Does Facebook Have Double Standards In Its Advertising Policies? Social Media Giant Bans Women’s Health Ads While Allowing 'Sexist' Content

Women's rights organizations around the world are clamoring over Facebook's perceived "double standards" on its advertisements.  

A women's health ad produced by the National Cancer Institute was rejected by Facebook last week for its claim that abortion can cause higher instances of breast cancer amidst an ongoing campaign spearheaded by over 40 women's groups supporting a petition against the social media giant.

Facebook prohibited the advertisement from being published because it violated the company's guidelines "by advertising adult products or services, including toys, videos, or sexual enhancement products," according to blog site ThinkProgress.

However, thousands of protestors are moving their advocacy efforts over to Twitter and supporting the "FBrape campaign," an initiative aimed at urging Facebook to remove content that portrays rape against women positively.

Several sponsoring organizations and activists say the social media giant has a "double standard" in its promotional material, allowing groups and photos of exploited women while rejecting ad campaigns targeted for women's health.

"In a world in which hundreds of thousands of women are assaulted daily and where intimate partner violence remains one of the leading causes of death for women around the world, it is not possible to sit on the fence," read a petition signed by representatives of the women's rights groups.

While Facebook admitted that inappropriate content occasionally makes its way onto the website, the group said not all of the material deemed "vulgar and distasteful" by some groups violates its current content policies.

"There is no place on Facebook for hate speech or content that is threatening, or incites violence, and we will not tolerate material deemed to be genuinely or directly harmful," said Facebook representatives in a statement to BBC News.

"We try to react quickly to remove reported language or images that violate our terms and we try to make it very easy for people to report questionable content using links located throughout the site."

Protestors are continuing to urge Facebook users and companies with advertisement on the site to pull their ads until they revaluate their content policies, according to the FBrape campaign petition.