Random: Facebook Rejects Super Meat Boy Advertisement Due To "Explicit" Nature

I think we're all thinking, "So what?"

Wow. ...I get bombarded with PETA shock ads / stories and this gets banned??? #NannyState

Comparing cartoon butts to flat earthers? Really? Not really making a strong case here.

That said, I don't know about offensive but I don't need butts in my advertisements, even if it's just a joke. Just seems like poor taste and a great way to get me to ignore it.

Oof what a response

Butt why, Facebook?

@Twili_Waker I mean, I don’t see the problem, but I can understand not wanting to see rear ends in your content. Not many people crack up at them. No need to be a butt. 😉

@MH4 I was just kidding around much love peeps

Sorry, but my opinion is that the entire world has become too sensitive stupid little things like that. Who cares. It's just the artist style.

Some apparently aren't fans of rump roast.

There... I even deleted my comment so nothing bad happens to me!

I remember when I was a kid watching shows like Cow & Chicken where the main villain was literally the devil walking around with his butt cheeks hanging out.

And that was on Cartoon Network.

I'm willing to bet if it was an ad for an FPS where people are getting shot they would've been fine with it though.

I hate Facebook and its creator Mark Zuckerberg; he harvests his users personal data for his corporate sponsors and advertisers and uses a fascistic ruleset that practically eliminates free speech and expression. The world could be better off without it and to see that manipulative little sociopath privatize free speech is nothing short of criminal.

I didn't know Sony ran Facebook.

@KryptoniteKrunch Ok, you won this comment section xD

I guess this is a bit of BUMMER.

Facebook ridiculously overmoderates some stuff and completely ignores other stuff. It’s silly that they constantly have ads for smartphone games that are illegally using others’ IPs (like all the ones with literal Pokémon in the ad but it’s for some Chinese knockoff) yet this, a cartoon butt, is where they draw the line. 🤦‍♂️

FB is infested with neoliberal PC SJWs, with Zucc appointed as the Chief of the Thought Police. As soon a viable, non-censored FB-esque social media alternative emerges, FB will be going the way of MySpace. I can't wait.

Thought it might have been something along the lines of the hot coffee ending from the original flash game but come on. Children's content can get away with that much ass.

(In response to their tweet.) Everyone loves to rag on flat-earthers--like, all the time--but for as much hate as they get, I've never known a single person who subscribes to that ideology. I'm not sure those kinds of people are even real; I think flat-earthers are just an imaginary scapegoat generated by the media to distract us from the real issues.

so Facebook is totally cool with white nationalism and misogyny, but butts?? not on Zuckerberg's watch!! 😒

Facebook is on its way out. Twitter next. They’re both more trouble than they’re worth and Gen Z don’t want to be associated with the social networks that their old fogey Gen X parents use.

The sooner Facebook crashes and burns the better.

@Likethepear I really think that Twitter will lose major traction in 2019. certainly long before Facebook.
it seems Twitter is considering a tumblr style purge of (ahem) "adult entrepreneurs," and that really won't go over well at all.

@andywitmyer "neoliberal PC SJWs" ha! One of those words you have no idea what it means, the other two abbreviations just say "I'm intolerant"
Grow up.

@Sabroni 1,000 blessings on you and your home for calling that out ❤

I've gotten Facebook ads for crap mobile games with generic anime titty characters on them but cartoon meat butts cross the line apparently. Eh, it's FB.

@Sabroni

Not intolerant.
It just means that like me, Andy has had enough of all the PC crap that is forced down our throats each and every day.

@CharlieSmile

Marginalized people?
I thought we were discussing butt cracks!

@CharlieSmile

Was it not evident as to what I was referring to. I must try harder.
I honestly think you would be much better suited to the BBC HYS forums.
You would be much more likely to find more like minded SJW's than on here.

Wait... so you mean to tell me that Earth ISN'T flat?!

Just when I think that mabey I should start a social media account, some nonsense like this happens

@JohnG There are plenty of "like minded SJWs" right here. Thanks for your concern but we haven't gone away and we aren't ever going to. Maybe you'd rather move to the Fox News forums. I hear there is no "forcing PC crap" over there.

