These days, the controversy surrounding the blocking on Instagram of the poster of Almodóvar’s new film, Madres Paralelas, has caused quite a stir. On August 9, he released the poster of the new film on his social networks. The image showed a black and white breast with a nursing nipple in the shape of an eye and a drop of milk that was, at the same time, a tear. Too much for censoring algorithms.
But the truth is that a few months ago we were able to witness an even more bizarre episode of censorship. In recent years, thousands of complaints have been seen among Facebook users for censoring artistic nudity or nipples (although, curiously, only female ones). In this way, the social network has come to censor images of works of art including paintings, statues, and also photographs of women breastfeeding for being “explicitly sexual” images according to its policies.
Last October, in a clear example of an exercise in the absurd, Facebook automatically blocked an ad from a Canadian company that showed a basket of onions by mistaking them for female breasts.
When the censoring algorithm sees breasts where there are onions
The Seed Company, a Canadian company that markets seeds and vegetables, were shocked to discover that Zuckerberg’s company had censored one of their ads as inappropriate. The ad featured an innocent basket of onions of the Walla Walla variety. Apparently the suggestive roundness, position and color of the bulbs confused the algorithm.
In The Seed Company they took it with a lot of humor and asked those responsible for the platform to review the ad. However, the network ignored the company’s claims and the ad continued to be blocked for advertising products in “explicitly sexual positions.” So they told their story to the Canadian media. The story went viral around the world in no time and Facebook had to restore the ad.
Meg Sinclair, Communications Manager for Facebook Canada, apologized: “We use automated technology to avoid nudity in our apps, but sometimes it doesn’t distinguish between a Walla Walla onion and a… well, you know.” They don’t seem to have a good system for checking claims either.