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.” This was part of Meta’s shift away from intense moderation on controversial topics such as immigration and gender.
However, the company has not changed its policies immediately. They continue to ban search terms like “marijuana” or “cannabis” on their platform and display a warning encouraging users “to report drug sales.”
Now, it appears that this has changed. When searches that had been blocked in the past are now returned without warning, it appears that this has changed.
Many platforms enforce policies that prohibit the sale of illegal drugs, or age restrictions for certain content. However, Meta has been accused by critics of censoring educational, public health, and political content.
Earlier this summer, Facebook searches such as “Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission,” Marijuana Policy Project,”or “MEDCAN24,” would yield no results. A notice instead encouraged users: “If You See the Sale of Drugs, Please Report It.”
Facebook users who used terms such as “marijuana”, “cannabis” and “cannabis” to search for drugs on the site earlier in the year, were served an alert encouraging them to report illegal drug sales.
Since Friday, this warning is no longer displayed.
Meta has not yet announced the date of this change. Meta’s Facebook contacts did not reply to MEDCAN24’s request for comment on Friday.
Morgan Fox, the political director of the advocacy group NORML said in an earlier statement that the ongoing restrictions on cannabis-related social media accounts was “incredibly frustrating”. He added that the search restrictions “still prevent advocates from getting exposure to the public and to the large number of users that are using these services”.
Fox expressed his hope that the issue of search was resolved for good in an email sent Friday regarding the apparent removal by the company of its search restriction.
“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. If there are no structural changes made to the content moderating process and no clear system to address instances of inappropriate or censored content, then advocates and educators will need to stay vigilant in order to continue to allow users to access their own information.
Kat Murti of Students for Sensible Drug Policy called the new search feature “wonderful” news, but pointed out that Meta is still preventing access to public health information on 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] She said this in an interview. They’ve shut down drug education and harm reduction groups, which are all working hard to prevent deaths, but they also have businesses in compliance with the local laws. [and] “People who work on policy changes”
Murti said, “Meta has become one of our most important sources of information. People need to have the ability to communicate.” They need to know how to prevent overdoses, engage their local government, and change 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.”
The company’s flagging of his posts and limiting the visibility of his accounts has been a source for complaints from Brian “Box” Brown. He previously told MEDCAN24 the company had “killed [his] reach and my growth”.
He said, “My mind was completely boggled” earlier in the year. My comic strip, which is TOO wonky on policy and ridiculously illogical in its presentation of it, gets flagged as selling drugs.
Brown, in an email sent this week regarding the Meta search feature, said that he has noticed a change in Meta’s treatment of his content and other people’s.
“It is strange,” said he. “I don’t know what has happened. *Something* has changed. It’s not suppressing stuff the way before. “But at the same, it’s kind of like that.”
The cartoonist said that although “I don’t get warnings everyday,” he still gets throttled for some of his posts. He also noted that “a bunch” of influencers and hashmakers, as well as other accounts had moved on to different platforms since 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. In a video, the company claimed that Instagram’s enforcement of its cannabis policies by both brands and individual users effectively hinders efforts to build community amongst veterans, medical marijuana consumers and adult-use legal consumers.
The video stated, “The world did not want us so we created a safe place for our Instagram community where we could be ourselves and to share what we loved.” The video said, “Isn’t that what this place is all about?”
Social media companies flag cannabis-related posts as violating their Terms of Service, despite the fact that more and more States have legalized marijuana for adults. Social media companies have suspended accounts of state-regulated cannabis products, informational sites and individuals who create content.
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. Meta said that businesses can begin to promote the sale of CBD after receiving written approval and providing the CBD is certified through the company Legitscript. Advertisements could also not be directed at people younger than 18.
Meta stated that “we want people to learn and discover new services and products on our technology,” Meta added. The company added that it would continue to prohibit advertisers from promoting THC-containing products and cannabis products with psychoactive elements.
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. Alcohol and tobacco searches are exempted from this prompt. It appears that the feature is no longer in use.
Twitter (now known as X) had a practice similar to this in 2020. As part of a SAMHSA partnership, Twitter warned users against “marijuana searches”. Search restrictions were not applied to alcohol and tobacco. 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. Eaze, a marijuana delivery company, announced in the following weeks that customers could now shop for and purchase products via its iPhone application.
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.
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Anthony Quintano provided the image.
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