The best events happening around Ireland this weekend
The best events happening around Ireland this weekend

Sarah Gill

In Her Shoes: Silvana Landa McAdam of LANDA
In Her Shoes: Silvana Landa McAdam of LANDA

IMAGE

Conductor Orla Flanagan: ‘This concert explores human existence in different spheres’
Conductor Orla Flanagan: ‘This concert explores human existence in different spheres’

Sarah Gill

This 1970s Galway semi-d has been refreshed and revived
This 1970s Galway semi-d has been refreshed and revived

Nathalie Marquez Courtney

Material Intelligence: Meet the emerging designers from Ireland’s leading fashion colleges
Material Intelligence: Meet the emerging designers from Ireland’s leading fashion colleges

Ruth O'Connor

Faye O’Rourke of Soda Blonde: ‘I think being open about your failings creates more interesting art’
Faye O’Rourke of Soda Blonde: ‘I think being open about your failings creates more interesting...

Sarah Gill

A red carpet first-timer brings us behind the scenes at Cannes Film Festival
A red carpet first-timer brings us behind the scenes at Cannes Film Festival

Kara O'Sullivan

Garden designer Peter Dowdall on the best places to find unique pieces for your garden
Garden designer Peter Dowdall on the best places to find unique pieces for your garden

Megan Burns

Key trends and challenges shaping the job market in 2025
Key trends and challenges shaping the job market in 2025

Leonie Corcoran

Inside this five-bedroom Edwardian Terenure home
Inside this five-bedroom Edwardian Terenure home

IMAGE

Image / Editorial

Feeling Fat Emoji Banned On Facebook


By Jeanne Sutton
11th Mar 2015
Feeling Fat Emoji Banned On Facebook

woman holding sign

We’ve all heard the sniggers about internet activism. A retweet does not a proper protest generally make, unless you’re doing it to break a super-injunction a footballer tried to enforce after cheating on his wife with his brother’s partner. That whole frenzied period was the internet generation’s Paris riots. However, every now and again the internet comes together to do something fabulous, like getting Facebook to remove the ?Feeling Fat? emoji following a passionate petition.

Last month Australian Rebecca Guzelian and Endangered Bodies, an advocacy group that works to combat the culture promoting negative body image, published a petition ?Remove the body-shaming ?I feel fat? and ?I feel ugly? status options and emoticons from all versions of Facebook.?

feeling fat emoji

In the petition copy, Rebecca asked:

?How does it make you feel when someone close to you tells you they feel fat? As a woman in my mid-20s, this is something I experience every single day – from my friends, family and others around me. And now, on Facebook. Did you know that Facebook lets you tell all your friends just how much you hate your body?… Working as a counsellor in the field of eating disorders, I spend A LOT of time talking to people about the way they feel about their bodies – how much they hate their bodies, how dissatisfied they are that they can’t look the way they want, how hard they are working and how much time they are spending trying to change their bodies, and finally, just how much all of this is ruining their lives.?

Rebecca goes on to make the point that fat and ugly are not emotions. More than 16,000 people signed the petition.

The social network pulled the emoji yesterday in response to the Change.org petition. TIME quote a Facebook statement where the company acknowledged the ?Feeling Fat? status update ?could reinforce negative body image, particularly for people struggling with eating disorders.? What a mature response from Facebook. Now if only they could stop taking down photos of mothers breastfeeding.

Facebook maintains that most breastfeeding photos fit within their no-nudity policy, but tend to remove any images reported for obscenity.

Via TIME

Follow Jeanne Sutton on Twitter @jeannedesutun