OCTOBER 9, 2020|SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook’s Algorithm Flags Onions In An Ad As "Overtly Sexual"
“I guess something about the two round shapes there could be misconstrued as boobs or something, nude in some way.”
A CBC report interviewed the manager of Gaze Seed Company after one of their onion ads was automatically flagged as inappropriate by Facebook’s algorithm.
I wish there were more stories like this. It would mean that Facebook finally was getting more aggressive about policing what people put in ads. So, I say yes, ban the overtly sexual onions. And ban lots of other stuff too. Like political advertising (ie - paid lying) and the ability to share fake stories. Anything to make the platform better.
Also I should note (in case you were worried), Facebook did reinstate Gaze’s ads. So you can reorder your inappropriate onions. If you like that sort of thing.
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How It All Started
A Short Backstory Of This Blog
This is a blog about non-obvious ideas. Originally launched on the Typepad platform in 2005 as the Influential Marketing blog, the stories at first focused mainly on digital marketing while Rohit worked at Ogilvy Advertising. In 2015 Rohit officially rebranded to the Non-Obvious Insights Blog and published his WSJ bestseller Non-Obvious. For the past twenty one years, this blog has coined new terms, introduced future marketing practices and inspired the next generation of non-obvious thinkers and marketers.
