The organisers of a Melbourne-based event were shocked by Facebook’s decision to decline to boost an event post stating “health and fitness” as the reason.
The live monthly talk show, Cherchez la Femme, is highlighting the issue of “feminism and fat” at its upcoming event. They’ll discuss all things about the curvier form including fat acceptance, “fatshion”, and fat activism from a feminist, body-positive angle.
Their poster girl is the Rubenesque self-loving plus sized model, Tess Holliday, but unfortunately for Cherchez la Femme, Facebook didn’t dig on Tess’ curves and declined the request to boost the post.
The group were so angered by the decision that they screen-shotted the response from the Facebook ads team after their ruling was queried.
“The image depicts a body or body parts in an undesirable manner,” the ad team explains in its rejection message.
“Ads like these are not allowed since they make viewers feel bad about themselves. Instead, we recommend using an image of a relevant activity, such as running or riding a bike.”
Well, that’s just silly Facebook. How can you promote fat acceptance with a picture of someone going for a trot? Is that truly relevant?
Either way, Cherchez la Femme took the advice on board and uploaded an image of Tess going for a casual bike ride.
Since the major backlash, Facebook has now approved the ad. They said in a statement: “Our team processes millions of advertising images each week, and in some instances we incorrectly prohibit ads. This image does not violate our ad policies. We apologise for the error and have let the advertiser know we are approving their ad.”
But it’s not the first time that the Facebook guidelines have proved one sided.
Men were free to write lewd and threatening things columnist and “humanist”, Clem Ford’s page, while she received Facebook bans for retaliation… or when Celeste Liddle was banned from posting images of bare-chested indigenous ladies.
Meanwhile, sexist and racist memes flood our newsfeeds sending the message that Facebook is on board if you want to tear women down, but just don’t dare try to build them up.
