dear-facebook-you-faceless-pos-it-s-over

mollyoconnor·Jul 16, 2020

I write this in a fury of frustration akin to that of a lover scorned because I am breaking up with Facebook once and for all. I feel compelled to share my experience with anyone who may read this. Female founders and small business owners especially who may relate but, in a time of political upheaval, racial injustice, and a pandemic of Biblical proportions, fear such proclamations trivial and ill-timed.Our vexing, toxic relationship with Facebook, however, is part of the growing dissent. As a small business founder, I created a Facebook business account out of necessity — to be able to promote my hard-earned, one-woman shop on Instagram. For those who may not know, Instagram’s promotional features are only enabled through Facebook, which means that in order to run an ad or promote a post, a Facebook business account must be created. When I launched my business Molly T. in late 2018, I was reluctant to join the platform whose grievances are too long to list, determined to grow “organically” like the good old pre-monetization days. For a while, this worked. But as growth slowed and customer inquiries continued to mount about in-app purchase options through Instagram, the choice of not having a Facebook page was clearly a delusion: if I wanted to thrive and keep up with the times and demands of customers, I had no choice.In attempting to set up the requisite Facebook Shop to activate ads on Instagram, Molly T.’s patented sports bra design was rejected for being “sexually explicit.”At first I thought this was an oversight, that as soon as I submitted my appeals form, Facebook would recognize their error, approve my tastefully photographed product and lifestyle shots featuring Molly T. adorned by three women in workout gear, and I’d be off to the Instagram races. But no one got back to me within the 48-hour window allotted by Facebook to provide me with an update, or anytime after that. Instead, I was met with slight variations of my original rejection for reasons like:“Your product wasn’t approved by Facebook because your image is overly sexual, implies nudity, shows excessive amount of skin or cleavage, or focuses unnecessarily on body parts.” How could the showcase of cleavage when modeling a sports bra -- which, you can see for yourself, was hardly any more “excessive” than the next bra or lingerie company -- be deemed “unnecessary”? Molly T. is a sports bra. It holds breasts. After countless failed attempts to appeal this rejection with no logical explanation, the only conclusion as to why I was being denied was the use of the word “breasts” in Molly T.’s product description:“Molly T.'s patented design provides customizable compression directly over your breasts to match your fitting needs as they change.” I am not alone in this sexist censorship. Alexa Tietjen at WWD explains how Facebook and Instagram’s advertising policies notoriously prevent female self-care brands like VSpot (women’s sexual health), Billie (women’s shaving), and Dame (women’s vibrators and sex toys) from accessing wider audiences through advertising. And then there’s this brilliant exclusive from Salty who found in their investigation into algorithmic injustice on Facebook and Instagram that “every single policy explicitly states that women are the target of the policies...there are literally no policies pertaining to nudity or swimwear for men’s bodies in advertising.”In other words, Facebook’s ad policies are created by and for rich white men. Even armed with this incontrovertible insight, I was determined to find a workaround, get my store approved by the Evil Empire Facebook and ultimately build the business I had given blood, sweat, tears and more money than I care to admit. And I did — by self-censorship. I figured out a way to replicate my store on Shopify -- a dummy store, essentially -- where I removed any mention of the word “breasts” and finally, the shop was approved. But my newly granted permission to promote on Instagram was met with even more frustration and anger. Posts I paid to promote Molly T. and reach new audiences were liked by those who already followed me. One time I wasn’t notified the word “breast” was removed from a campaign pertaining not only to bras but to breast cancer awareness. I only realized when the ad was live, after Facebook took my money and ran the campaign with a missing word that looked sloppy, careless, and rendered it ineffective.What really grates my nerves is how the company predicated on “the power to build community and bring people together” has nary a human in sight - not a customer service rep or automated chatbot - when non-legacy (read: small) brands and individuals need help. Facebook, we need to talk, and it’s not me. It’s you.You’ve silenced and censored LGBTQ users, disenfranchised Black people -- our most vulnerable communities -- while amplifying flat-out lies and incendiary, harmful hate speech. Perhaps it’s a blessing that I noticed Molly T. has once again been banned - without notification - due to the same unsubstantiated, outwardly sexist rationale. I don’t want a partner like you, and I’m embarrassed I tried to make it work after so much rejection. But your monolithic stranglehold makes it nearly impossible not to at least try and comply if a small business like mine is to stand a chance. So while this won’t so much as register considering nearly 1,000 mainstream companies have been ignored by Facebook in their demands for stricter policies, today I’m doing what I did with my personal account before #DeleteFacebook was even a thing, and I am deleting my business account too. You’re not too small, my fellow small business owners, to #StopHateForProfit and #DeleteFacebook, forever.---

BrianaBrownell·Jul 16, 2020

Thanks for posting this - I've been wondering what alternatives that you and others have found? I have struggled to find alternatives for both Facebook and Medium.

