Why Facebook Banned This Ad of a Woman Shaving Her Legs
We've all seen stories at this point of Facebook and Instagram banning posts and advertisements that contain nudity. Their reasoning is that it's "adult content" and not suitable for some of their users, which is fair enough, though they sometimes seem to pick and choose which posts to take down. Now, Facebook has removed an ad of a woman shaving, and the creators are totally baffled.
The brand is called Friction Free Shaving and, according to Buzzfeed News, they created the ad in question specifically for Facebook. Ironically, the woman in the video wasn't even filmed nude — she was wearing a nude bikini the whole time, and blue "modesty bars" were edited in to make it look like she was naked. She's depicted doing what the brand calls "shoga," or shaving yoga, rather than anything sexual at all, so they're unclear why Facebook decided the ad needed to be removed.
According to Buzzfeed News, Friction Free Shaving believes the ban on adult content is sexist. They don't believe that women shaving their legs should be taboo, and it definitely shouldn't be sexualized — it certainly wasn't in their ad, and that's not what the modesty bars were there to do, which is clear if you watch the spot. Briar Keen, a co-founder of the startup, told Buzzfeed that the ad was created specifically for Facebook and that because of the ban they are now unable to pay to promote the full-length version or any shorter iterations to the platform, though other users can post it organically if they wish to do so. She said, "It seems totally arbitrary, I don't know why they don't just follow the ASA. I understand that they won't run things that are really sexual, but this so isn't sexual. It's about women shaving."
A Facebook spokesperson, meanwhile, told Buzzfeed News, "In this instance, the ad was initially rejected for containing implied nudity. We are working with the advertiser to find a solution that is compliant with our advertising policies."
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