@JasmineDragon

In case it escaped your attention, this is a gaming forum.

No place for your liberal agenda here. Stick to gaming.

"Probably has gone a tad overboard"

O rly?

Well, this comment section went to flat hades very quickly. I’m gonna go play video games now.

I'd bet you 50 bucks it wasn't blocked by a human but by an algorithm.

I am really getting tired of people acting like sites like Google and Facebook have a bunch of evil little gremlins in the basement just looking to ruin everyone's day with the "PC ban hammer".

Facebook has an estimated 2 billion active accounts. 2 BILLION there is no possible way humans can be monitoring them all for content. Same with Google, which probably has people doing hundreds of billions of searches every week.

There are no little gremlins in the basement trying to push some political agenda. It's just mediocre algorithms made by companies trying to walk a line between letting people do what they want without angering enough different people to impact the only thing they care about: PROFITS.

leaked excerpt from Facebook profits meeting
(MZ) - "Facebook is losing ground to other social media platforms. I expect user growth and a turnaround by the end of 2019. No buts!"

I really dislike the Team's response to this, actually. Implying flat-earthers posts ought to be removed? Of course not. It's free speech, an opinion. An incredibly stupid one, but one that has a right to exist.

That's not to say I agree with Facebook's decision, but it's not a good comparison.

Facebook is a joke. I still remember how a while back they were refusing to take down dogfighting groups which people were reporting en masse. But hey, a cartoonish butt on a square crosses the line.

@Kalmaro spreading flat earth support is spreading stupidity. The point they are making is that a group that so stupid they think the earth is flat is allowed while a cartoon butt is not ok. Flat earthers are like a cult and does way more harm than a cartoon butt ever will.

Also if a cartoon butt makes you that offended you might just want to turn off your internet.

So Facebook can allow ads and speech that helped incite a genocide in Myanmar, and give my personal messages to my bank (this happened in Canada this week), but god help us all if there is a cartoon butt in my targeted ads.

@Not_Soos I have met a couple flat earthers where I work. They are real, and living in a world of conspiracy theories haha.

@SirRandall okay some flat earthers are stupid. I suppose you're saying that spreading cartoon butts is sign of intelligence then? Not seeing your point. Last I checked, flat earthers are an extreme minority that don't really do anything. How come no one attacks parents who lie to their children about Santa Claus?

I never said a cartoon butt offends me, but even if it did why would I have to leave? Maybe you should leave for nort agreeing with my being offended

Sounds like you're saying your opinion is better than someone else's.

@JasmineDragon ✊

@JohnG hey guess what!? by your logic, there's no room for anti-liberal agendas either, so ✌

Love when politics of Facebook leaks into my gaming and escapism discussions. Left that place after what I counted was over 380 different threats, ill wishes and doxing of my personal data over why I tapped out of voting in 2016. "Neoliberal" and "Neo-nazi" labels are thrown around by both sides now trying to justify why they hate that cesspool. Maybe quiet down and note why it's complete garbage to begin with. Haven't touched it for two years and feel a huge improvement over my mental health because that place is so damn toxic.

But I don't need an example to remind me why everywhere I go.

@Heavyarms55 - This is likely what happened and Facebook cannot be bothered with changing it for an "indie" studio.

NEWS TODAY

Facebook is a privately owned entity that runs their billions of ads and interactions through a "give us the least amount of upset users" filtering algorithm every single sencond, and they don't give a toss about whether a few users are upset that something not upsetting gets flagged for possibly upsetting someone else.

More at 6, don't close this tab!

Seriously, we are living in beyond, beyond absurd times. And you might want to rage at this, but it's almost entirely because of a bunch of jumped up extremist lefties and [email protected] getting on their high horses about every tiny little and ultimately non-offensive thing that we've come to this, and corporations are just reacting to what they think consumers want. A great example would be them fighting to get the classic and beloved Baby It's Cold Outside song banned for reasons that are beyond ignorant--seriously, to anyone who actually knows the history of that song, and has actually watched the original version of it in the movie it was specifically written for, it's beyond, beyond absurd that some morons are objecting to it and finding offense in it where it simply doesn't exist. And Facebook rejecting this ad for that cartoon line depicting a butt is another example of how dumb and utterly ridiculous certain people have gotten, and also how bad corporate pandering is now too.

