The 45-year old British woman posted pics of her mastectomy scars to her Facebook profile to educate other women, then found Facebook had removed them based on the site's policy of removing "sexual content". A Facebook group called "GET SHARON ADAMS PICTURE BACK ON FACEBOOK FOR BREAST CANCER" was formed to protest against the photo removal, and Facebook has now reversed its decision. The company explained:
We’ve investigated this further and determined that we made a mistake in removing these photos. Our User Operations team reviews thousands of reported photos a day and may occasionally remove something that doesn’t actually violate our policies. This is what happened here. We apologise for the mistake and encourage Sharon to upload these photos again if she so chooses.
The incident echoes another major controversy on Facebook: the banning of breast-feeding photos if they show the nipple or areola, as this 2008 report from MSNBC explains. Will Facebook now see sense and reverse that decision too?
Clearly Facebook is missing the point: that partial nudity is not always sexual, it's simply a matter of context. No reasonable person would say breast feeding images are in any way sexual, and yet Facebook's rule book seems to miss these nuances. If Facebook accepts that mastectomy images are not sexual, can we also have Facebook acknowledge that the same applies to breast-feeding images?
Facebook is equally conflicted on Holocaust denial groups: while some are removed, it allows others to exist under the inexplicable theory that Holocaust denial is not necessarily antisemitic.
Facebook may have successfully expanded beyond its college roots, but its content policies remain woefully immature.