In what seems to have been a very unfortunate mix-up on Facebook’s behalf, an image of a plus-sized model was taken down from an event page for “promoting an idealized physical image” therefore breaching Facebook’s image and ad rules.
The photo was of model Tess Holliday, who has never backed down from putting her haters and shamers on blast. In the image, she is rocking a bikini and smiling, looking carefree and happy.
Cherchez la Femme, an Australian feminist talk show, published the photo to publicize an event titled “Feminism and Fat.” What appears to have been a talk on body positivity and feminism got more attention than likely thought possible because of an image-filtering mistake on Facebook’s behalf.
Facebook responded to outcry about the image being taken down by restoring the photo and stating to Cosmopolitan that, “Our team processes millions of advertising images each week, and in some instances we incorrectly prohibit ads.” It’s impossible to know whether this was an honest mistake or not, as Facebook’s image policy has erred on the side of poor (and, frankly, sexist) in the past.
Hopefully this was just a case of human error and not someone’s idea of a very cruel joke or a case of body shaming. Fat feminism is a very important form of feminism that, due to severe, stringent body standards and cultural codes, faces shame all on its own without mistakes like this being made.
If anything positive can be made of this situation, it is that, hopefully, now more people are talking about fat and feminism, and how feminism only has momentum to gain by including individuals of all types!