Brasil de Fato reports (22 October 2025)
Header: Minister of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture – Paulo Teixeira
Despite being supported by the Federal Constitution and two decisions of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) – that in 2011 decided that the Marijuana March and any public demonstration in favor of the legalization of marijuana is yes constitutional – activists, doctors, associations of medicinal users, lawyers, musicians and influencers who deal with the subject marijuana they are constantly under threat of having their accounts suspended or permanently disabled, taking from “drags” years of work for allegedly violating “community guidelines” of social networks.
Between last friday, october 17, and saturday, the 18th, approximately fifty brazilian cannabis profiles went through this “corte” and were suspended from Instagram. Marijuana March from Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Florianopolis and Salvador, the Expo Cannabis fair, the Apepi, Maria Flor and Santa Gaia associations were some of those affected.
News of the suspensions began to populate by other networks. On Saturday, the Minister of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture of Brazil Paulo Teixeira was informed of these bans by Deputy Eduardo Suplicy (PT). On the date, as he himself disclosed, the minister contacted the head of Executive Relations of Meta, Vanderlei Mariz, presenting the list of suspended accounts and asking for explanations.
According to the report found, the minister had been following since the beginning of the week the case of the association of medicinal users Santa Gaia, Lins, which had its headquarters stage a cinematic incursion of the Civil Police of Sao Paulo. Images of police armed with rifles destroying hundreds of marijuana feet have circulated on the networks, founder Guilherme Viel is in prison, but the process follows in secret justice. The association’s three Instagram profiles were taken down. The association attended nine thousand patients monthly.
A Public Agency he spoke with Teixeira, who said Meta informed the minister that the profiles were not dropped by court order – but, according to him, the company also could not inform the reason for the overthrow, pointing perhaps a change in the algorithm. According to the minister, Meta representatives said they would prioritize the manual review of the suspension (the process is usually done by artificial intelligence). On Monday morning, October 20, at least twenty accounts were reinstated.
Still, the minister said in an interview to the Public that this is a totally illegal action. “This topic of medical cannabis, it is already a pacified theme throughout the world, in the United States, Meta being an American company, I do not understand what is its international policy.”
“These are symptoms that the lack of regulation makes them act against the Brazilian society”, says Teixeira, who expects and intends to charge the “ransom” of all profiles and the explanation of the reasons why they were overthrown.
The suspension of profiles impacts associations and patients using cannabis-related medicinal products. In addition, the practice, without justification and without a court order can constitute a violation of the Constitution, decisions of the Supreme Court and the Marco Civil of the Internet.
The boldness of Tech Bros
It has been decades since the “green gold rush” of the legal marijuana market has been documented by outlets such as Times, Bloomberg and Forbes. In Brazil, celebrated neuroscientist Sidarta Ribeiro often repeats in his lectures and interviews that “marijuana is to 21st century medicine as antibiotics were to 20th century medicine.”
But all this hype contrasts with the policies of Big Techs, which although “pass clotho” for hate speech, keep taking off marijuana-related profiles, with no justification other than the vague “you violated our community’s guidelines”.
These famous guidelines, in the “Restricted Products and Services” section make it clear that content that promotes the purchase, sale or donation of products with THC is not allowed. Already CBD is released, in addition to content that “speaks positively, encourages use or provides instructions to use and manufacture marijuana”, the only restriction is that the content will only be distributed to seniors.
When a profile is suspended, the user is stuck on a screen that tells them they have violated the guidelines, and the only option is to log out of the account, ask for a backup of their posts, or make an appeal. The appeal is literally a button, you click, confirm your data and wait. In a few days your account can be restored or banned permanently, with no option of new feature. No justification is given. Then it’s only by judicial means.
UENF lawyer and researcher Clayton Medeiros has already served several causes of suspension and banning of accounts, bong brands, growshops and influencers are among his clients. “Instagram community guidelines allow you to talk about marijuana. Allows historical, cultural, scientific, medicinal, economic, informative, comical content, even allows content related to accessories involving marijuana.”
