Agency Claims Facebook Policy Is Homophobic

Yesterday I wrote a post about a poll being conducted by London-based ad agency Pink! AccuraCast in an effort to identify the “best gay ad ever.”  Now the chaps at AccuraCast are claiming Facebook is displaying a “surprising level of homophobia” in disapproving some of the agency’s ads on the social networking site.  You can read an interesting email chain between the agency and Facebook representatives regarding the ads here.

Facebook claims the ads, which depicted shirtless males, were rejected because they displayed imagery that was “irrelevant or inappropriate.”  However, AccuraCast says they were only targeting gay males with the ads, so there’s no reason why the ads could be seen as inappropriate.  In case you’ve never run a Facebook advertising campaign, the site allows you to target your ads based on users’ self-reported information.  So, for instance, if you want to target lesbians living in Waco, Texas who work at Home Depot and like to watch Survivor, you can.  Your creative options are limited, but the cost per click is typically much lower than a traditional banner ad campaign.  I certainly hope this is an isolated incident, because I would hate to have to pull all my Facebook ads due to an ethical conflict.