FaceBook Ban -They don’t like Nipples

So, I was browsing through my Facebook feed on my phone last night when I was suddenly logged out of the app and out of Messenger. “Bit odd,” I thought, so I tried to log back in but once I’d done that the feed failed to load.

I gave it a couple of hours, then fired up my laptop to do some writing, but before that I logged into Facebook on there, only to be told I was banned from posting for 24 hours for posting something that violated “Facebook Community Standards”.

“But I haven’t posted anything today,” I said to myself (since I was the only one in the room). I know I haven’t been hacked, because…

  • a)I’m not that stupid
  • b) there was no unusual activity or anything I didn’t recognise in my activity log.

Then it dawned on me. “Oh, wait, I did some reblogs on Tumblr earlier.”

There are two ways to reblog on the Tumblr app on Android. First, you can long press the reblog button and then swipe to which blog you want to reblog to. Or you can tap the reblog button if you want to add a comment or also post the reblog to Facebook/Twitter as well as Tumblr.

And I realised that the Facebook logo was blue instead of greyed out the last time I’d done that, meaning I’d sent a photo to Facebook that hadn’t ought to have gone there. Because Facebook is allergic to nipples.

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Seriously, this is the photo I reblogged yesterday that is appearing on my twitter feed (proving I used the ‘slow’ reblog method) but isn’t on my Facebook, meaning it must be the thing they removed as all my other posts that I remember posting recently are there.

It’s just a picture of an attractive lady in her underwear, and I see these all the time on Facebook. But what is ‘different’ about this one is that one of her nipples is exposed.

And Facebook doesn’t like nipples. Well, female nipples. Male nipples are fine. Apparently.

Seriously, google “why doesn’t facebook like nipples” and read some of the articles that pop up. It’s ludicrous. Facebook has an inbuilt fear of female nipples, but welcome’s male nipples with open arms.

Interestingly, one of the related searches Google suggests is “facebook community standards are a joke” which I’d have to agree with, to be honest. They are a joke.

And it’s not just Facebook. Instagram is just as bad. Take a look at this post by a university art professor…

It was actually edited by Instagram, not by @unicornkiller1, to cover up her nipples. Not her breasts, her nipples. And just her nipples. The two guys standing with her didn’t get their nips edited out.

For their part, Instagram actually blames Apple for the War on Nipples according to this article, but as you’ll read, that makes no sense in the context of Twitter allowing nipples and a hell of a lot more.

What’s interesting for me though is how this ban came around. I reblogged the image above about 18 hours ago as I type this. And my 24-hour ban from Facebook ends in about 6 hours as I type. So that means the ban came into force pretty much as soon as I accidentally sent the reblog to Facebook.

There’s no way that anyone could have reported the image that quickly, so that means Facebook must have some sort of nipple-recognition algorithm that the image got caught in.

And that’s quite a scary thought.

It’s by complete coincidence, however, that this weekend I’ve been writing scenes for The Truths We Live in which Bobby discusses the use of Social Media to promote himself as a pornstar. A new character, Gail, informs him that he needs to be careful about what he posts on Facebook as they have very strict rules.

Bobby responds with, “Doesn’t sound ideal for porn stars.”

And he’s right. How many pornstars have you seen on Facebook? I don’t remember seeing many. You see them on Instagram being careful not to post anything too offensive, like a nipple, but they are all over Twitter posting all sorts of stuff.

Either way. I’ve learned a lesson. Make sure that the Facebook logo is greyed out when I reblog on Tumblr. Lest I get nipple-banned again.

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