April 18, 2011

Breach of Decency.



Richard Metzger @ Dangerous Minds recently received a rather puzzling e-mail from Facebook, informing him that a photo his site posted on Facebook had been removed for violating “Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,” which prohibits “shares that contain nudity, or any kind of graphic or sexually suggestive content.”

The photo in question? Two men kissing (above).

It gets worse: the photo was associated with a post on his site concerning a London-based “kiss-in” organized to protest the mistreatment of two gay patrons of The John Snow pub — a protest which originated on Facebook. The John Snow protest page has since been removed as well.

Facebook, by the way, does not respond to violation reports with an automatic removal, or so they say.  According to the Facebook Help Center, an administrator “looks into each report thoroughly in order to decide the appropriate course of action,” only removing the offending content if a violation has occurred.

So make of that what you will.

No comments: