For quite some time now, Facebook has been wrongfully targeting CBD and hemp companies all across the U.S.
In recent months, CBD industry companies in North Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado, and Kentucky, and many other states discovered have had their Facebook pages deactivated for “promoting the sale of prescription pharmaceuticals.” CBD companies are also being targeted on Instagram, which happens to be owned by Facebook.
A spokesperson from Facebook admitted that they had been hasty in removing various CBD and hemp pages. “We mistakenly removed pages for hemp and CBD oil that do not violate our policies and we are currently working to restore these pages,” the statement said.
However, company owners are frustrated with Facebook’s display of power and complete misunderstanding regarding the actual facts about this cannabinoid. “I don’t understand why Facebook is attacking us now,” said Jamie Johns, owner of Hempy’s CBD stores in Franklin, Tennessee. “I don’t even sell anything on our Facebook page, we just use it to educate the community and tell them about new products and new studies.”
Many business owners, such as Sunshine Bickett, owner of Sunshine CBD Vape in Lafayette, Indiana, believe this was no accident at all. “Personally, I think this is happening because they are correlating us with big pharma now that hemp is legal,” Bickett said. “Pharmaceutical companies pay big bucks to be on Facebook, and then there are little guys like us who have pages. Once the farm bill passed, maybe Facebook saw an opportunity to move things around.”
According to Facebook’s Community Standards, they will “prohibit attempts by individuals, manufacturers and retailers to purchase, sell, promote, or trade non-medical drugs, pharmaceutical drugs, and marijuana.” Facebook mentioned that they don’t believe CBD and hemp falls into any of the aforementioned categories, but they didn’t elaborate on why they removed so many of these pages.
Facebook did say that they’re working hard to reactivate all the pages they had previously deleted, but this just goes to show how complicated the industry continues to be. Regardless of the fact that it was recently removed from its Schedule 1 status, CBD industry owners will still have some obstacles to overcome.
I’ve just been banned on my personal account for 7 day for sharing a photo of hemp flower. Have asked for a review twice, told them it’s perfectly legal hemp flower. Still no luck.