*** Sooz edit: changed thread title from op title to include more problems.

Facebook needs to rethink how it categorizes "advertising" ~ especially in light of what it does allow ~ ~ Sooz

Facebook Rejects Breast Cancer Ad For Violating Ban Against ‘Adult Products’
By Igor Volsky on May 25, 2013 at 11:34 am

Facebook rejected an ad this week that disputed scientifically unsound claims that abortion can cause higher instances of breast cancer, arguing that the advertisement violated the company’s guidelines “by advertising adult products or services, including toys, videos, or sexual enhancement products.” The news comes as a coalition of sexual violence prevention and women’s equality organizations are pressuring Facebook to take a stronger stance in favor of women’s health and crackdown against messages that “trivialize or glorify” violence against women.

“I’m a big supporter of that campaign,” Michelle Kinsey Bruns, the online manager of Women’s Media Center and the creator of the ad, told ThinkProgress in a telephone interview on Saturday morning. The ad linked to a page on the National Cancer Institute website reassuring women that “having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer.”

The rejected ad via Kinsey Bruns’ Twitter handle @ClinicEscort:


Kinsey Bruns said she expected Facebook to disapprove of the ad, but submitted it anyway to highlight what she described as “the absolute inconsistency that Facebook is willing to apply to a woman’s body as an object of violence, but a woman’s body as a medical object is too scandalous to be approved.”

Indeed, the company has come under criticism for removing images of “mastectomies, breastfeeding mothers, and other non-sexualized depictions of women’s bodies” and labeling them as “pornographic,” while allowing photographs and forums that make light of abusing and raping women. That content often falls under the “humor” section of Facebook’s content guidelines. Activists are encouraging companies that advertise with Facebook to boycott the company until they can be assured their ads will not appear next to content that promotes sexual violence and abuse.

Kinsey Bruns submitted a similar breast cancer ad last year, with an illustration of a woman touching her breast, but it too was rejected. She says she plans to experiment more with the company’s guidelines, posting ads with celebrities like Nicki Minaj in outrageous clothing or showing “sideboob” to test the boundaries and inconsistencies of the media giant’s standards.

Facebook’s Advertising Guidelines state, “Ads may not promote the sale or use of adult products or services, including but not limited to toys, videos, publications, live shows, or sexual enhancement products. Ads for family planning and contraception are allowed provided they follow the appropriate targeting requirements.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/25/2062361/facebook-rejects-breast-cancer-ad-for-violating-ban-against-039adult-products039/

It sounds like the ad may have been rejected automatically by a computer program that scanned the word "breast".

Has the ad sponsor tried contacting Facebook to speak with a live person?

Facebook needs to take a very serious look at its "policies" ~ yes, there are 1st Amendment issues BUT there is also a common decency standard ~ I have a well-developed/somewhat warped sense of humor, but I see nothing even remotely funny in the example below ~ bolding/emphasis below is mine ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

13 Companies Drop Facebook Advertising Over Domestic Violence Content
By Rebecca Leber on May 28, 2013 at 9:09 am


Last week, activists launched a campaign that urged companies to boycott Facebook advertising because the social media network allows users to post images of domestic violence against women, while banning advertisements about women’s health. More than a dozen companies have pulled their advertising as a result, including online bank Nationwide UK, Nissan UK, and J Street.

Many larger companies have been slower to respond, including two companies that market brands specifically to women. Dove, a Unilever brand that is running a “self-esteem” ad campaign for women, is facing pressure on Twitter, while Procter & Gamble’s response was, “We can’t control what content they [our advertising] pops up next to. Obviously it’s a shame that our ad happened to pop up next to it.”

Zappos replied that users who are upset by an ad appearing next to a date rape image “click the X to delete the ad.” Though Zipcar has not stopped advertising it “expressed to Facebook the critical need to block this content from appearing.” And Audible.com has responded that it will not take down advertising, because it “takes pride in and respects the rules that govern our Facebook community.”

