Billion-Dollar Hypocrisy: How Social Media Giants Cash In While Treating Cannabis Like a Leper Colony

It’s 2024, and the cannabis industry is pulling in $30 billion a year. Thirty. Billion. Dollars. Yet, when it comes to advertising on social media platforms, we’re treated like fucking lepers. You read that right. These companies, Facebook, “X,” WordPress, and the rest of the social media cabal are happy to take our money for domains, hosting, and every damn upgrade they can throw at us. But the moment we try to advertise, suddenly we’re persona non grata.

Let’s start with the kingpin of this hypocrisy parade, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook. It’s no secret that Zuckerberg has a hard-on for clamping down on cannabis content. Sure, they’ll take your cash for a business page, and rake in ad revenue from your traffic, but dare to promote anything related to cannabis, and they’ll shut you down faster than you can say “community standards.” And those standards? They’re a joke. Facebook doesn’t care that cannabis is legal in most states, or that it’s a legitimate medicine for millions. They’re too busy counting the money they make from Big Pharma ads to give a damn.

Move over to “X,” and the story’s no different. Elon Musk might be the new sheriff in town, but the rules still stink of the old regime. Ads promoting cannabis are still as taboo as ever, even though Musk himself has publicly toyed with the idea of cannabis being no big deal. But let’s be real—when it comes to making money, even Musk’s maverick streak takes a backseat. The bottom line? “X” will gladly profit off your tweets and your followers, but try to run an ad about your cannabis business, and you’re shadow-banned into oblivion.

And don’t get me started on WordPress. They’ll sell you a site, offer every plugin under the sun, and upgrade you until your wallet is gasping for air. But as soon as you want to advertise your cannabis-related content? Rejected. It’s like the moment the word “cannabis” comes up, these platforms revert to the dark ages. They’re fine with hosting the content and cashing in on the traffic it generates, but ask them to put your ad in front of their audience? Forget it. They act like you’re trying to promote black tar heroin.

This is a $30 billion industry. Cannabis isn’t some shady back-alley deal anymore; it’s mainstream, it’s legal, and it’s helping millions of people. But these social media giants are still clinging to the same outdated, hypocritical bullshit they’ve always peddled. They profit from us, from our clicks, our data, and our engagement, and then turn around and deem us illegitimate. It’s time we called them out for what they are: hypocrites who want to have their cake and eat it too.

We’re not asking for special treatment. We’re asking for fair treatment. We’re asking these platforms to recognize the reality of the world we live in, a world where cannabis is a multi-billion-dollar industry that isn’t going away. They need to stop hiding behind their outdated policies and start treating the cannabis community with the respect it deserves. Because let’s be honest, we’re not the lepers here, they are. They’re the ones living in the past, clinging to stigmas and biases that have no place in 2024. And it’s time we all stood up and said Enough is enough.

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