Facebook bans pot ads, which showcase the image of the marijuana leaf
August 25th, 2010 - 9:06 pm ICT by Aishwarya BhattNew York, Aug 25 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Popular social networking website Facebook has decided to censor images which show the leaf of the marijuana plant in adverts by an advocating group. Understandably the group is angry at the move by the website.
Just Say Now is the group behind the campaign and they say that the social networking site decided to end the display of the leaf in their ads earlier in the month, without any explanations whatsoever. The group says Facebook approved the ads on August 7 and changed their mind 9 days later.
The group’s organizers say that without the display of the images, their efforts to change the laws governing marijuana is being severely undermined. The social networking site had already showed 38 million ads displaying the marijuana leaf.
Michael Whitney, who is a Just Say Now organizer, said the action by Facebook is like banning the face of a candidate running for an election campaign. He said that there was no sensible reason for Facebook to take action.
Facebook representative Andrew Noyes said the social networking site had anti-smoking policies and the pot leaf images were against those policies. Just Say Now says they are not advertising to sell marijuana but just pushing for its legalization in the US.
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