@mikegamer So what, as in it's not offensive and shouldn't have been banned. But we should all be up in arms that is has been banned because this kind of corporate pandering to a bunch of overzealous, hypertensive and almost always very ignorant and biased morons is starting to affect us all in various way now, even us gamers too, and it's only going to get worse and worse if we don't start calling this over the top political correctness bull-crap out.

For tips for future users for Facebook and Twitter don't put your personal information on your account specially your Zip code and social security number.

@impurekind
first we took your Christmas songs, next we're coming for your figgy pudding 😂

What really is an SJW anyway? I used to think it implied a group of people obsessed over political correctness. It sounds like just a box. They say it ruins atheism. If that’s the case why have so many black Christians been called that? If you aren’t for all forms of social justice, does that really make you a warrior? What if you’re a sexist black activist or a racist feminist? Can you really be an SJW then? Is someone like Bill Maher an SJW? He’s very critical of Islam but regularly bad mouths Conservatives. Super Meat Boy showed cartoon butts. Is that really an SJW thing? Isn’t that more a Conservative Christian Fox News thing or are Christian Conservatives SJWS as well?

@impurekind - It's amusing though, cause due to the hypersensitivity of the more "progressive" minds, we in turn received the same hypersensitive opposition. This is almost expected by this point.

We've seen a history where there were outright attacking milk for being racist and AC for being sexist. A few months later we see people who see a company decision to make a non-invasive comic of one of their flagship characters to be LGBT as a "forced agenda." Ultimately the overreaction created an opposing over reaction. This is pretty apparent even here.

But even then, we have toxic waste dumps of Facebook and Twitter being the only way to "reach a market" and when all they see is a vocal minority who likes the idea of something they're not involved with, they're likely to respond in tune to what they're seeing. So I would fall into the lines of when you see something ridiculous, you call it out. Not, "shut up and grow up." There is a difference from calling out and reacting in tune.

@CharlieSmile - As a denounced Cristian I want to laugh at that, but last weekend I saw someone loose their cool over an old dude saying "Merry Christmas," at a hair salon within a mall. I don't care about holidays whatsoever, but can't help but question if there is some shred of truth to the "attack on Christmas" rants some conservatives had in the last decade.

Funny how Facebook can allow videos of people being beheaded, burning alive, and other horrific things. But showing butts is off limits.

Oh dear, they don't to have to censor the content of their game at all and only have to make a very minor edit to one of their ads that presumably didn't conform to Facebook's ToS that they apparently neglected to read! Move out of the way, controversial opinions! Meat butts are the real victims, here!

How would the world sleep at night, knowing that they could've seen the butts of two hamburgers? It's good to know Facebook is keeping our children and some sensitive adults safe from the horrors of this world.

@HexNash
to be fair, I fully intend to ruin video games for as many people as possible.
it's on my Feminist Agenda, scheduled between 9am summoning rituals and 11am brunch.

But we at FB will let Russian moles and alt right give hates speech all day long. Yea FB you got alot of PR repairs to do here.

Ughhh Facebook. It loves beheading videos but it doesn’t like butts! Typical.

@Paraka That detail I don't dispute. Facebook has become so large that they don't respect smaller companies.

@Kalmaro OK you completely lost track of the whole conversation. You completely went off the rails. You are just one of the people who can't debate or talk about a subject without bringing is useless or irrelevant information? You are also a hypocrite for accusing me of accusing you of something. Then you turn around and accuse me of saying something that I never did. Yeah ok.

@SirRandall If you want me to explain myself, you can just ask, lol. No need to get upset because you don't understand my point.

I'll start with my first one though. We were talking about flat earthers and this cartoon picture. You were implying that, of the two, flat earthers are the bigger threat because they spread stupidity.

Which I found odd because I'm not sure how spreading pictures of cartoon butts is much better. There's nothing intellectually stimulating about them.

Smug sigh Ahhhh. My life has been so much happier since I quit Facebook!

@Equinox @JohnG @andywitmyer Glad to see that at least you guys have some common sense.

