Never Question Facebook?

The photo displayed is linked to a FaceBook posting which I recently received.  As I sometimes do (although probably not as frequently as I ought to) I searched a bit further to learn more about this strange term deuterostome.

There were two surprising things I learned, the first being that there is nothing at all rare about deuterostomes.  Almost all of us humans and other mammals are the same even if we've never heard the term before.

The other surprising thing is that while the sign above might be amusing it is based on a complete  misunderstanding of the process of development which we go through.   We deuterstomes do not start out as "assholes," but rather as a hollow ball which at some point develops a single hole which is the anus, followed by a second hole which is the other end of the digestive track: the mouth.  The fact that the anus develops first and the mouth second is what distinguishes a deuterstome from its opposite counterpart called a protostome.

So the correct interpretation of the facts is that we develop assholes first followed by our mouths, not that we "are" simply assholes to start with.   Of course, if you still wish to stick to the illogic expressed in the sign, writing this blog would likely mark me as an exceptionally arrested deuterostome!

The Ad Runs!

The “objectionable” photo in the ad I tried to run on Facebook was modified to fall within their standards.

Here’s the version of the ad which was approved. 

Same image but with the color taken out.  It would be interesting to know if this was approved by the same person who rejected the earlier ad, or if another person with a bit more open frame of mind OK’d this one.

No sense of humor

Today I was shocked to discover that Facebook, or at least some of the people who work there are far too serious … perhaps even to the extent of being prudish.

This all began several months ago, when I created a group on Facebook called I used to have a bellybutton and described it as a just for fun – totally pointless group to encourage others to post true facts which don’t make any sense. (I might add that I “lost” my own BB a couple of years ago during major surgery and occasionally joke about my “loss”.)

Recently, I decided to promote this group out of curiosity to see how many other people also might share my condition.

I applied to Facebook to run an ad promoting the group and displaying the above photo only to have it rejected with the following explanation:

The image of this ad is either irrelevant or inappropriate. Per sections 3 and 8 of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines, the image on your ad should be relevant and appropriate to the item being advertised. Images that are overly explicit, provocative, or that reveal too much skin are not allowed. Images that may either degrade or idealize any health condition or body type are also not allowed.

I didn’t particularly feel that the image was too risqué, however, I changed the picture and tried again with the following ad:

Again, the ad was rejected on the same grounds.

To me, the whole idea of seeing if there are others who share my condition was a bit of a lark, but the reactions of the people who run Facebook’s ads seems to me exceedingly conservative.

What do you think?