Facebook has admitted that it made a “mistake” after removing an ad that contained an artistic depiction of Jesus Christ on the cross. The advertisement in question featured the San Damiano cross, and was one of 10 ads put out by the Franciscan University of Steubenville on Facebook to promote its graduate program in theology.
The University claimed its ad was rejected as it contained a “shocking, sensational, and excessively violent” image. In the wake of the rejection, Crowe penned a blog post on the university’s website, titled “He was Rejected.” “The San Damiano Cross. Jesus in glory, reigning from his cruciform throne. This is what the monitors at Facebook consider excessively violent, sensational, and shocking,” he wrote.
“And indeed, the Crucifixion of Christ was all of those things,” he added. “It was the most sensational action in history: man executed his God.”
Facebook later claimed that the ad had been falsely removed.
“Our team processes millions of ads each week, and sometimes we make mistakes. This image does not violate our ad policies. We apologize for the error and have already let the advertiser know we approved their ad,” a Facebook spokesperson stated.
Tom Crowe, the web communications director of the university, told Fox News that he is convinced the ad was removed by a “low-level staffer who skims many, many ads and just had something personal against this one,” noting that the university had published several similar ads with no issues whatsoever.
He also assured the university and faith community that, as far as he is aware, this was an isolated incident.
“I’ll reiterate that I’m not claiming systemic religious bigotry at Facebook, but in this case it seems something like that happened in a one-off situation,” he said.
(H/T: Fox News)