McDonald's Starts Blocking Marijuana and Cannabis Sites

McDonalds Blocks Weed sites

Why did the Golden Arches Start Blocking Weed Sites?

You would think with all the stoners ordering off the dollar menu at 2am at McDonalds that they would have some leniency toward cannabis sites on their free WIFI networks, but alas, even in 2019, McDonalds have succumb to pressure and started to block cannabis and marijuana sites from their free WIFI network. This should send many a freelance writer into a tizzy, or at least to a Burger King or Wendy’s.

How did it all start? Leading the campaign for a Starbucks WiFi filter was the Internet safety group Enough is Enough. In 2016, as part of its Porn Free WiFi Campaign, now called SAFE WIFI, the group stepped up its efforts to convince big businesses to take the lead and implement filtering technology to enforce acceptable internet usage policies on their free WiFi networks. McDonalds and Starbucks were two such brands that were petitioned Enough is Enough, which is actually a coalition of 75 partner organizations.

More than 50,000 petitions were sent to Starbucks and McDonald’s in 2016, and in response, both agreed to start filtering pornographic web content on their WiFi networks. While McDonald’s acted quickly and started blocking adult content, the Starbucks WiFi filter failed to materialize. The coffee shop chain did implement a WiFi filter in its UK locations, but the Starbucks WiFi filter was not rolled out in other countries.

Since McDonalds took the lead and created a family-friendly free WiFi network, Chick-fil-A has followed suit and has implemented a WiFi filter in its 2,200 restaurants, as have many other restaurant and coffee shop chains. However, two years on and Starbucks has not made good on its promise. The lack of apparent action prompted Enough is Enough to issue a new call for the coffee shop chain to take action. Starbucks announced in 2019 that it would be blocking adult and porn sites at all locations.

Most cannabis sites that do not have the word “cannabis” or “marijuana” in the title URL have been spared so far. Since the keyword is not in the title of the URL, sites such as Weedmaps and Lealfy are still accessible at most McDonalds. If your website has the has the keywords, it will be at greater risk of being blocks as at this stage, it appears to be a keyword setting in the router settings or filter program that is catching the keywords. If you have a weed site like Leafly, which does not have the words “cannabis” or “marijuana” in the title or URL, you may survive longer or until a human does a manual review. The same thing happened to start with porn sites, with obvious keywords being blocked by software programs and then human reviews going through and blocking the sites that were adult content but didn’t have common adult content words in the URL or title.

With Facebook to scared to allow breastfeeding support pages on the site, and McDonalds wanting to keep a family-friendly atmosphere, it is not shocking to hear weed and marijuana sites are being blocked. The freelance writers around the world will have to get a VPN to bypass the settings and upload article or go find a more weed-friendly cannabis coffee shop or burger joint.