Facebook anti-marijuana campaign
p2pnet view Freedom | P2P:- “For a typical college student, if it didn’t happen on Facebook, it didn’t happen.”
It’s a both a gross exaggeration and highly inaccurate statement, but that’s what Ryan Grim apparently believes and in the Huffington Post” That gives the social networking behemoth an out-sized influence on the confines of political debate, if that debate falls outside what Facebook deems acceptable discourse”, he says, going on:
“Proponents of marijuana legalization, which is on the California ballot in 2010, have hit a Facebook wall in their effort to grow an online campaign to rethink the nation’s pot laws. Facebook initially accepted ads from the group Just Say Now, running them from August 7 to August 16, generating 38 million impressions and helping the group’s fan page grow to over 6,000 members. But then they were abruptly removed.
“Andrew Noyes, a spokesman for Facebook, said that the problem was the pot leaf. ‘It would be fine to note that you were informed by Facebook that the image in question was no long[er] acceptable for use in Facebook ads. The image of a pot leaf is classified with all smoking products and therefore is not acceptable under our policies,’ he told the group in an email, which was provided to HuffPost.”
Now, Fa$ebook is “facing down another embarrassing episode of censorship this week after refusing to show ads submitted by the Just Say Now marijuana legalization campaign” writes Richard Esguerra in the EFF’s Deep Links.
He continues >>>
The gag is an important reminder that social networks like Facebook — while useful, interesting, and pretty — are “walled gardens” with overseers whose interests can overwrite free speech, open communication, and in this case, essential political debate. (In this they have something in common with Apple.)
Most recently, Facebook was caught censoring mentions of Power.com, an online tool designed to help users collect their information from Facebook to facilitate migration to other social networks. To this day, users are still blocked from sending messages or posting status updates containing the word “Power.com,” preventing users from spreading the word about a convenient way to “make the move” to Orkut, or LinkedIn, or any other social networking service that may crop up to compete.
The block even stopped law professor Eric Goldman from commenting on Facebook’s lawsuit against Power.com (Disclosure: EFF filed an amicus brief in support of Power in that case).
Facebook’s censorship for anticompetitive reasons is petty and lame to be sure, but silencing Just Say Now’s marijuana legalization ad campaign is even worse. Voters in various districts nationwide will have to make important political decisions about marijuana this year (California’s Proposition 19 is one example). Facebook’s decision, reportedly an attempt to be consistent with its ad policies restricting smoking and/or marijuana-related content, is instead primarily silencing an important, motivated voice in a politically significant debate.
Facebook should lift the ban and show Just Say Now’s political ads. For better or worse, Facebook has become a important means of communication and organization for candidates and political campaigns.
“In this role, Facebook functions best as a neutral platform, hosting the debate without entering it. Whether or not Facebook wants to restrict depictions of smoking in commercial ads, it should not prohibit the open and robust political debate central to the value and promise of the Internet”, Esguerra adds in Deep Links.
… and identi.ca
Huffington Post – Facebook Blocks Ads For Pot Legalization Campaign, August 24, 2010
Deep Links – Facebook Should Stop Censoring Marijuana Legalization Campaign Ads, August 26, 2010
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August 30th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
I was thinking people might be better served by an open sourced, non centralized social network not controlled by a person or corporation. Three problems I came come up with for that idea: someone has to code it, some way has to be found to keep it from being flooded by spammers, and last but not least, people would have to be willing to switch from facebook, the old “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” situation.
August 30th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
$113 billion is spent on marijuana every year in the U.S., and because of the prohibition *every* dollar of it goes straight into the hands of criminals. Far from preventing people from using marijuana, the prohibition instead creates zero legal supply amid massive and unrelenting demand.
According to the ONDCP, two-thirds of the Mexican drug cartel’s money comes from selling marijuana in the U.S., and they protect this cash flow by brutally torturing, murdering and dismembering thousands of innocent people.
If we can STOP people using marijuana then we need to do so now, but if we can’t then we need to legalize the production and sale of marijuana to adults with after-tax prices set too low for the cartels to match. One way or the other, we have to force the cartels out of the marijuana market and eliminate their highly lucrative marijuana incomes – no business can withstand the loss of two-thirds of its revenue!
To date, the cartels have amassed more than 100,000 “foot soldiers” and operate in 230 U.S. cities, and the longer they’re able to exploit the prohibition the more powerful they’ll get and the more our own personal security is put in jeopardy.
August 30th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
@Jillian Galloway,
That’s only the half of it, there is also the enormous cost of an army of Federal and local law enforcement people running after users and dealers, as well as the judiciary and prison costs. All of which would disappear with legalization.
August 30th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
@ Jillian and Monkey:
And frankly, in a world where alcohol and cigarettes are legal, it doesn’t make much sense to have cannabis on the ‘bad’ list — medical benefits aside.
If people over the age of 18, generally speaking, are old enough to get themselves killed to satisfy government (read corporate) requirements, they’re surely old enough to decide for themselves whether or not they want to use marijuana.
Cheers!
August 30th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
So you are a doper Jon. I have always thought so.
August 30th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
^^ Nope. I used to be, though — http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18112
Cheers!
August 30th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
The insane prohibition of marijuana will continue. Too many people are making money from it.
The prison-industrial complex would lose billions.
The police would lose billions (and they have unions lobbying against legalization openly for this very reason.) On top of this, they regard prohibition as an essential tool to falsify probable cause for vehicle searches and personal searches (”I smelled marijuana when I pulled him over your honor”)
The organized criminals would lose billions. Both the ones in gov’t and the ones in the cartels.
The big-pharma corporations would lose billions. (They openly lobby against legalization for this very reason.)
The brewing companies would lose billions.
Every low-life parasite in the entire world is making money from prohibition.
August 30th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
I’m all for pot. but you can’t exactly complain. Facebook has every right to ban what they want to ban. Facebook is like every other website and can ban whatever material it wants to ban from its website. If you care that much, just stop using it.
August 30th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
^^ Stop using pot? Or Fa$ebook?
Either way, I stopped using both.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/42100
Cheers!
August 31st, 2010 at 12:17 am
@I was thinking people might be better served by an open sourced, non centralized social network not controlled by a person or corporation.
Have a look at Diaspora project then.