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Facebook Admits Mistake Over 'Controversial' Photo of Baby Without a Nose

Brandi McGlathery and her son Eli, who was born without a nose. (Photo: Brandi McGlathery)

Facebook has reversed its decision to ban an ad that featured a photo of a baby born without a nose after public protest.

“The photo in question is not in violation of our advertising policies or our community standards,” a Facebook spokesperson tells Yahoo Parenting. “The ad was mistakenly disapproved by a reviewer when it was initially submitted. When the advertiser challenged the disapproval, we corrected the error.”

Baby Eli’s photo has been circulating the Internet since he was born, at 37 weeks, on Mar. 4 in Alabama. The boy has congenital arhinia, a condition so rare that doctors told mom Brandi McGlathery it has a “1 in 10 billion” chance of occurring (currently there are only 41 known cases worldwide). And although Eli has a nasal bone, he lacks nasal passages and sinus cavities, so building a new nose with plastic surgery isn’t an option. Regardless, McGlathery and boyfriend Troy Thompson (Eli’s father), who have another healthy son, say their newest addition is “perfect.”

Two days after Eli was born, McGlathery, a stay-at-home mom, created a GoFundMe page to raise money for Eli’s medical expenses — and as of Thursday, it had raised nearly $45,000, surpassing its $5,000 goal. She posted a link to the page to Facebook, along with a photo of Eli.

 

Baby Eli who was born without a nose. Facebook banned an ad that featured a photo of him, then reversed its decision.

However, when a pro-life group tried to promote the story on Facebook as part of an ad campaign, the social media site removed it, calling the photo “controversial” and “shocking,” despite its racking up more than 110K likes. When McGlathery heard that her son’s image was banned, she told Alabama local news station WKRG, “I posted the status with a link about it saying no one’s going to keep me from posting photos of my child. If I can see completely distasteful things on Facebook all day long, then I can post a picture of my son.”

News of the Facebook ban spread, being shared 30,000 times in six hours on the social network. And after enough people complained to Facebook, the company lifted the ban. Yahoo Parenting could not reach McGlathery for comment.

Facebook has a history of being inconsistent when it comes to content it deems offensive: In 2011, it banned a photo of two men kissing for “nudity, or any kind of graphic or sexually suggestive content,” then apologized after public protest. The site had also been fickle about allowing beheading videos to be published (it ultimately banned them) and it blocked a Russian page that promoted an antigovernment protest, but allowed “copycat” pages to remain, according to the New York Times.

Back in March, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg clarified his company’s stance. What’s not allowed: Content that promotes suicide, eating disorders, or bullying. Some images of female breasts are banned if nipples are exposed but shots of woman “actively engaged in breastfeeding” are okay. On nudity, Facebook’s Help Team states, “We remove photographs of people displaying genitals or focusing in on fully exposed buttocks.” But Kim Kardashian’s bare butt is all over the site, courtesy of shares featuring her photo shoots with Love and Paper magazines.

“As a fairly new company, Facebook wants to be nimble and adapt to a changing marketplace of millennials who tend to share everything but it doesn’t want to shock like sites Reddit and 4Chan,” Caroline Knorr, parenting editor at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit dedicated to educating families about technology, tells Yahoo Parenting. “It also walks a fine line between being a content provider or a host that facilitates the sharing of information so the rules are not always clear. And because of that, it will change its security, privacy, and terms of service often.”

Parents should know that new websites that are also free are subject to company terms which change on a whim, and don’t always maintain the user’s best interests. Social media has changed the way people communicate and receive news, but ultimately, sites like Facebook exist to make money off users by selling their data to marketers. “When parents upload photos of their children, they don’t really own that photo anymore,” says Knorr. “It’s something to consider.”

For those who can’t resist posting photos of their children on Facebook, there’s Scrapbook, a new feature that allows parents to tag their children to a specific page (rather than the news feed). It also prevents anyone from tagging the photos except the child’s parents. When the child turns 13, he or she will have ownership over their scrapbook. And that, of course, is when all hell breaks loose.