For him, when an account is suspended or banned, what is happening is a failure to provide service. “We are consumers of Meta, so it has already been established by the Superior Court of Justice (STJ – Resp 13964417/MG), the relationship between providers of the social network and users of the social network is a consumer relationship”. The lawyer points out that the persecution of cannabis profiles also hurts the Federal Constitution, the aforementioned two decisions of the STF about the Marijuana March, in addition to the Marco Civil da Internet.
According to Medeiros, suspensions and bans go beyond procedural principles. “The contradictory, the broad defense and the due process of law. These principles are not respected, because Meta practices censorship overnight, the resource is generic, you do not even know what is the reason for the ban, so the contradictory you do not have, because you can not defend yourself. The due process also does not exist, because you do not have a legal process, of course, right? All very generic, and the broad defense also does not, because you can not carry out a defense, in fact, you can not even know which was the employee of the goal that analyzed your resource, you can not even know the complete and concrete reasons for that ban, what was the publication, including.”
The defense begins with the request for an injunction asking for the profile to be reactivated by a fine. “Depending on the court order, Meta has from 48 hours to 5 days to reactivate the profile, there are cases in which the fine is R $ 5 thousand, but reaches R $ 30 thousand daily fine. We also ask for moral damage and, in addition to moral damage, because the very illicit act practiced by the platform generates the duty to indemnify. If this person receives some kind of value, is a tobacco shop, makes sales on social networks, we can also ask for compensation for the material damage suffered.”
On the suspicion that the recent suspensions may have been the result of an algorithm change, the lawyer retorts, “Change in the algorithm happens all the time, nor do they know to explain the reason – is because the reason is an articulation of the far right. We have to remember that Mark Zuckerberg is closed with Donald Trump and is also closed with Elon Musk. And, for example, on Instagram or Facebook we have a lot of racist, transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic and hate speech content. You can report this content, but this profile is still active. So it is a narrative control on the social networks of the extreme right”, says Medeiros.
The frustration of losing an account
The account of cannabis influencer, retired actor and worm-maker Ricardo Petraglia, Moby Dick, was only restored on the night of the 20th. “It’s already the second time I get knocked down on Instagram. The first time was because they thought I was doing porn. It can’t, right?” laugh alto the septuagenarian. “The second one was now, because I was teaching how to germinate a seed. Funny, that I don’t sell shit. I don’t know what the motivation is. I think it’s because I keep showing that it’s simple, that doing the medicine doesn’t have to be any PhD and nothing, you know? I don’t know, I fucked!”, he criticizes.
William Lantelme Filho, one of the pioneers of the struggle for self-cultivation, launched in 2002 the Growroom forum, which evolved into a portal and had a strong presence in all social networks that have emerged since then. At the end of 2024, his Instagram account, with 160 thousand followers, was permanently disabled. At the time, he sought a lawyer who charged him $ 7 thousand, who did not agree to pay. Thousands of posts, and with it part of the memory of the Brazilian cannabis movement were lost. Sought by the Public, it was limited to a single statement: “Even this became another business for lawyers to make money. If they could they would sell Habeas Corpus to use Instagram”, he mocked.
On the night of October 21, the mandate of congresswoman Erika Hilton (PSOL) met online 150 representatives of the cannabis movement. “I step here to give my solidarity and to put my mandate as it has always been open doors so that we jointly and collectively can think of mechanisms to protect the associations, profiles and work that are carried out and more than that we can expand, because this work saves the lives of people”, said the deputy.
After the statement, the debate lengthened for hours. The lawyer Emilio Figueiredo of Rede Reforma pointed out that sometimes some associations commit violations of the Anvisa regulation on advertising of medicines in the networks, and this has already been used against them.
The Public questioned Meta, which did not respond until the publication about the reason for the suspension of profiles. On the night of October 20, sources from the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture said they received a response where the company acknowledged that “made a mistake and took down the accounts even without them having violated Instagram” policies.
In short, they sent a “it was bad, tava doudo”.
