Facebook apologises after banning Queer as Folk producer for celebrating marriage equality
Facebook has apologised to Queer of Folk producer Del Shores, after he was banned from the site for a post celebrating marriage equality.
Del Shores had originally posted on Wednesday to commemorate equal marriage becoming law in Pennsylvania, referencing a scene from the US version of the show.
He wrote: “Today, a fan pointed out that Debbie can now marry Carl! Why? Because in one episode of QAF, when Carl asked Debbie to marry him, she said she would not until gay marriage was legal in Pennsylvania. How amazing! It’s an amazing time in history!”
However, he was banned from Facebook for 30 days after making the post, with a message telling him he broke community standards.
Facebook spokesperson Meg Sinclair told Global News the move was “a mistake”, and that Facebook would reach out to Shores to apologise.
Del Shores wrote in a statement: “I will be talking to Meg Sinclair of Facebook soon as she has reached out to me to apologize on behalf of Facebook.
“The suspension was wrong! It was antigay. It was siding with religious nuts who troll my page daily, trying to silence me. And I had to take the risk of losing this page in order to expose what had happened.”
A spokesperson said: : “In an effort to quickly and efficiently process reports we receive, our community operations team reviews many reports every week, and as you might expect, occasionally, we make a mistake and block a piece of content we shouldn’t have.
“We can understand how people can be frustrated with this when, as in this case, a mistake happens.”
