The social network Facebook has censored a photo of onions by deeming it too "sexual"! This particularly surprised the user who published the image and did not fail to provoke the hilarity of Internet users.
Facebook's community standards are getting stricter over the years. Nudity, violence, and hate speech are all prohibited on the social network. But Facebook's algorithm isn't always reliable.
This week, a Canadian store shared a photo to promote their onions. So far, nothing special. But imagine the company's surprise when the social network did not agree to publish the post and reported the post judged "too sexy". The store took this with a lot of humor when recounting their mishap. "We have therefore just been informed by Facebook that the photo used for our Walla Walla onion seed is 'overtly sexual' and cannot be promoted for sale on their platform.", the company wrote in a new post that eventually went viral.
The store manager of the Seed Company Jackson McLean explained to the BBC that was "round shapes " who had alerted the social network. Onions would have been taken for naked breasts. This theory was confirmed by the communications manager of Facebook Canada, Meg Sinclair. "We use automated technology to keep nudity out of our apps, but sometimes it doesn't recognize a Walla Walla Onion from a, well, you know …"Meg Sinclair said during a media briefing. "We have restored the ad and are sorry for the inconvenience to the company.", she added.
Nevertheless, this story made Internet users and society laugh. This Facebook confusion about onions has actually turned into a genius marketing strategy. The company has renamed its onion seeds "sexy onions". They sold more "in the past three days than in the past five years", the store said. This is what you might call a real happy-ending !