Facebook gay kiss ban follow up

So, the answer to the question posed in Wednesday's blog post would seem to be "no".

Facebook have not apologised to us. The press have got their facts wrong and are not doing their job properly. Unless their job description is to be lazy recyclers of unchecked information forced into factually incorrect stories to fit their own editorial agenda. Which seems very likely.

The story has now spread to both the front page of Huffington Post, and to the dwindling readership/relevance of Perez Hilton. Both of which get it wrong. I have stopped reading about the story and my own involvement in it, as it seems pointless, but there are two articles which feature interviews with Richard Metzger that I recommend.

From The Atlantic Wire:

The Controversy Over Facebook's Gay Kissing Ban Isn't Over

"On Monday, after many gay men and women protested the decision by putting up pictures of themselves kissing on Facebook, the company issued a statement to a handful of media outlets: “The photo in question does not violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and was removed in error. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

But Metzger doesn't see why anyone's celebrating that acknowledgement. "It's just generic PR speak that doesn't even refer to a gay kiss," he says. "The real problem here is certainly not that Facebook is a homophobic company. It's that their terrible corporate policy on censorship needs to stop siding with the idiots, the complainers and the least-enlightened and evolved amongst us."

And getting right to the core of the matter, from Media Bistro:

Richard Metzger Contends Media is Guilty of Sloppy Reporting on Facebook Scandal

"Metzger and Niall O’Conghaile, the individuals whose photo was censored and who originally reported on the incident, have not received word one from Facebook.

In fact, the only actual evidence of an apology from Facebook that Metzger has been able to find anywhere is in the comments section of the Dangerous Minds blog:

...

A comment on a blog post isn’t exactly an official statement, even if it did come from Facebook, and who knows? Anyone could have written that comment.

And yet, major media outlets such as AOL, Huffington Post, Gawker, The Advocate, and Yahoo! News have reported on this “official statement” as fact."

Or you could just go directly to the source:

Dangerous Minds: The Controversy over Facebook gay kissing ban isn't over