Brian Ries, the social media editor for The Daily Beast, posted an article on the site explaining that their Facebook page was shut down over a link they put up. Why? The link went to an article that discussed the controversial painting of Bea Arthur topless by John Currin. Facebook apparently doesn't like "Golden Girls."
The social networking site mistakenly thought the image depicted a real pair of fun bags. The image was flagged by either "a reader, an employee, or a robot working for Facebook." The site ended up being banned from Facebook for a full 24 hours. They were unable to post not only on the company's page but also personal pages as well.
Their Facebook gave them the error message: “account(s) could be permanently disabled if you continue to post things that violate our terms.” Ries writes, "In the end, I was done in by Bea Arthur’s boobs." If we had a nickel every time someone said that.
Being the great journalists they are, they decided to give the big FB a call. A spokeswoman admitted the site had been mistakenly suspended. She claimed that with all the people monitoring the site, there is the occasional slip up. It's too bad that it had to happen to a major news organization.
“As you might expect,” she said, “occasionally, we make a mistake and block a piece of content we shouldn't have.” She said Facebook has an appeals process in place for anyone who thinks they’ve been wrongly banned, and directed me here.
After emails and a phone call, they were back in business. And yes, they were greeted by the image of Bea Arthur topless. By the way, the painting ended up selling yesterday in the biggest auction in history for $1.9 million.
[via DailyBeast]
