Website staff apologized for the confusion and restored the photograph

Nov 28, 2012 13:15 GMT  ·  By

A web magazine is getting a lot of free publicity over a picture they posted on Facebook, in which a woman is in the bathtub and her elbows are showing.

The misleading photo, which you can see by clicking on the header, prompted censorship from website admins, who most likely mistook the elbows for breasts. The photo was removed, for violating the site's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Editors at Theories of the Deep Understanding of Things, who wanted to test how far Facebook will go to preserve its squeaky clean image, made the whole thing public, expressing their discontent.

“No questions were asked and the post is down. Imagine our surprise,” they commented.

Facebook has since apologized and restored the picture, but not before it was picked up by most major news outlets.

“Just wanted to reach out and let you know that we have restored the photo. We made a mistake and sent an apology to the original poster,” they wrote to Gawker.

A photo of a woman breastfeeding recently prompted outrage on part of Facebook users, after the pic was removed not once, but twice.

The question remains – is Facebook's puritan outlook hurting or helping the website?