Facebook has been slammed for banning a breast cancer advertisement that featured topless survivors.
The Breast Cancer Network of Australia (BCNA) was ready to launch a campaign on Thursday, featuring half-naked survivors holding pink cupcakes to their chests.
In a last minute decision, Facebook banned the images despite earlier approving the campaign.
According to the BCNA, the decision was made because the photographs violated the social media site's partial nudity policy.
'We certainly understand that the ads are promoting awareness for breast cancer, however,
'We will uphold the disable here until the ads can be modified for compliance.'
Outraged cancer survivor, Emma featured in the advertisement and slammed Facebook's decision.
'That's not nudity, it's joyful and it's ridiculous that they would stop and look at something like that,' she told breakfast talk-show Today.
In the campaign, nine women and one man stand topless holding cakes in front of their scars and mastectomies.
Bakers Delight had provided the cakes used to cover the victims.
Slogans for the advertisements read: 'Breast cancer comes in all shapes and sizes' and 'Every fun bun counts.'
While Facebook deemed the content inappropriate for its advertisements, Emma said the campaign was empowering to survivors.
'Every single one of those images is just amazing and the campaign has been set up as 'breast friend'. So we all got to come to shoot with our 'breast' friends and people who support you through what is a really awful journey — the campaign sends a wonderful, wonderful message.'
BCNA's Kristen Pilatti picked up the thread and said the campaign gave a voice to the victims.
'We know that the physical and psychological scars of breast cancer can often be invisible to the wider community and this campaign lifts the t-shirt on the reality of the disease while reinforcing the importance of support,' Kirsten said.
'The campaign is also a celebration of those people in your life who support you during a diagnosis.'
She told the ABC campaigns like this were vital to raise money to help BCNA provide the necessary resources to victims.
{"preview_thumbnail":"https://cdn.flowplayer.com/6684a05f-6468-4ecd-87d5-a748773282a3/i/v-i-d…","video_id":"dc738cd3-4067-427d-9295-6f17937d0f05","player_id":"8ca46225-42a2-4245-9c20-7850ae937431","provider":"flowplayer","video":"380 Arrested as May Day Protests Turn Violent in Paris"}
'The opening days of the campaign are where we raise the most money for BCNA to ensure we can provide free resources to those people with breast cancer.'
'Facebook is a very important tool for us to promote the campaign.'
While the images will not be used as ads in Facebook, the social media site will still allow them to appear on the BCNA and Bakers Delight pages.
'It does seem to me that Facebook need to review their policies and have some consistency but, probably most importantly, some common sense around what they do approve and what they do reject,' Ms Pilatti said.
ANZ Facebook head of communications Antonia Sanda told CBS News on Friday that the social media giant would only allow the ads if they complied to its policy.
'I love these ads and our team has been working hard with Bakers Delight to allow them to run on our platforms,' she said.
'We recognize the importance of ads about breast cancer education or teaching women how to examine their breasts and we allow these on our platforms.
'However, these specific ads do not contain any of these messages, rather it is a brand selling a product.'
Ms Sanda said Facebook had been working with the advertiser for weeks in the lead-up to the launch of the campaign.
She claimed they had not taken their advice into consideration.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
the images associated with the ad are in violation of our policies for partial nudity,' a Facebook employee told the organisation.