mollyoconnor·Jul 17, 2020

Same - I'm going to test the waters with Pinterest and see how that goes. Separately, I know Elpha hosted a "Roundtable: Marketing without Facebook Ads." Maybe we can get a transcript/video of the discussion? @karenamundson

karenamundson·Jul 27, 2020

Hi There, yes! We can host another one. Would you or someone else be open to handling the scheduling, and I'd be happy to attend and help facilitate? Other industries struggle with erroneous ad disapprovals as well. For example, companies that try to reduce plastics get shut down for using words like "plastic free" or talking about cleaning up plastics in the ocean will get you shut down. Similarly, mentioning carbon offsets, etc. Those topics get flagged as "political". We once had to spend weeks jumping through hoops that involved snail mailing things back and forth to get ads approved. And that's as an ad agency with connections and resources. An independent small business owner would have no chance of figuring out how to get through if it was that hard for us to do it.

karenamundson·Jul 27, 2020

Also, kind of off-topic, but @mollyoconnor I looked up Molly T (great product!) and I noticed you're running on Shopify. Recently wrote several posts about performance marketing for brands running on Shopify. https://apiarydigital.com/topics/shopify

mollyoconnor·Jul 28, 2020

Hi @karenamundson ! Great intel - that plastics example is so interesting (and frustrating). I'd be happy to schedule another marketing chat. Just not sure how to go about doing so. Is there someone I speak with @elpha? And thank you so much for checking out Molly T.! Can't wait to read your piece on Shopify. Am queuing it up now. :-)

karenamundson·Jul 28, 2020

No, you just figure out who wants to attend and then take it offline to coordinate a time and post it to Elpha events if anyone wants to join after the fact

mollyoconnor·Jul 29, 2020

Gotcha! I'll plan to put a post together..

mollyoconnor·Jul 17, 2020

@BrianaBrownell this was the original Elpha post re: boycotting FB ads https://elpha.com/posts/gp1j3mkg/facebook-ads-boycott

ara206·Jul 16, 2020

I loooove Salty! And so many of my favorite artists are censored on Instagram constantly. The idea for the bra is super interesting, I could see this benefiting so many people with chest binding/support needs!

mollyoconnor·Jul 17, 2020

Salty is some of the best indie journalism I've read! And thank you for your kind words re: my design :-)It's found a surprising fanbase with new moms, breast cancer survivors and many other women well beyond the athletes I initially had in mind.

1Mollyep·Jul 20, 2020

Silly question, but where can I read Salty? It sounds great!

ara206·Jul 21, 2020

I'll DM you!

mollyoconnor·Jul 21, 2020

Not silly at all! Check out https://saltyworld.net/Enjoy! :-)

1Mollyep·Jul 21, 2020

Thank you! I love your bras!

mollyoconnor·Jul 21, 2020

Ahhh thank you, Molly! 😃

meelay·Jul 17, 2020

Thanks for sharing this. This is unbelievable and needs to be heard much more broadly. Can I share this with a friend of mine who is one of the WSJ's health, science and tech reporters? She might be interested in this and interested in speaking with you (no guarantees, but happy to try). LMK.

mollyoconnor·Jul 18, 2020

Thank you so much for reading, and please do! 🙂

katiepaul·Jul 20, 2020

Hi @mollyoconnor, I'm a reporter with Reuters covering social media platforms, and I'd be interested in hearing more about this. If you're game to engage with media, drop me a DM?

mollyoconnor·Jul 21, 2020

HI @katiepaul - thank you for reading and yes, I'll DM you shortly!

GaelleKoutou·Jul 20, 2020

I'm sorry to read this! But have to try to deal with Influencers instead and also advertise through newsletters?

mollyoconnor·Jul 20, 2020

@GaelleKoutou thank you for reading! You're right -- I have to up my influencer outreach game and no, I have not tried advertising with newsletters. Great suggestion!

meelay·Jul 20, 2020

E-newsletter sponsorships was one of the suggestions I posted over on the FB ad boycott thread, among other ideas. I also posted an article about how to grow your audience without SM ads. Hopefully that'll help. Also, I sent a message to my friend who's a reporter at WSJ and will let you know if I hear back from her :-)https://elpha.com/posts/gp1j3mkg/facebook-ads-boycott

mollyoconnor·Jul 21, 2020

Wow - I absolutely LOVE your advice, @mylegoel. I feel so encouraged by your suggestions.Thank you for sharing with your friend! Appreciate anyone spreading the word about this :-)

MissMyburgh·Jun 21, 2022

I gave up on FB once i loaded an entire shop, took a while and countless edifications of photo sizes etc only to have the entire project failed to post with some error....try again later....worst thought as this happened, did all the backend work for some idiot who is going to clone and use it as his or her own - disappointed to say the least and i had such positive hopes for the project :(Sorry to hear about your experience