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Legalise Cannabis Australia senate candidates have accused Meta of hypocrisy for the continuous censorship of their party on its platforms.
Meta routinely shadow bans the Legalise Cannabis Party’s, posts and pages, drastically reducing the visibility and reach of the party and its candidates’ political free speech.
Victorian Senate candidate Fiona Patten said she was outraged by the hypocrisy.
“It’s extremely hypocritical,” Patten said. “It’s outrageous Meta is interfering with Australia’s democratic process by effectively silencing a registered Australian political party and elected members of Parliament.
“Cannabis is legal in much of the United States. So why a US company would censor us seems farcical, and that Meta has now decided to allow a free-for-all on mis- and disinformation on its platforms takes that hypocrisy to absurd new levels. Australians have an implied right to political free speech according to our High Court and the Legalise Cannabis Party’s is being stepped on by a foreign corporation.”
Meta caused significant public backlash and concern in Australia recently when it halted programs it claimed were designed to limit the spread of mis- and disinformation on its popular social media platforms Facebook and Instagram creating a speech free-for-all, and yet the Legalise Cannabis Party continues to face harsh censorship, according to Patten.
Meta’s ‘shadow bans’ of Legalise Cannabis pages and advertising drastically reduce the reach to a handful of social media users.
The Legalise Cannabis Party has engaged in a running legal battle for months with Facebook’s parent company to resolve the issue, enlisting the assistance of the Victorian Parliament where it has two elected members and yet the matter remains unresolved as an Australian federal election looms.
Meta has continually stalled on the issue, either failing to respond to official parliamentary requests or deliberately or accidentally referencing incorrect material, according to Patten.
Legalise Cannabis’ senate candidate for Queensland Belinda Jones said the continued censorship will damage the party’s ability to compete fairly when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese finally calls a federal election.
“Meta once again talks the talk but can’t walk the walk on freedom of speech. They have the gall to be the self-appointed arbiters of freedom of speech but they’ll censor a Legalise Cannabis Party post and remove it quicker than you can say ‘Legalise Cannabis,’” Jones said.
“If Meta was a true believer in freedom of speech then they wouldn’t be so afraid of it.”
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