From Dangerous Minds.
Setting the facts straight on Facebook:
It turns out that the Facebook event for the John Snow Kiss-In was not blocked by Facebook, but made private by the creator of the event itself. Paul Shetler, the organizer, left this comment on the previous thread:
“Hey I just saw this. Before it goes too far, I just want people to know that FB have NOT removed the kiss-in event page; it’s still there, but I made the event private after the event was over and only visible to those who had been invited as there were starting to be trolls posting abusive nonsense on it.”
Well, there's really only one thing to be said here:
"Nevermind!"
The group Dangerous Minds set up a Facebook page to organize a kiss-in protesting a London pub's ejecting of a gay couple. The group soon found their own picture ejected from Facebook. Facebook deleted it, citing: “Shares that contain nudity, or any kind of graphic or sexually suggestive content, are not permitted on Facebook.”
Here's the picture:
Now, I wasn't sure myself if it was "graphic or sexually suggestive" to warrant banning from Facebook. I mean, I thought I'd seen plenty of heterosexuals postings pictures of similar content. [
Update: I was right,
AmericaBlog provides the evidence.] So, I decided I'd post it on my wall and see what people thought.
Oh, I made it my profile pic too. You know, just to see if my friends where shocked.
I guess I wasn't the only one. From the Advocate:
The decision to remove the photo has prompted scores of people to post their own pictures of same-sex couples kissing in protest — dozens in the last few hours alone. Facebook has yet to respond to requests for a comment from administrators overseeing the page.
Looks like Facebook could be busy scrubbing same-sex kisses. They better approve some overtime for this week, they may have some late nights ahead of them coming up.
Update: I am sure they'll be right on the job of getting rid of this smut too. It's shocking! Bring me my smelling salts!
Shocking, the things you find on Facebook!
Updated by Clarknt67 at Mon Apr 18, 2011 at 05:03 PM EDT
Odd, AmericaBlog got a different story from Fackbook:
UPDATE: I just received a statement from Facebook. The photo was removed in error.
"The photo in question does not violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and was removed in error. We apologize for the inconvenience"
I'm inclined to think the conflicting stories reflect Facebook commenting before they had all the facts.
Updated by Clarknt67 at Mon Apr 18, 2011 at 06:00 PM EDT
The story is actually a little more complicated than my oops correction indicates, and could also explain the difference between the correction at AmericaBlog and the on on Dangerous Mind's site. If I had just read further down Setting The Record Straight, I would have seen:
Thanks for clearing that up, Paul. Now if Facebook will only reply to Richard’s query about why they removed my original post and photo when he put it up on his wall…
So it seems Facebook is not entierly faultless. So may bad, Facebook's bad too. hmmmm.....