Facebook has taken down a picture of two girls’ tongues touching. The site has also already apologized for the “mistake.” Sounds familiar? That’s because it’s all happened before, at least twice.
The picture is a promotional photo for a new Greek film called Attenberg, which is currently running Sweden.
The film’s distributor in that country uploaded this picture to the film’s official Facebook page, but the social network quickly rejected it.
And here we are, talking about it. Seems like the promotional stunt worked even better this way, doesn’t it?
Although gay blog Queerty points out that the picture continues to be part of the film’s Facebook page, it seems that it has been taken down now. The profile picture for the film currently shows part of a nude woman’s back. Someone’s bound to find that picture too suggestive. But will Facebook object to it as well?
Because that’s the issue: not that a user will report a photograph here and there, but that someone at Facebook approves the reporting by a site’s member and creates unnecessary controversy for the brand.
In 2008, Facebook gained a lot of negative press for taking down photos of a woman breast feeding her child. At the time, Facebook explained that only those photos that showed the entire breast were asked to be taken down, but the debate continued.
Last month’s beef surrounding a picture of two men kissing at a park created even bigger waves. After Facebook pulled down the photo, the story went viral and a Facebook event condemning the decision gathered almost 50,000 fans in hours. Facebook then apologized for “erroneously” taking the picture down, admitting that the picture didn’t actually violate its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.
The social network is already apologizing for pulling down the above photo, according to the blog Jezebel.
Andrew Noyes, a communications manager at Facebook, released the following statement: “Upon investigation, we concluded the advertisement does not violate our guidelines and was removed in error. The ad is now running and we apologize for the inconvenience.”
What policies or mechanisms do you think might improve Facebook’s monitoring of the site’s own Statement of Rights and Responsibilities? Or is this kind of misunderstanding bound to continue happening?
No comments:
Post a Comment