Facebook under fire for removing breast cancer awareness video

Facebook has issued an apology for removing a video posted by a Swedish cancer society that showed women how to check their breasts for lumps.

The Swedish Cancer Society said Thursday that the video, showing animated figures of women with pink circle-shaped breasts, had been removed because Facebook said it was “offensive.”

Help us improve Globalnews.ca

Take the survey now!

“We find it incomprehensible and strange how one can perceive medical information as offensive,” Cancerfonden’s communication director Lena Biornstad told Agence France-Presse.

READ MORE: Facebook denies censoring conservative content

Cancerfonden wrote an open letter to Facebook saying that while they understand the need to remove some graphic imagery, their video was important and potentially life-saving.

When the video was banned, the cancer society decided to come up with a solution: Instead of using pink circles to illustrate breasts, they uploaded a new video and used pink squares.

Facebook later apologized for the “mistake.”

“We’re very sorry, our team processes millions of advertising images each week, and in some instances we incorrectly prohibit ads,” Facebook wrote in a statement.

“This image does not violate our ad policies. We apologise for the error and have let the advertiser know we are approving their ads.”

Facebook’s policy states advertising can’t have “nudity, depictions of people in explicit or suggestive positions, or activities that are overly suggestive or sexually provocative.”

But this isn’t the first time the social media site has been under fire.

READ MORE: Norway’s PM attacks Facebook over ‘censorship’ of iconic napalm girl photo

In September, they removed the historic Vietnam War photo of the “napalm girl” published by a Newspaper in Norway saying it showed nudity.

On Friday morning, Cancerfonden said it would be allowed to show their breast cancer awareness ad again on Facebook.

“We are very pleased that we can continue this important dissemination activity. Thank you to everyone who got involved in the issue,” they wrote on Twitter.