Think Naturists are hard done by when it comes to images on social media..?
The Gaze Seed Company were hoping to advertise their onion seeds on Facebook but their advert was picked up by the infamous algorithm and flagged as a “product with overtly sexualised positioning” .
The advert included a picture of how Gaze Onion seeds should look once grown, ie, like....onions. Facebook sent the company a message advising them that "Listings may not position products or services in a sexually suggestive manner”.
Gaze had prepared the advert for its spring advertising campaign but after they recovered from the unwarranted rebuff, they reported the faux pas to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and sent some illustrations of what the algorithm might have thought it was seeing. The result was they got a darn site more publicity than the Facebook ad would have given them.
Facebook Canada put their hands up and explained to the National Post “We use automated technology to keep nudity off our apps, but sometimes it doesn’t know a walla walla onion from a, well, you know. We restored the ad and are sorry for the business’ trouble.”
The Facebook algorithms identifies and removes over 40 million items per year. Including pictures of statues and other items of fruit and veg.
Photo by Lars Blankers on Unsplash