Facebook’s rules, however, appear to be enforced unevenly. A Facebook spokesperson told ThinkProgress that content featuring battered women, rape, and violence falls under “poor taste” or “crude attempts at humor” and does not violate its policies. And while Facebook screens anti-Semitic, Islamaphobic, and homophobic hate speech, the same standards do not apply to images of violence against women. At the same time, Facebook rejected an ad about breast cancer because it showed a woman’s breast.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/28/2064461/13-companies-drop-facebook-advertising-over-domestic-violence-content/

Terrific news! ~ obviously, losing advertisers is strong "encouragement" to "do better" ~ emphasis/bolding below is in the original, along with "live links" to more/corroborating information ~ Sooz

BREAKING: Facebook Promises To Take Action On Domestic Violence Content
By Rebecca Leber on May 28, 2013 at 5:30 pm

Seven days after Women Action and the Media, the Everyday Sexism Project and activist Soraya Chemaly called on Facebook to remove content that condones hate speech and violence against women, Facebook responded that it will update its policies that add a new emphasis to taking domestic violence seriously.

The company promises to complete a review of its community standards on hate speech, update training for the staff that review harmful content, increase accountability for the creators of the content, and establish new partnerships with women’s rights groups. Additionally, Facebook will encourage international anti-defamation groups it works with to include women’s groups in their conversations.

Here is an excerpt of Facebook’s statement:


By Tuesday afternoon, 15 companies announced they had pulled their advertising and at least a dozen more were reviewing their advertising on the platform. While Facebook has already made commitments to actively review hate speech, domestic violence did not fall under the same criteria until today.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/28/2070411/breaking-facebook-promises-to-take-action-on-domestic-violence-content/

"promising" isn't the same as "doing".

Facebook was stonewalling before the mini-boycott by advertisers began ~ that mini-boycott is what got its attention ~ so I'm willing to give Facebook some time [not much, but some] to put the wheels in motion now that they've publicly announced they "need to do better ... and will" ~

Sooz

Another circle jerk, They'll do as little as they can get away with - like most corporatists.

Facebook is becoming an unmanageable behemoth.

I read the other day that young people are leaving or abandoning Facebook in droves because of all the adults using it. lol!

Nothing a teen hates worse than their parents doing the same thing they are doing. Clothing, music and online activity. Once the parents join in on any of it or seem to enjoy it, it becomes verboten.

I quit it. One depressing thing about it was old folks trying to stay relevant by posting and "liking", etc.

Facebook was abandoned a few years ago by the young and hip. Now they are leaving Twitter and going underground on Snapchat, and other things that are fleeting and leave less of a trial for adults to follow.
People like me are now leaving Facebook because of the advertising and because our friends are just reposting offensive political statements and photos without really knowing or exploring their meaning. I am disappointed at how stupid some of my friends and relatives really are.

I didn't like inadvertently following my family members on facebook. TMI.

I still get important information from it though. Invites to CEU classes etc.

So we all should pretend to like gangsta rap music?

Worth a try jim. lol

How Facebook Learned Rape is Bad for Business
Posted: 05/30/2013 12:46 pm
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Facebook, #Fbrape, American Express, Glenford Canning, Rethaeh Parsons, Sheryl Sandberg, Soraya Chemaly, Amanda Todd, Disney, Dove, Dove Real Beauty, Everyday Sexism, Nissan, Wam, Canada British Columbia News

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For years Facebook has maintained an imperious and stony silence against pleas from users and victims about its most objectionable content. Not a word when Amanda Todd took her life after being relentlessly stalked and blackmailed by a sexual predator on Facebook. Even the suicides of teens Rehtaeh Parsons and Audrie Pott (whose gang-rapes were posted to Facebook) brought no response from the $60 billion company.

But on May 27th, Facebook finally flinched. And then it cratered, caved and capitulated in the course of a single phone call after a one-week #fbrape campaign by the smartest feminists on the planet.

The Scent of a Dollar

In the end, it was all about the money.

WAM (Women Action Media), feminist Soraya Chemaly and Everyday Sexism in the UK took direct aim at Facebook's advertising revenue stream. They publicly showed major advertisers their own paid ads prominently displayed (Trigger Warning) on horrific rape-oriented Facebook pages. The most objectionable content can't ever be shown, but it includes graphic images of gore and horror, beaten children, naked children, women bound and gagged, or thrown down stairs. All supported by advertising dollars of the world's best-known brands.

It was too much for Nissan and the insurance giant Nationwide, which both pulled their ads immediately. Organizers then aimed a blistering barrage of social media messages to Dove, American Express, ZipCar and other brands, demanding that they too withdraw their ads. Twitter and Facebook were used to spread some 60,000 messages and 5,000 emails.

