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TRENTON, N.J. — An independent social media research team confirmed yesterday that hardcore Nazi meme pages are far easier to find on Facebook than the pages of legitimate cannabis businesses, thanks to Facebook’s policy of shadowbanning legal cannabis promotion and content.
“Naturally I wanted to expand my business, so I figured getting on Facebook was a good idea to help promote us,” said Jimmy Garoffolo, owner of local New Jersey dispensary Jimmy’s Cannabis. “But when I told people to look us up on Facebook, instead of coming across our page, their only search result was a ‘Jimmy Neutron, Boy Hitler’ page filled with disgusting memes of Carl Wheezer engaging in Operation Barbarossa and claiming the Holocaust was a lie.”
“If you search for my Facebook page for Maryland Grown Cannabis, you have to scroll through dozens of overtly racist MAGA groups and pages just to find the link,” agreed fellow business owner Randi Binker. “By the time you find us, you’ve passed by so many images painting the Capitol rioters as heroes that you don’t even remember why you looked for us in the first place.”
A study by a social media watchdog confirmed the Facebook algorithm’s preference for irreverent Nazi content. “These complaints are just the latest example of how Facebook directs users to content they’d never seek out otherwise, all in the name of ‘engagement,’” said lead researcher Dr. Bennett Fowler. “Facebook has proven time and again that it is more comfortable hosting a page that uses early 2000s nostalgia to introduce people to fascism than allowing a legal cannabis dispensary to advertise to its customer base.”
Bristling at the suggestion that his platform was enabling domestic extremism on a widespread scale, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg felt that Garoffolo’s complaints were misguided. “Facebook is a free speech platform, and it always will be,” said Zuckerberg. “You can’t expect me to stop memes about Jimmy Neutron using his infinite storage hypercube as a concentration camp, because then I’d be stifling free speech. And you know who else stifled free speech? That’s right, the Nazis.”
“And while it is a free speech platform, it is not a free business platform,” Zuckerberg clarified. “If you want to push your drugs on here, I won’t allow it… unless you are willing to pay, of course. In which case, go for it — just fill out the sponsored content application.”
Sadly, former Facebook employees were unsurprised about Zuckerberg’s indifference towards the Nazi pages.
“Engagement on Facebook is what drives the platform. If those clicks come from photoshopped images of Cindy Vortex as Eva Braun caressing a Hitler-mustached Jimmy Neutron, Zuckerberg truly doesn’t care,” said Sophie Zhang, the fourth Facebook whistleblower to come forward this year. “Honestly, with the way the algorithms work, if you renamed your shop ‘Joseph Goebbels Cannabis Dispensary,’ you’re less likely to be shadowbanned. I mean, don’t do that, but it’d help you on Facebook.”
Ultimately, Zuckerberg half-heartedly tried to do the right thing, taking down the “Jimmy Neutron, Boy Hitler” page after being threatened with legal action by Nickelodeon. “The real immorality is breaking copyright laws,” stated Zuckerberg.
Stephen Bell is a comedy writer for The Hard Times, Oregano, and JumpKick but is more accurately some science dork working as a lab technician. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stebbenwolfe/
