According to a new report by the Center for Intimacy Justice, these are just a few of many products and services that Facebook rejected.
For the report, Jackie Rotman, the nonprofit organization’s founder, interviewed employees and leaders at more than 35 companies focused on issues related to women’s sexual health — including pelvic pain, menopause, menstruation and fertility — and surveyed dozens more. (The survey was developed in partnership with Origin – a pelvic floor physical therapist company.
According to the Tuesday report, all 60 companies had their ads rejected by Facebook. About half of them claimed that their accounts had been suspended at one point. In most cases, Facebook had labeled the ads as containing “adult content” or promoting “adult products and services.”
In its advertising policies, Facebook says that “ads promoting sexual and reproductive health products or services, like contraception and family planning must be targeted to people 18 years or older and must not focus on sexual pleasure.”
On its website, Facebook provides examples of ads that are not permitted (“buy our sex toys for your adult pleasure”) and those that are (“new moisturizing lube to relieve vaginal dryness on a day to day basis” and “practice safe sex with our brand of condoms”).
Still, Ms. Rotman found many ads targeting men that were accepted by Facebook despite appearing to break the social media platform’s policy: an ad for condoms that promises “pleasure”; one for lubricant (“lotion made just for men’s alone time”); and another for an erectile dysfunction pill that promises a “wet hot American summer.”
“Right now, it’s arbitrary where they’ll say a product is or isn’t allowed in a way that we think has really sexist undertones and a lack of understanding about health,” Ms. Rotman said. She said that it was “a systemic problem” and added that it is especially detrimental to small businesses.
“We welcome ads for sexual wellness products but we prohibit nudity and have specific rules about how these products can be marketed on our platform,” a spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, wrote in an email. “We have provided detail to advertisers about what kinds of products and descriptions we allow in ads.”
A spokesperson for Facebook stated that Facebook makes mistakes when it comes to enforcing its advertising policies. He also said that Facebook has overturned many rejections of ads that some of those companies mentioned in the report.
Joylux, a company that sells menopausal products and supports the pelvic floor, has had difficulty getting ads approved by Facebook.
“Our consumer is a Facebook consumer,” said Colette Courtion, the chief executive of Joylux, who founded the company in 2014. “She’s a 50-year-old woman. Facebook is the best place for her to be educated on menopause-related topics.” Ms. Courtion added that Facebook is Joylux’s top customer-acquisition channel.
But, she said, Joylux employees have long been confused by Facebook’s policies and how they are applied.
“Because of the nature of our product, the look of it,” she said, Facebook and other companies believe it is “pornographic.”
Since 2017, Joylux’s Facebook account has been shut down twice, Ms. Courtion said. The company didn’t tell Ms. Courtion why.
Heather Dazell, the vice president of marketing at Joylux, said she has found that “any ad going directly to our site would be automatically denied because of the word ‘vagina.’”
A spokesperson for Meta said that Facebook does not have a blanket ban on words like “menopause” or “vagina” but considers “how each ad is positioned.”
Joylux has changed its approach to Facebook ads over the years. Despite all the changes Joylux made to its copy, imagery, and copy, many of its ads were rejected during the initial review process. Joylux began working two years ago with an agency that assists the company in appealing ad rejections. Usually, the ads get approved after the appeal.
Ms. Courtion stated that the process is expensive and time-consuming, and that the ads that result are not helpful to consumers. “We can’t show what the product looks like and we can’t say what it does,” she said.
Intimate rose, a Kansas City, Mo. company that sells pelvic-floor weights and vaginal dilators, has also faced similar issues. “We’re normally always rejected,” said Adrienne Fleming, the company’s digital media manager.
She provided several examples, including an ad with a fully clothed, laughing couple (“live, laugh, and love again with pelvic health products from Intimate Rose,” its copy reads). Two other ads featured videos showing women talking about how Intimate Rose weights have helped with their incontinence. Ms. Fleming said all of the ads were rejected because Facebook categorized them as “adult products or services.”
In the adult products section of its commerce policy, Meta gives several examples of items that are banned: “sex toys, sexual enhancement products, sexually oriented adult products such as pornography, or used or worn underwear, images of nudity including partial child nudity, even if not sexual in nature.”
But the policy states that “products such as lubricants or condoms, which do not focus on sexual pleasure or sexual enhancement” are allowed.
In an exchange with Facebook that she shared with The New York Times, Ms. Fleming pointed out that the company’s products are not intended for intercourse or pleasure. The Facebook representative responded by pointing out the commerce policy and saying that the ad had been correctly rejected. He also said that he could not reveal more details about the policy as they could be used in the future to circumvent it.
“It comes down to the reviewer’s judgment,” said Aaron Wilt, one of the founders of Intimate Rose.
Facebook ads are not only used by businesses. RNW Media, a nonprofit in the Netherlands, builds online communities for social change — including Love Matters, which is focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights, and relies on Facebook ads to reach its audience.
According to a report on sustainability of journalism that was presented at 2020’s United Nations Internet Governance Forum, almost 1,800 Love Matters ads were rejected over a period of six years. Most often, the reason was that the ads were categorized as “adult content” or as “sex toys.”
Michael Okun Oliech, the social media director for Love Matters Kenya, said Facebook recently rejected two ads he submitted for promoting an “escort service.” One of them was about consent; the other was about living with H.I.V.
He said that the appeals process takes him anywhere from a week to months and that he rarely has the opportunity to speak with “a real human being.” To avoid rejection, Mr. Okun Oliech has started using slang and substituting fruit emojis for words that describe certain body parts (a tactic that has been successful for companies such as Hims, which sells Viagra).
Charlotte Petty is a human rights specialist at RNW Media and is concerned about the possible consequences of being euphemistic. “There are ways we can mitigate the censorship, but at one point, we’re compromising our own work,” she said.
Facebook’s ad platform has been criticized repeatedly in recent years. In 2018, a Washington Post investigation found that dozens of ads for L.G.B.T.Q.-related events, companies and nonprofits were blocked by the social network because they were deemed “political.” Facebook, which requires advertisers focusing on politics or social issues to go through several additional layers for ad approval, called the majority of the ad rejections a mistake.
Meta announced in November that it would stop advertisers targeting people with ads based on their engagements with content related to health and race, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, and sexual orientation. These tools have been used to discriminate and spam people.
Ms. Rotman hopes that Facebook will quickly act on the issue of sexual health and wellbeing companies. “This is a fixable problem,” she said. “It’s not as complicated as protecting democracy or elections. It’s about finding a way to make sure that women’s health ads aren’t being blocked. It’s simply a matter of Facebook deciding that this is something they’re going to fix.”
Ryan MacContributed reporting
Source: NY Times