MassRoots Provides Online Social Networking for Cannabis-Related Businesses

The legal cannabis market has been booming lately. According to an article on Fortune, cannabis culture is anticipated to generate $6.7 billion in legal US sales this year. If that appears large, it has nothing on future projects for the industry. It is expected that the legal cannabis culture market could reach $21.8 billion by 2020.
However, despite the influx of spending and revenue in this area, traditional social media sites have been slower to embrace cannabis culture. For instance, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has community guidelines that prohibit content promoting the sale of marijuana. These guidelines are in accordance with US federal law which deems the sale of marijuana as illegal. However, specific states in the US have legalized cannabis in specific circumstances. This has created tension between Facebook’s nation-wide standards and state-specific views on cannabis.

Online social networking challenges for cannabis companies

Small, legal cannabis companies have been hit the hardest by Facebook’s strict community guidelines. For example, Joe Hodas told Fortune about his experience having the Facebook page Dixie Elixirs removed under the guidelines. The Denver-based company had 11,000 followers when its page disappeared off of Facebook. According to a notification, it was removed in accordance with the social network’s community standards: “we remove any promotion or encouragement of drug use,” it said.
However, Hodas assures the publication that in fact none of the content on the page was promoting or encouraging drug use. He had been careful to remain well within the community guidelines outlined by Facebook. The seeming unfairness of this action has prompted ire in the legal cannabis business community, as many other companies have seen similar things happen to their social media sites.