First they came for the conservatives — then they went after the plus-sized models.
Facebook on Monday reversed its decision to ban an ad showing a size 26 woman wearing a bikini, initially claiming the image was a violation of its health and safety standards.
The social media site apologized Monday for banning the snap of Tess Holliday, a model who is an outspoken critic of body shamers — reversing its previous statement that it went against the guidelines that prohibit displaying “body parts in an undesirable manner.”
“Our team processes millions of advertising images each week, and in some instances we incorrectly prohibit ads,” Facebook said in a statement. “This image does not violate our ad policies. We apologize for the error and have let the advertiser know we are approving their ad.”
The apology comes after Facebook refused to promote a June conference hosted by Cherez la Femme, a feminist Australian group, called “Feminism and Fat.”
When the group tried to pay to boost the post to get more people to register last week, Facebook denied it and told them they would have to remove the image and resubmit the event for approval.
“Ads may not depict a state of health or body weight as being perfect or extremely undesirable,” Facebook wrote. “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.”
Three of the event’s hosts took to the Cherchez la Femme Facebook page Thursday to air their frustrations.
“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 by posting an image of a wonderful plus sized woman,” they wrote.
They added, “We’re raging pretty hard over here – both because Facebook seemingly has no idea that plus sized, self describing fat women can feel great about themselves, and also because we haven’t been able to boost the original damn post.”
The fat-shaming incident comes after Facebook came under fire when former employees accused the site of intentionally downplaying conservative news by limiting its appearance on the Trending Topics section.
Facebook has since launched an internal investigation into the site’s practices and founder Mark Zuckerberg sat down with conservative figures, including Glenn Beck, last week.