Facebook Just Can’t Handle Boobies, Human or Otherwise

Whether they're nourishing babies or enriching the biodiversity of islands in the Indian Ocean, boobies just don't sit well with Facebook.

The social network has long been criticized for its inconsistent approach to breastfeeding photos. And now, a small Australian island's tourism board says a Facebook ad inviting eco-tourists to its Bird 'n' Nature Week has been unfairly banned—for a pun about the seabirds known as boobies.

"Some gorgeous shots here of some juvenile boobies," the ad read, next to images of the Red-footed Booby, Brown Booby and endangered Abbott's Booby. That copy is certainly suggestive, and you may even consider the innuendo mildly pedophilic. But Christmas Island tourism marketing manager Linda Cash figured at first that the ban was a mistake. She tells Travel Daily News: "We presumed our original advert was blocked automatically so we appealed to Facebook directly who re-affirmed the campaign was banned due to the sexual language—particularly the use of the word 'boobies.' "

Sam Collins, founder of Ethos Travel, which offers trips from the U.K. to Christmas Island, adds: "One of the world's great eco-tourism destinations is being deprived of its lifeline because someone at Facebook cannot comprehend that a booby is a bird."

Christmas Island has used the same "juvenile boobies" joke before, as seen in this photo series from January.