Tag Archives: censorship of sex education

If Facebook Can Block Sex Ads, They Can Block Political Ads Sponsored by Russians

Ladies, don’t let Mark Zuckerberg fool you. He  didn’t make an innocent mistake when he let Facebook post hundreds of thousands of fake political ads purchased by the Russians.  He and his Facebook company knew exactly what they were doing.

How do I know this? Because I am the creator of SuzyKnew! and throughout the years I have tried to advertise on Facebook.  But, you know what? A very large number of SuzyKnew! ads have been turned down because they contain sexual content. Advertising on Facebook is not that easy, especially if you are a reproductive health and sexual education site. My ads have been turned down so many times at times I felt like giving up the whole idea of using Facebook to reach you ladies.

Here is the email I would get:

Thanks for advertising with Facebook. We have reviewed your ad(s) and determined that the one or more of them do not meet our guidelines. We recommend that you view the details below and revise the indicated ad as necessary before submitting additional ads. Please note that you may receive separate emails for each ad disapproved in your account.
Disapproved Ad
SuzyKnew

In case you didn’t get a Valentine, here is some love and GOOD sense from SuzyKnew

Ad Disapproval Reason(s):
The content promoted in this ad is not permitted on Facebook. We reserve the right to choose the advertisements that appear on the site, and ads for this product or service should not be resubmitted. Please visit our Help Center for more specific information.
If you have further questions, please consult our Terms of Use and Advertising Guidelines, and our Common Ad Mistakes tutorial.
Thanks again for advertising with Facebook Ads.
Sincerely,

The Facebook Ads Team

Why? Because Facebook knows how to sniff out anything sexual – and kill it.  So, why didn’t they kill Russians advertising during the 2016 election? Don’t they value and want to protect American and other democracies around the world? Mark  – a Harvard student – must have had a civics class where he learned permitting foreigners to interfere in U.S. elections is illegal.  I don’t buy all this “I made a mistake” on the Hill and “Facebook isn’t a publisher or esponsible for content.” Are we all of a sudden supposed to think a man the world considers so brillant is so stupid?

I’ve noticed that Facebook hasn’t been accused of promoting pornography or adult content which has merit but at the same time it has done a disservice to sexual and reproductive health, especially for women.  SuzyKnew! isn’t alone. Other sexual education organizations have complained about the same issue.  So much so, The Atlantic wrote an article about social media companies censoring sex education campaigns.

Not only are U.S. democratic values not important enough for Facebook to protect but neither is women’s health.

Photo: courtesy of Time Magazine