As 2-month-old Hudson Azera Bond
of North Carolina awaits a desperately needed heart transplant, his
father Kevin Bond has fundraising for the operation in every way he
knows how, including through a Facebook page.
But dealing with the social media giant added to Bond’s heartache over
the weekend.
That’s when the company deemed a photo of Hudson connected
to various medical tubes “scary” and “gory,” and rejected Bond’s attempt
to boost site traffic with a $20 paid ad.
Facebook quickly reversed its
decision, and a representative called Bond to personally apologize
Wednesday, but the father said the damage was done.
“It hurt our whole family,” Bond,
a photographer, told Yahoo Health. “Nobody wants their beautiful son
compared to ghosts, zombie ghouls, dismembered bodies, and vampires, and
whatever else that rejection letter said.”
The email from Facebook (which can be seen below), did include that wording
which also put the photo into the “sensational” category, was an
automated generic response explaining why something might have not fit
into its ad guidelines.
The company representative told Bond the
rejection had been made in error by its system, apologized, and said it
was working out a way to compensate the family, possibly with a free ad.
Bond said Facebook’s apology call did help, but still felt the wording
of the rejection email was “outrageous,” and that reading it “sickened”
him.
A Facebook spokesperson emailed
the following response to Yahoo Health on Wednesday: “This was a mistake
on our part, and the ad has been re-approved. We apologize for any
inconvenience this caused the family.”
The company is no stranger to
controversy, as it’s caught flak and tweaked its policies over the years
for issues involving photos of breastfeeding moms, weight-loss celebrators, mastectomy scars and more.
Tiny Hudson, who was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy a disease of the heart muscle that can lead to heart failure when
he was just 7 days old, remains in the pediatric cardiac intensive care
unit at Duke Children’s Hospital in Durham, N.C. One of his parents, and
often another family member, remains by his side round the clock, Bond
said.
“We’re on shifts. His mother likes to stay overnight, and I
usually come in the morning and hang with him all day,” he said.
Culled from Yahoo Health
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