Facebook‘s censorship strategy under fire over removal of lesbian kiss snap
Facebook’s censorship rules have been thrust into the spotlight after a seemingly innocuous photo of two women kissing was removed on the grounds that it ‘violated the community’s standards on nudity and pornography’.
To add insult to injury the pic had been uploaded to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia by an Italian woman, Carlotta Trevisan.
The image immediately drew polarised reactions from her circle of friends with some praising it whilst others branded it ‘disgusting’, prompting a series of complaints to be made to the social network.
It was at this point which Facebook actied to demand that Trevisan remove the image, suspending her account for three days when she failed to comply.
Commenting on the incident Trevisan, a gay rights activist, said: “How can they say a kiss, which is something so loving, is nudity or porn?’
In a statement Facebook said their action had been a 'mistake' and Trevisan's account was now back up and running. A spokesperson said: "In an effort to quickly and efficiently process reports we receive, our community operations team reviews many reports every week, and as you might expect, occasionally, we make a mistake and block a piece of content we shouldn¹t have. We can understand how people can be frustrated with this when, as in this case, a mistake happens.”