Meta—the social media juggernaut behind Facebook, Instagram and Threads—appears to have rolled back a restriction on searches for words like “marijuana” and “cannabis” after criticism that the company’s censorship was overbroad and limited access to education, public health information and political advocacy.
At the beginning of this year, Meta—the social media behemoth behind Facebook, Instagram and Threads, among others—announced it would change its content moderation policies, “getting rid of a number of restrictions…on topics…that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate.” It was part of the company’s move away from intensive moderation of controversial topics like immigration and gender.
But the company didn’t immediately change its practices around marijuana, continuing to block search results on its platform for terms such as “marijuana” and “cannabis” and instead displaying a notice encouraging users to report “the sale of drugs.”
Now that appears to have changed, however. Searches that were blocked earlier this year currently yield results without the warning that was previously displayed.
While many platforms have policies against the illegal sale of drugs or require age-gating for content around controlled substances, critics say Meta’s filtering has often been overbroad, censoring content focused on education, political advocacy and public health.
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