Cannabis and social media – two things that go together like social media and.. well, any interest. But if you ask anyone in the industry itself, the two are mortal enemies. This past week, Weedmaps and rapper/cannabis mogul Berner jointly announced that they have a new cannabis social media platform in the works.
Cannabis and social media have had a rocky relationship since adult-use legalization started to roll out. Many businesses in the cannabis space had hoped to leverage social media like any other brand, product, or industry. Many sought to leverage the extremely powerful advertising tools within these apps as well. What has happened over the past few years has been an incredibly inconsistent, turbulent, and painful experience for many in this particular niche; and it hasn’t driven enough negative attention to Instagram (or Facebook) to change their ways, either.
Existing Issues with Cannabis Social Media
As long as cannabis is deemed federally illegal, social media giants have maintained that there can NOT be any promotion of the sale or use of any federally illegal substances, regardless of the company’s state’s regulations.
What constitutes “promotion of the sale” or “use”? This is a tricky question that Instagram and Facebook (now Meta) have yet to address. Their increasingly inconsistent algorithm finds and deletes content and entire profiles almost at random. What worked for every brand five years ago could get your account axed today.
Shadow Bans
Instagram has come out and claimed there is no such thing as a shadowban on their platform. While in a Clubhouse room last year with multiple Instagram employees, even RMR was told that there is no such shadowban. However, there are specific topics and industries that receive shadowban-like limitations. So in the end, it sounds like shadowbans are a thing on Instagram.
Haters/Being Reported
If you’re within the industry, you likely believe that “haters” and being reported constitute the sole reason accounts are taken down. While you’re not wrong in your logic – as this does happen – the algorithm is the main culprit. The algorithm even determines how many (and what severity) reports can get a post or page automatically taken down. However, the algorithm also catches these posts and pages without “haters'” help and takes them down on its own. Remember the Terminator? If you think this sounds like an early stage of Skynet, you might be right.
Customer Support
Think your Instagram post or profile was deleted wrongfully? Most companies would provide a customer support team. Instagram and Facebook have gone the way of Google and YouTube, leaving it to automation and some form of algorithm. The only way you can communicate issues with these tech giants is to follow a series of automated questions with no regard to context or any assistance understanding broad statements. If the algorithm doesn’t like your input, then you’re out of luck and there is no way to explain your case, or have a physical human look at anything whatsoever.
The only way you’ll ever talk to a human at one of these tech companies is if you advertise. Only then are users provided with advertiser reps. At least, that would be the case, but these companies don’t allow cannabis-aligned companies to advertise on their platform. So, there is quite literally no human to talk to for any issue.
What’s Next?
Without any form of consistency on regulation and enforcement, Instagram and Facebook defer to their rules and remind account users that the game isn’t perfect (i.e. not fair… but what in life is?). The niche of cannabis is so small in the realms of social media that they have no incentive to make changes. By “assisting” cannabis companies, they stand to potentially lose users and advertisers.
The cannabis community isn’t given an alternative that accepts all of their interests, so they must accept this fate. Coupled with the fact that, well for one, billions of people use these apps every day (family, friends, colleagues), and two, cannabis likely isn’t their sole interest so they can still use these apps to communicate, share interests, create, and consume content.
Enter Weedmaps and Berner
The two massive influential cannabis players have seemingly teamed up to tackle this issue. Both companies made announcements on Instagram last week about a new social media platform that they are working on. Berner was already a part of the Social Club launch that was supposed to deliver on this topic. However, that company has pivoted and is now a major player in cannabis video content (think like Netflix for weed).
We’ll see what this endeavor looks like as the community eagerly awaits more information on what will be rolled out.
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