It’s been a rough month for Facebook. People are still deciding how they feel about the social network tampering with their trending section and now the company is apologizing after deleting an ad depicting a plus-size model for violating their guidelines against certain depictions of body weight.
Facebook removed an ad from Australian feminist group Cherchez La Femme that depicted plus-size model Tess Holliday in a bikini. A representative of the company told the group that “Ads may not depict a state of health or body weight as being perfect or extremely undesirable.”
“Ads like these are not allowed since they make viewers feel bad about themselves,” they added, ending with a suggestion to include a “relevant activity, such as running or riding a bike.”
The ad was for an event celebrating plus-size women, so this response didn’t exactly sit well with the group.
“Facebook has ignored the fact that our event is going to be discussing body positivity (which comes in all shapes and sizes, but in the particular case of our event, fat bodies), and has instead come to the conclusion that we’ve set out to make women feel bad about themselves,” they posted.
They also took Facebook’s advice and posted another plus-size model riding a bike.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1772552296293762/permalink/1775084689373856/?ref=1&action_history=null
Jokes aside, the initial incident stirred up quite a bit of controversy, leading Zuck and Co. to apologize in a statement:
“Our team processes millions of advertising images each week, so we occasionally make mistakes. To be clear, the image complies with our advertising policies. We have now approved the image and apologize for any offense this caused.”
(Via Digiday)
