The legal cannabis industry has faced a long-standing battle with social media sites in regard to what they are allowed to post, fighting against community guidelines in an effort to promote and brand their businesses. Now, a video-sharing platform for cannabis content, WeedTube, has launched a petition with the hopes of gaining one million signatures to demand that Instagram end its censorship of cannabis-related content and update its community guidelines to treat all legally-operating cannabis businesses equally.
Instagram, and other social media websites, have become essential in marketing and business growth strategies today. Though, the app giant currently treats cannabis as a “regulated good,” and even though business owners are operating within legal bounds, they often risk their posts or account being deleted for posting about their business.
As of 2022, social media marketing has become standard for 92.1 percent of marketers of companies with more than 100 employees in 2022, and WeedTube argues that companies need social media marketing to be successful. Cannabis companies are no exception.
The petition description states, “With mass legalization of medicinal and recreational cannabis happening at a rapid rate across the country, mainstream social media platforms like Instagram have a key responsibility to allow a fair and equal opportunity to legally operating businesses and content creators within that industry.
WeedTube carries on in the description, noting that Instagram has actively suppressed and deleted accounts and content related to legal cannabis for years, and that this act significantly prevents “fair and equal marketing opportunities in a rapidly growing industry.” It states the openness of the industry to operate within any “properly outlayed policies” and also indicates that the industry would be willing to aid Instagram in creating those processes.
“If Instagram fails to make these changes the platform will be excessively responsible for creating an unfair monopoly within an industry that has incredible opportunity for small businesses owned by a diverse collective of individuals,” it continues.
The current Instagram policy relating to cannabis prohibits “attempts by individuals, manufacturers and retailers to purchase, sell or trade” cannabis. While WeedTube notes that this is a fair policy in theory, they assert that this is not the only type of content and account that receives the heavy regulation that often leads to account deletion.
“Accounts are often deleted without violating this current policy. Once the accounts are deleted, no guidance is given from Instagram about how the account holder can then work within the policy in the future,” WeedTube adds.
Cannabis is now legal for adult use in 18 states and medically in 36 states, raising questions as to why the policy hasn’t been updated already. WeedTube posted a blog expanding the unequal enforcement of their policy, posing the question as to whether larger brands—which are often allowed to promote their products and locations over smaller, independent brands—might just have more resources to navigate the conversation with Instagram, above or below the table.
“One of the biggest problems in this whole perplexing situation is the reports (within the cannabis industry) that Instagram employees take cash bribes to verify, reinstate, and remove shadow bans,” the blog post reads. “There have been several points in my career that someone has told me: ‘You want to be verified? I can get it done for $10,000. I have a guy at Instagram.’ Or: ‘You got deleted? I can get your account turned back on for $1000. I know a guy.’”
WeedTube also specifically has a bit of a bone to pick, as the video platform lost access to its Instagram account in November for a second time.
WeedTube Co-Founder and Creative Director Arend Richard says that they collectively hope the petition can ”start a dialogue between Instagram and the legal cannabis industry to develop best practices so that we can promote our businesses in a safe and professional manner. His YouTube channel was deleted in 2018 with nearly 200,000 subscribers because of cannabis content, and he’s since become an advocate to end online cannabis censorship.
