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Facebook this week has banned a woman from her account with the social networking site following a demanding message to remove offensive images shared on her personal profile. This is pretty standard procedure if your posts contain pornography, hate speech or violence. However, this North Carolina resident has been banned from Facebook for posting images of her seven year old who suffers from Downs Syndrome.
The message received by Diana Cornwell reads “Never upload any photos that contain hate speech, support for violent organizations or threats to harm others” when in fact all the lady did was upload some photo memories of her young son, Cole having a great time enjoying a Special Olympics event. Mrs Cornwell did adhere to Facebook’s forced request, only to then be slapped with a three day ban on her account. Facebook generally will not ask for photos to be removed or issue bans unless images have been reported or suggested as inappropriate, but on occasion the social site will take action by itself.
Either way this has been upsetting to the family of Mrs Cornwell and the child and a social network for causes and health have lashed out at Facebook’s harsh actions stating “Facebook is showing a deep degree of insensitivity to special needs children and their families, by charging Cornwell with ‘violating’ the site’s terms and requesting that she remove her photos of Cole” and that the action taken was “simply uncalled for, and troubling”.
A petition has been set up following the utterly shocking incident, which has put Facebook under fire from the public and health groups and the goal of 20,000 in support is little over 500 “signatures” away from target.
Mrs Cornwell speaks out on the petition page saying “I don’t want a generic computer written apology; I want to make sure this never happens again. This did not just offend my family but every other family out there with a “special” member. Please join me in telling Facebook not to censor photos of kids with disabilities.”
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.
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