On August 27th 2012, the admin team of the Kingston Compassion Club Society’s (K.C.C.S) Facebook Page, It’s Cannabis, Not Marijuana, received notification from Facebook that the page is being suspended. They are unable to create posts, access the page analytics, also called Insights, and have lost administrative rights, such as posting as the page in other sections of Facebook.

The admins attracted the attention of Facebook by attempting to add the physical address of the K.C.C.S via the admin panel. Adding an address to a Facebook Page is normal procedure, and should not have caused Facebook to suspend the page. They are currently working with Facebook to have the name changed to Kingston Compassion Club Society or to keep the current name, in an attempt to prevent Facebook from outright deleting the page.

This page is the largest Canadian Facebook presence, with almost 30,000 “Likes”,and a source of accurate, non-biased cannabis news and education for millions around the world. Many cannabis blogs follow the page and re-blog stories that the page shares. The page tolerates an open-debate policy in it’s comments, rarely deleting any content submitted by users. Already several cannabis-content pages on Facebook have expressed their support for KCCS and have called out Facebook for it’s attack on Freedom of Speech in it’s community.

The following was received via email from Facebook:

According to our Pages terms, we don’t allow users to admin a Page that represents a generic location or entity. You can read more about our Page terms here: https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php



Page names may not solely use the generic term for the category of products or services you offer (e.g. “beer” or “pizza”). Additionally, users may not admin Pages about towns, cities, or states (e.g. “San Francisco” or “New York State”). Those users attempting to admin Pages about generic content may have their administrative rights automatically removed.



You may propose a new Page name that accurately reflects your brand or entity on Facebook. If we determine that the new Page name complies with our terms, we may allow you to change it. Otherwise, we will remove the administrative rights for the Page, and you will have an opportunity to set up a new Page and ask your current fans to Like the new Page.





Thanks,



Aiden





User Operations Analyst



Facebook

There has been no further contact with Facebook.Any attempt made by the admins to contact Facebook to resolve this issue has been ignored by Facebook. We demand that Facebook take action on this matter, by removing the suspension of "It's Cannabis Not Marijuana" and restoring admin privileges to the admin team.

Please take the time to sign this petition in support of Freedom of Speech!