Facebook agrees to run marijuana legalization ads

[Unbreakable]

Facebook has agreed to run marijuana legalization ads after being confronted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Northern California.

The social networking giant had refused to run the ads of multiple organizations because they showed marijuana leaves.

“Platforms like Facebook that are designed to facilitate communication should not get into the business of censorship, which is the opposite of innovating, connecting, and sharing,” Linda Lye of the ACLU said on Monday. “The good news is that once alerted to the problem by the ACLU and EFF, Facebook immediately did the right thing.”

The publisher of “Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?” hoped to use a Facebook ad to promote a special price being offered to celebrate the book’s success, but their proposed ad was denied last year. In a message sent to the publisher, Facebook said that the “content advertised by this ad is prohibited” because the popular website does “not allow ads for marijuana and any products related to it.”

Facebook also refused to run ads for the marijuana law reform group Just Say Now and the Libertarian Party in 2010 because the ads contained marijuana leaves.

Source:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/...tm_campaign=Feed:+TheRawStory+(The+Raw+Story)

 

[panic_the_digital]

Nice to hear, but maybe there is a point here. Do we really need pot leaves in the ads?

 

[villian]

Nice to hear, but maybe there is a point here. Do we really need pot leaves in the ads?

Isn't that for the person designing and running the ads to decide?

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

if its legalized then pot leaves are going to show up a lot closer to home than in ads. I can understand why they would want to do this kind of thing slowly, though.

 

[shimazu]

they picked a stupid fucking target audience

young kids are already most likely pro-legalization

 

[panic_the_digital]

Isn't that for the person designing and running the ads to decide?

Absolutely. Again, I'm glad that Facebook lifted the ban, but they have certainly not banned the groups. The message might actually be stronger if your ad doesn't look like the cover of a high-schooler's notebook.

 

[villian]

True, I wasn't looking at it that way.

 

[trees_please]

they picked a stupid fucking target audience

young kids are already most likely pro-legalization

i think the facebook demographic is expanding to a lot more than just "young kids"

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

I think both of you have worthy points.

This is one more step in what I see as an inevitable direction.

At least Zuckerberg isn't so beholden to political interests that he refused.

 

[slimvictor]

^ I bet political interests caused him to change his mind and accept the ads.