Meta’s new Terms of Service – is it a good thing for the cannabis community?
As of January 1st of 2025 Meta released new Terms of Service. Let me save you a long read, is it a win for the Cannabis community? No, not even close. Now continue to read on.
As of January 1st of 2025 Meta released new Terms of Service (ToS) that affected all of its users. When you use platforms of this nature and size they have ToS that are slanted heavily in the favor of the company. The only way to avoid this updated ToS at Meta is to not use any Meta product after December 3, 2024. Well that most likely did not happen as most users of Meta products used the products to declare Happy New Year to the void. Talk about being one of the slickest moves to stack the deck even more in your their favor. Recently we have noticed an uptick of people claiming that Meta has relaxed their restrictions on certain content. Meta has been under fire after it was disclosed that Meta’s censorship could be controlled by political powers, ask the Democratic National Party about it…….
Cannabis is rapidly becoming accepted in more states which poses the question, Meta why are you so dead set against any talk about Cannabis? Well the big reason is it is still a Schedule 1 drug which means it has no value medically or recreationally……….legally that is.
People have been optimistic about the new Terms of Service since it seems to hint at laxed content removals. Let us just start by saying we are not giving legal advice. Hi Neighbor reviewed the new Terms of Service and noticed something really striking that everyone is overlooking. The Terms of service does not change the Community Standards covering Meta products. Section 3.2 of the Terms of Service mentions that they will still remove content that infringes on the Community Standards which includes all regulated goods which Cannabis is a regulated good like alcohol. See section 3.2 from the new Terms of Service below
Meta makes a point a few times in this section to state they have the right to remove content that you have shared that is in violation of the Community Standards. This covers all regulated goods, which Cannabis falls under due to it being a Schedule I class of drug. Below is the section in the Community Standards that pertains to how they handle Regulated Goods and Services. Notice that Cannabis/CBD/and its derivitites are still listed under what is restricted content which means it will not be suggested by Meta.
Do we suggest you start posting more Cannabis related stuff that would have been flagged in the past to your account since the new Terms of Service? Nope, not unless you want to risk the loss of your account. For right now we will still be stuck with the heavy handed and unfairly used AI review tool that use. Meta also states that most of the reviews are done by AI. Meta claims that most of the things that violate the Terms of Service are captured by AI and removed or taken out of the suggested pool. The only way you can get back into the good graces is to remove the content that is visible. We hope this changes at Meta and they start to understand the old days are gone and the more correct information we can give to the public, will allow them to make better choices.
