marijuana.com - By Barry Bard on December 24, 2014
Instagram Wages a War Against Marijuana Profiles
Cover image via Tony Greenhand’s Instagram, one of Instagram’s more popular weed accounts and a professional joint roller
In recent months, marijuana-infused Instagram accounts with massive followings have mysteriously gone missing. While it doesn’t appear that Instagram has a specific vendetta against these accounts, the rash of deleted accounts has caused an unwelcome stir in the cannabis community.
As odd as it may sound, Instagram is the definitive mobile platform for sharing photos by cannabis users and businesses. From dispensaries to rappers to your average stoner, hashtags like #marijuana, #hightimes, #weed, and #420 have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tags.
The internet is flooded with marijuana users interacting with one another, and these individuals and businesses rely on the service of Instagram to connect with valuable clients and consumers.
But if your account gets deleted, you will lose that valuable social reach. A very significant number of accounts have had to start from scratch to rebuild their followings.
And it’s not hard to lose your hard-earned followers. Thanks to Instagram’s easy-to-use “Report a User” button, it’s very easy to flag anyone’s material for what is deemed to be inappropriate content.
If an account is flagged enough, it’s likely deleted by Instagram without much thought. And it’s hurting the marijuana movement on Instagram.
One major account with over 100,000 followers, @CannabisCommunity, no longer even exists. The account is hardly an isolated case, as other accounts have likewise mysteriously vanished from Instagram.
But the average stoner isn’t the only marijuana aficionado affected by Instagram’s unintentional crusade against cannabis.
The well-known rapper and industry figure Berner of Taylor Gang recently lost his account. While Berner’s account was fortunately restored shortly after its deletion, most members of our community are not so fortunate.
To combat this epidemic, Berner sounds like he’s going to take matters into his own hands, and help stoners find a service that they can use without looking over their shoulders constantly:
While Instagram certainly represents a great platform, the idea of losing your connection to thousands of valuable followers is a scary one, and one that Berner sounds intent on directly addressing:
Well, that app will live right here on Marijuana.com. Head over to social.marijuana.com and create an account if you want to get a head start on the newest, safest social marijuana platform."