Since Facebook tends to come under a lot of fire for things like the fact that it allows lots of really negative ads to be run on its platform ostensibly due to the reason that it wants to earn as much money as possible, it’s not surprising that the social media platform has decided that the best course of action for it to take would be to start clamping down a bit. However, recent ads that have been flagged, removed or prevented from going up in the first place have raised a bit of an uproar surrounding Facebook being a little too harsh.
A digital photo gallery owned by an individual named Mike Hall has been a source of controversy. Many images that are in this gallery end up being blocked from being used in ads. Examples include an image of a cow for being “overtly sexual” as well as images of fireworks for supposedly promoting the use of firearms. Even things as innocuous as ripples on a pond end up getting blocked, with the pond ripples blocked for supposedly promoting “adult content”.
The gist of all of this is that Facebook is most definitely going way too hard in the opposite direction. This has prompted many to criticize the social media platform quite heavily, along with wondering whether or not Facebook is even capable of dealing with issues with any amount of moderation.
There is a chance that this might be an issue with a single account, though, although the fact that the owner of this account ended up having their advertising privileges temporarily suspended is definitely a sign that something in the Facebook algorithm has gone off and that images that have nothing to do with adult or inappropriate content are being prevented from being used in ads.
This is a big deal because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up preventing people from trusting Facebook as a place for ads. The social media platform has already been seeing a decline in engagement and this has already made it inferior to its subsidiary, Instagram. While Facebook certainly won’t mind not being able to earn through its own advertising system so long as its subsidiary is doing well enough, this can still become an even bigger issue down the line.
Photo: SOPA Images via Getty Images
H/T: BBC.
A digital photo gallery owned by an individual named Mike Hall has been a source of controversy. Many images that are in this gallery end up being blocked from being used in ads. Examples include an image of a cow for being “overtly sexual” as well as images of fireworks for supposedly promoting the use of firearms. Even things as innocuous as ripples on a pond end up getting blocked, with the pond ripples blocked for supposedly promoting “adult content”.
This print of the @englandcricket team was banned by Facebook because it was “Overtly Sexual”, along with some cows...but now we’ve sorted that, you can buy it with 10 % off here https://t.co/fnOicqD696 photo by @mikehallfoto pic.twitter.com/xwNwMaHvh7
— Northwall Gallery (@Northwallart) February 9, 2021
The gist of all of this is that Facebook is most definitely going way too hard in the opposite direction. This has prompted many to criticize the social media platform quite heavily, along with wondering whether or not Facebook is even capable of dealing with issues with any amount of moderation.
There is a chance that this might be an issue with a single account, though, although the fact that the owner of this account ended up having their advertising privileges temporarily suspended is definitely a sign that something in the Facebook algorithm has gone off and that images that have nothing to do with adult or inappropriate content are being prevented from being used in ads.
This is a big deal because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up preventing people from trusting Facebook as a place for ads. The social media platform has already been seeing a decline in engagement and this has already made it inferior to its subsidiary, Instagram. While Facebook certainly won’t mind not being able to earn through its own advertising system so long as its subsidiary is doing well enough, this can still become an even bigger issue down the line.
H/T: BBC.
