biggest sources of information in our society, and
people need to be able to connect,” Murti added. “They need to be able to
find information about how to save lives from overdose, how to engage with
their local governments, how to get involved in changing policy. They need
to be able to find information about harm reduction, about getting out to
vote, about legislation that’s on the ballot—and all of that is still
getting censored.”

One cannabis-focused content creator who’s called out Meta in the past is
cartoonist Brian “Box” Brown, who’s previously complained to Marijuana
Moment that the company has flagged his posts, limited his accounts’
visibility and “killed my reach and growth.”

“My mind was boggled,” he said earlier this year. “My comic strip thats
frankly TOO wonky about policy is getting flagged for selling drugs.”

In an email this week about the search function, Brown said he’s picked up
on a shift in Meta’s handling of his and others’ content.

“It’s weird,” he said. “I’m not even totally sure what’s happened.
*Something* has changed. Stuff isn’t getting suppressed in the way it was
before. But at the same time, it kinda is.”

Unlike in recent months, “I’m not getting warnings every day,” the
cartoonist continued, but some posts still seem to get throttled.” He noted
that other accounts, such as “a bunch of hashmakers and other influencers”
have moved to other platforms after Meta “nuked” their accounts.

“It’s kind of a mixed bag,” he said, adding that he’s going stop censoring
his own content—which he’d begun doing to avoid being flagged by the
company’s algorithms—and see what happens going forward.

Ahead of this past holiday season, vape device manufacturer Puffco
similarly complained about Instagram and parent company Meta for what it
described as an overly aggressive campaign to flag and remove
cannabis-related content. A video from the company asserted that
Instagram’s policing of cannabis posts by brands and individuals
effectively stifles efforts at community building among veterans, medical
marijuana patients and legal adult-use consumers.

“The world didn’t want us, so we made a safe space for our community on
Instagram where we could just be ourselves and share what we love,” the
video said. “Isn’t that the point of this place?”

Despite more and more states having legalized and regulated marijuana for
adults, social media companies have regularly flagged cannabis-related
content as violations of their terms of service. The practice has led to
suspensions of accounts belonging to state-regulated cannabis brands,
informational websites and individual content creators, who now often
create backup accounts to avoid the loss of a key line of communication to
thousands of followers.

In 2018, concerns arose that Facebook was “shadowbanning” marijuana pages,
including those of state cannabis regulatory agencies, by blocking them
from search results. An internal presentation at the company the next year
noted that it was considering loosening cannabis restrictions, but many
have continued to run into problems

In July 2023, Meta announced that it had updated its cannabis advertising
policy to permit the promotion of some non-ingestible CBD products and also
loosen restrictions on hemp ads. It said businesses could begin promoting
the sale of CBD if they receive written approval from Meta and if the
products are certified with the payment compliance company Legitscript and
comply with local laws. Ads also could not target people under 18.

“We want people to continue to discover and learn about new products and
services on our technologies,” Meta said. However, it added that
“advertisers will continue to be prohibited from running ads that promote
THC products or cannabis products containing related psychoactive
components.”

Earlier that year, Meta faced criticism over a feature of its microblogging
app, Threads, for prompting users with a “get help” message about federal
substance misuse resources if they searched for “marijuana,” various
psychedelics and other controlled substances. Meanwhile, alcohol- and
tobacco-related searches were exempt from the prompt. The feature no longer
appears to be in place.

Twitter, now known as X, had a similar practice in place in 2020,
cautioning users about “marijuana” searches as part of a partnership with
SAMHSA. Alcohol and tobacco were excluded from the search restriction. But
in late 2022, after being acquired by Elon Musk, Twitter suspended that
practice.

Also, Twitter since updated its cannabis advertising policy, aiming to give
cannabis businesses that are “certified advertisers” the ability to feature
“packaged” cannabis products in the ad creative that’s promoted on the
social media site.

Google, for its part, updated its policy in January 2023, making it so
companies can promote Food and Drug Administration- (FDA) approved drugs
containing CBD, as well as topical CBD products with no more than 0.3
percent THC.

Video game streaming company Twitch, meanwhile, updated its branding policy
for streamers, prohibiting promotions of marijuana businesses and products
while explicitly allowing alcohol partnerships. Twitch had previously
clarified rules in a way that was inclusive of cannabis—exempting
marijuana-related references from the list of banned usernames, just as it
does for alcohol and tobacco.

In an update to Apple’s iPhone software that was instituted in 2022, users
were given an option to track medications and learn about possible drug
interactions with other substances—including marijuana.

In 2021, Apple ended its policy of restricting cannabis companies from
conducting business on its App store. The marijuana delivery service Eaze
subsequently announced that consumers were able to shop and pay for
products on its iPhone app for the first time.

In contrast to Apple, Google’s Android app hub updated its policy in 2019 to
explicitly prohibit programs that connect users with cannabis, no matter
whether it is legal in the jurisdiction where the user lives.

In 2022, New York marijuana regulators asked the social media app TikTok to end
its ban on advertising that involves the word “cannabis” as they worked to
promote public education on the state’s move to legalize.

Congressional Committee Clarifies That Hemp Ban Isn’t Meant To Restrict
‘Industrial Or Nonintoxicating’ Products

*Image element courtesy of Anthony Quintano.*

The post Facebook And Instagram Seem To Have Stopped Censoring Search
Results For ‘Marijuana’ And ‘Cannabis’ appeared first on Marijuana Moment.