Followers of the campaign fanned out as if in a coordinated strategy. They disseminated the location of Facebook's upcoming shareholder meeting on June 11, and the names of all its major advertisers, including Disney and McDonalds.

Some tweeted at major financial writers for Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, the New York Times and others. Major business media and financial analysts were asked to comment on the potential damage to Facebook's share value if the advertiser exodus snow-balled. Others searched for and found a bottomless pit of violent rape-promoting content, all screen-capped on Facebook with major brand advertising. Then Amanda Todd's mother Carol and Rehtaeh Parson's father Glenford Canning joined the campaign.

Which Straw Broke the Camel's Back?

We won't ever know which straw broke the camel's back. It may have been the ruthless and caustic assault on Dove's Real Beauty brand, which suffered real damage when the company failed to respond. Or maybe it was the personal pressure on Sheryl Sandberg, currently promoting her soft feminist message book, Lean In.

Whatever it was, by the time Glenford Canning's moving blog post to Mark Zuckerberg appeared on Huffington Post, Facebook was on the phone to campaign organizers, agreeing to every term demanded from the outset.

Yet compared with many online campaigns, the #fbrape campaign was not that large, and failed to garner mainstream media attention until after the battle was won.

Why did Facebook move so swiftly to staunch the bleeding? To put it simply, it had to.

Advertising dollars are the octane that fuels Facebook. The #fbrape campaign organizers seized on the key paradox and gaping vulnerability in the advertising model. Although monetized like a titanic broadcast network, Facebook's content ethic is actually stuck on frat-boy setting. A striking mismatch exists between the chaos generated by a billion content up-loaders and the brand discipline demanded by multi-billion dollar advertisers.

No advertiser can risk having its brand associated with violent rape, gore, or child abuse porn, all of which are widely disseminated on Facebook by an army of trolls and goons.

Facebook's Back Against the Wall

On June 11th, the world's media will descend on San Francisco for Facebook's first shareholder meeting. Picture the PR disaster of them being met by a pandemonium of mothers brandishing giant placards of Rethaeh Parsons, Amanda Todd, and rape victims bound and gagged -- all displaying Facebook advertising by American Express and Dove. That's only one possible scenario of many.

The potential damage is breathtaking, and mainstream media would probably relish nothing more than a takedown of their Internet nemesis.

The WAM/EverydaySexism partnership grasped all of this. Facebook's back was against the wall, and both sides knew it. The #fbrape campaign was a spectacular act of free market political theatre, executed to perfection.

The future of course is unpredictable. Whether Facebook can actually assert the needed control over its site is far from certain. But the #fbrape campaign demonstrated was that failure to do so can still inflict a mortal wound on the company.

On May 27th, women won the Internet.



Follow Sandy Garossino on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Garossino

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/sandy-garo ... 57187.html

Yay for social sites!!! They are powerful and swift. I am more impressed than ever and glad that social media has a social concience. More people than you realize have taken to Facebook and Twitter to effect social changes. They aren't the hook-up or celebrity whine/slam fest sites like they once were. It's GREAT!!

I had a discussion about this on another board. I have seen newspaper articles and the like making this claim, but when you check on their reference (a Pew results page), that's not quite what the Pew page says. The Pew page says that "many" (it doesn't tell us how many is many!) teens in a focus group expressed that they don't like so many adults participating on Facebook -- but nevertheless, they are continuing to participate on Facebook because that's where all their friends are!

---

An article on Mashable says:

Teens Getting Tired of Facebook Drama, Pew Survey Finds

Though Facebook is still the most popular social network among teens, their enthusiasm for Mark Zuckerberg's network is decreasing, according to new findings from the Pew Research Center.

---

But if you read the cited Pew Survey Results, it talks about "many teens" in "focus groups" -- not a scientific survey of all the teens that use Facebook. How much is "many"? If they interview 100 teens in a focus group, 12 teens might say they are getting tired of Facebook. 12 could be many. And note the last sentence: "Nevertheless, ... teens feel they need to stay on Facebook in order to not miss out."

Here is what it says:

---

Note that the "many teens" were teens in a focus group -- and they are nevertheless staying with Facebook! Nobody is leaving! Sites such as Google Plus and Hi5 have tried to create similar sites to Facebook, but they have not had the kind of success that Facebook has. I think Facebook is here to stay -- at least for the foreseeable future.