India vs England: Facebook bans England cricket team picture for being ‘overtly sexual’

According to a report in the BBC, Hall denied that there was anything ‘risque’ about any of his blocked images which he posted as ads. A complained followed leading to a Facebook investigation after being contacted by the publication.

England cricket team celebrate the dismissal of an Indian batsman during the first Test in Chennai. (Photo: England cricket board)

An attempt to upload a gallery of around 400 images that included England cricket team in a huddle was banned by Facebook for various reasons ranging from being overtly sexual to promoting weapons. Mike Hall, the owner of the gallery, tried uploading the images featuring a cow standing in a field, a Hong Kong skyline, ripples in a pond among others on his business page on the ultra-popular social media platform.  

According to a report in the BBC, Hall denied that there was anything ‘risque’ about any of his blocked images which he posted as ads. A complaint followed leading to a Facebook investigation after being contacted by the publication.  

The California-based social networking giant revoked the ban and apologised saying it happened due to an error. “When you’re running a small business, or any business where you’re trying to figure out what’s gone wrong, you can’t have an arbitrary process with no-one to talk to,” Hall was quoted as saying by the BBC. “When I set up my account with Facebook I had to verify my business with them – but after that it fell into an abyss.” 

The picture of an England team that was marked ‘overtly sexual’ was from their 2018 Southampton Test against India, a contest famously remembered for being Alastair Cook’s final international match as he bid farewell with a memorable century. 

The other images banned for bizarre reasons included a neon sign of the word ‘disco’ which was banned for promoting alcohol, ripples on a pond for selling ‘adult products, a fireworks display for ‘promoting weapons’ among others. 

Eventually, Hall was banned from posting any ads at all before it was revoked. However, the experience hasn’t deterred him as he promised to continue to ‘persevere’ to promote ads on Facebook. 

This is not the first time that Facebook has had to revoke bans on ads in the past which it said happened due to “technical error”. Notably, a major portion of the firm’s revenue comes from advertisements.