Facebook has issued an apology after it removed a Swedish cancer charity’s video teaching people how to check their breasts.
The social media site deemed Cancerfonden’s advertisement, which showed animated women checking their breasts for lumps, as offensive.
Communications director for Cancerfonden, Lena Biornstad, told Agence France-Presse: “We find it incomprehensible and strange how one can perceive medical information as offensive.
“This is information that saves lives.”
Facebook has since apologised for the removal of the advert, stating that its team processes millions of advertising images each week and sometimes they get it wrong.
“In some instances we incorrectly prohibit ads,” a spokesperson told The Guardian.
“This image does not violate our ad policies. We apologise for the error and have let the advertiser know we are approving their ads.”
While they waited for Facebook to act, Cancerfonden set about working around the social media site’s strict censorship of breasts and have since released a similar advert, but with square breasts instead.
The charity published an open letter to the site, explaining that they never intended to offend with their breast school examination video.
“We understand that you have to have rules about the content published on your platform,” they wrote. “But you must also understand that one of our main tasks is to disseminate important information about cancer - in this case, breast cancer.
“After trying to meet your control for several days without success, we have now come up with a solution that will hopefully make you happy: Two pink squares!
“We will never abandon our vision - to defeat cancer.”