@Sabroni Trust me when I say that my vocabulary is probably far more extensive than yours. That having been said, I am sorry that my comment triggered you - perhaps it hit just a little too close to home?

@Equinox @CrazyMetroid @JohnG Amen. Trying to do our parts to save western civilization isn't easy - but, someone has to do it! Liberals aren't just coming for our guns, they're coming for our games. They already want to stifle (conservative) free speech across the internet - it won't be long before they start policing the content of our games. And trust me, they'll certainly try.

@andywitmyer 😂😂😂

@impurekind
This most likely has nothing to do with either of the two groups you single out in your opening sentence.

Ah, geeze @brandonwii, I must have gotten you a little irate - or, at least irate enough to respond. In any case, I just wanna address some of your broad (borderline bigoted) assumptions about me (and anti-globalists in general).

Am I male? Yes - but, should it matter? Judging someone based upon their sex? I dunno, man - that sounds pretty sexist to me. (And besides... should a progressive like yourself really be in the business of assuming other people's genders??? Tsk tsk. Shame on you, man. Shame on you.)

Am I a Christian? No. Would it matter if I was? What makes you think that only Christians want to save western civilization? You don't have to be a Christian to oppose the spread of globalism. That you seem to think it does sounds rather bigoted to me.

Am I white? Yeah. But, again, I have to ask - does it matter? To judge me for the color of my skin is patently racist. Why are liberal types so obsessed with skin color? Shame on you, brother.

What exactly makes you believe that I'm "lacking" in self-awareness? And what does that even mean...? I dunno, man. Seems sort of like a half-baked, empty insult to me. Filler, if you will. Disappointing. I mean, you seem intelligent enough - I think you could probably come up with something a little more inspired or creative.

Most importantly, you completely failed to understand the facetiousness of my post. Of course, while my underlying point was indeed rooted in what I would see as a kernel of truth, I really figured that the exaggerated tonality of my words would've made the underlying humor obvious enough. Why I thought that is anyone's guess.

For the most part, modern liberals are truly a humorous bunch. Puritanical virtue signalling has mostly reduced their ability to understand humor or satire (that doesn't involve childish personal insulted or purile punchlines) to almost nil. Truly, a sad state of affairs. Oh well, I guess NPCs gonna NPC.

Now, if you don't mind, could we get back to discussing videogames? Personal attacks on me are fun and all, but the topic is regarding censorship. Maybe we should get back to that.

What do you think, Brandon?

i·ro·ny

/ˈīrənē/

noun

a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.

plural noun: ironies

"the irony is that I thought he could help me"

synonyms:paradox, incongruity,incongruousness

"the irony of the situation"

@andywitmyer Yeah you’re right I made assumptions based on an emotion I felt at the time. I, too, feel that race shouldn’t matter as much as it does as I often argue with progressives about how being against cultural appropriation is. I don’t consider myself progressive so that’s an assumption on your part. It’s just that all too often I’ve heard of the fall of Western Civilization being an alt right argument. Anyway while I may disagree with you I do apologize for the personal attack. Now let’s go back to playing Nintendo.

Edit: what is NPC? The only thing I know is non player character but what did you mean?

@brandonbwii "NPC" is a (failed) right-wing attempt at a slur.
the logic is that an "NPC" uses the same talking points in a repetitive manner.

it's generally a term used by people unfamiliar with the concept of irony.

LOL That is ironic. I tend to laugh at how the right talk about how there free speech is in jeopardy simply because their views are challenged. Sure there’s an argument and discussion to be made for that on some occasions but all too often it boils down to I’m the victim because you’re challenging my right to victimize.

@brandonbwii "I’m the victim because you’re challenging my right to victimize." -every conservative ever

Zuckerberg's crownies at it again...

@CharlieSmile Brandon and I just came to an understanding and now you're gonna try and stir sh-- up again? Hahaha. Good lord, man. Let it go. Although NPC is hardly a "failed term", I regret using it here, as it implied that I was looking for another fight - which I wasn't.

I'm looking for a Buttz, a Seymour Buttz. I wanna Seymour Buttz.

