Shutting Down Legal Medical Marijuana Pages
Facebook Shutting Down Legal Medical Marijuana Pages For
Mysterious Reasons
New Jersey marijuana dispensaries say Facebook has unfairly banned
their business pages. The fight highlights how inconsistent
Facebook’s policy towards prescription drugs is.
Officials from Breakwater Wellness and Treatment Center in Cranbury
and Compassionate Sciences Alternative Treatment Center in
Bellmawr said their home pages were shut down Tuesday. When they
tried to use their home page, they found an electronic message
that said: “We remove any promotion or encouragement of drug use.”
Your page is currently not visible on Facebook. It looks like content
on your page does not follow the Facebook Community Terms and Standards.
When NJ Advance Media contacted Facebook, the company had no
comment, instead referring the media to its Community Standards
page. I’ve also contacted Facebook about this policy, so I’ll update
if it gives me a different answer. Facebook’s Community Standards page
does ban selling all drugs without authorization. But it does not ban
the pages of authorized drug vendors, so referring the dispensaries to this
is strange, as the vendors in New Jersey are legal:
We prohibit any attempts by unauthorized dealers to purchase,
sell, or trade prescription drugs, marijuana, or firearms. If you
post an offer to purchase or sell alcohol, tobacco, or adult products,
we expect you to comply with all applicable laws and carefully
consider the audience for that content. We do not allow you to use
Facebook’s payment tools to sell or purchase regulated goods on our platform.
Searching “marijuana dispensary” on Facebook pulls up plenty of other
legal medical marijuana dispensary business pages. This was not a
sweeping policy change where Facebook banished groups in the masse.
If Facebook is categorizing medical marijuana dispensaries as
“unauthorized” because marijuana sales are illegal under federal
law, If that’s the stance, every single dispensary page in the US
would violate the Community Standards.
their business pages. The fight highlights how inconsistent
Facebook’s policy towards prescription drugs is.
Officials from Breakwater Wellness and Treatment Center in Cranbury
and Compassionate Sciences Alternative Treatment Center in
Bellmawr said their home pages were shut down Tuesday. When they
tried to use their home page, they found an electronic message
that said: “We remove any promotion or encouragement of drug use.”
Your page is currently not visible on Facebook. It looks like content
on your page does not follow the Facebook Community Terms and Standards.
When NJ Advance Media contacted Facebook, the company had no
comment, instead referring the media to its Community Standards
page. I’ve also contacted Facebook about this policy, so I’ll update
if it gives me a different answer. Facebook’s Community Standards page
does ban selling all drugs without authorization. But it does not ban
the pages of authorized drug vendors, so referring the dispensaries to this
is strange, as the vendors in New Jersey are legal:
We prohibit any attempts by unauthorized dealers to purchase,
sell, or trade prescription drugs, marijuana, or firearms. If you
post an offer to purchase or sell alcohol, tobacco, or adult products,
we expect you to comply with all applicable laws and carefully
consider the audience for that content. We do not allow you to use
Facebook’s payment tools to sell or purchase regulated goods on our platform.
Searching “marijuana dispensary” on Facebook pulls up plenty of other
legal medical marijuana dispensary business pages. This was not a
sweeping policy change where Facebook banished groups in the masse.
If Facebook is categorizing medical marijuana dispensaries as
“unauthorized” because marijuana sales are illegal under federal
law, If that’s the stance, every single dispensary page in the US
would violate the Community Standards.
No comments:
Post a Comment