Facebook has apologized after accidentally banning an ad featuring a photo of plus-size model Tess Holliday wearing a bikini.
The social network originally said that the photo depicted "body parts in an undesirable manner," but later told the BBC that banning the ad has been a mistake and it has now approved it.
The image featuring Tess Holliday wearing a bikini was used by the Australian feminist group Cherchez la Femme to promote an event called "Feminism and Fat." Holliday is size 22 and 5 feet, 5 inches tall. She has a contract signed with MiLK Model Management in London, being known as the first model of her size and height of having a contract with a major modeling agency.
Business Insider reports that Facebook prevented the photo from being used in a Sponsored Post rather than removing it from the site. According to a copy of the message received and posted to the Facebook page of the group Cherchez la Femme, the Facebook ad teams declared that the image violated the company's "health and fitness" advertising policy.
Jessamy Gleeson, an organizer of the feminist group, told The Guardian that they believe Facebook's attitude was isolating, horrible and alienating. She added that Facebook needs to understand that the group is using photos "of fat women to promote women being happy."
The event organized by the group Cherchez la Femme was aimed to promote body positivity for people of all sizes. The feminist group asked its followers to promote the event on June 7 by sharing their post.
Facebook said in its message that this kind of ads are not allowed on their social media network "since they make viewers feel bad about themselves." However, later on Facebook backtracked and issued an apology.
The social media network said in a statement that their team has to process millions of advertising images each week. For this reason, they incorrectly prohibit ads in some instances. They apologized for the error, saying that the photo in cause did not violate their ad policies; therefore, they are approving the ad.
