Christmas Island tourism board’s promotion of its juvenile Booby birds has run into trouble with Facebook’s social media content police.
Christmas Island wanted to promote the island’s annual Bird ‘n’ Nature Week, and its population of endangered Booby birds.
But the social media site claimed the advert of a baby Brown Booby with the accompanying text – "Some gorgeous shots here of some juvenile boobies" – breached decency guidelines, and removed the offending picture.
An appeal from Christmas Island marketing bosses to Facebook failed to get the advert passed.
"We presumed our original advert was blocked automatically so we appealed to Facebook directly who re-affirmed the campaign was banned due to the sexual language, particularly the use of the word `boobies’," said Linda Cash, marketing manager of the Christmas Island Tourism Association.
Christmas Island isn’t altogether unhappy with the decision.
It claims the Facebook intervention has drawn attention to the beauty – and plight – of the indigenous Booby bird.