@CharlieSmile Ooh! Who and what are you summoning? }

@brandonbwii Eh. A bunch of dumb, hypocritical blowhards whose sole mission in life is to be offended by everything, and who believe they can browbeat the rest of the world into believing and adhering to the idiotic tripe they spew.

We'd laugh at them if they weren't so obnoxious.

@Pod This literally has almost everything to do with them. This is where all of this crap ultimately steams from. If you do some research into the history of it all you will see it mostly leads back to those two groups and their constant pushes towards their agendas. And hence where we are at now, with so much crap going on with originally well intenioned but now grossly misused movements like "me too", "Black lives matter", everyone being accused of sexual harassment for simply looking at people, an influx of false r*pe claims, laws passed in the UK that make it a "hate crime" to whistle at a girl, the Men's Rights movement literally being silenced (even though anyone who has taken two seconds to look at something like The Red Pill knows it's the exact opposite of what modern "femism" is but not the enemy of women or the like), laws being passed in Canada that literally force people to use certain words when talking to certain people for the first time in the history of the country, classic Christmas songs being banned for being dangerous (even though anyone who has done any research into the particular song knows how utterly absurd this is), game creators more and more scared to put even the slightest hint of sexy females in their games, men almost universally losing rights over their children in divorces (even when the woman was the guilty party), men being ignored when they speak about their issues as though they don't matter and only female issues do, male heroes being replaced left, right and centre with females, to the point the classic male hero figure is being kinda wiped out so males are losing their role models, classic and iconic movie characters and histories being twisted toward a more femin*st slant in newer iterations and ruining them in the process just to pander to these groups, many gaming websites censoring and banning people for saying anything even remotely challenging this now status quo, and so on and on and on and on.

I'll just post this here to show an example of a very real problem in our modern society--one that those particular groups are literally trying to ban and cover up and stop anyone talking about (especially the femin*zis, as specifically mentioned in the TED talk by an ex femin*st):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WMuzhQXJoY&t=8s&index=24&list=PLgzzAlT_CcFe2hnR1vFhqszXbUXFM7rSL

These groups and their influence has now become dangerous, and they are the ones now oppressing and silencing the kind of people they once claimed they were sticking up for, as in people who felt like they were being held down and silenced and discriminated against by others.

There is a huge problem in our society that very few people are acknowledging and talking about--most are actually completely ignorant about it--and this fun and innocent game advertisement being rejected for being "explicit" is just one tiny little symptom of it.

@Paraka But the real truth is that most of the reactions to this kind of news are actually legitimately warranted because most of those things actually are related to the historical pressures of those groups to change the way everyone thinks and acts as per their now almost totally misguided agenda. And it's usually in the most extreme, absurd and ultimately counter productive ways that they want everyone to bow to their often well intentioned initially but now usually misguided and often very ignorant views of the Universe and how it should be. And it's starting to become real insidious and dangerous, especially to men--actually, it's now been like this for a long time--and now even male gamers too.

@CharlieSmile You laugh now, but when they come for the things you care about--like, and this could be fine with you, maybe there will come a time where you're told you can't wear makeup and dresses because that's sexist against men and we are not allowed to show such a blatant artificially constructed difference in the sexes and all need to be seen as and treated exactly the same as each other--you will see why it's all not quite so funny and trivial as it may seem. . . .

@impurekind
oh, honey. I'm one of the "they."
😎

@CharlieSmile I don't know--are you?

If so then maybe being open to the notion that what you have been taught isn't all there is wouldn't be such a bad thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WMuzhQXJoY&t=8s&index=24&list=PLgzzAlT_CcFe2hnR1vFhqszXbUXFM7rSL

Or are you actually one of "they" in exactly the blinkered, misguided and often rather insidious and dangerous--because of often simply acting based on group think and ignorance more than anything else--way I'm talking about?

I don't really know if you are one of "them" or not, but I expect you know deep down inside what you are.

@CharlieSmile Again, are you? Because it's not just boys warning me about "them"; it's also once but now ex "they":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WMuzhQXJoY&t=8s&index=24&list=PLgzzAlT_CcFe2hnR1vFhqszXbUXFM7rSL

"They" are in actual fact more insidious and dangerous in modern society than anything from the distant past they imagine they are fighting against in 2018.

They are in fact so insidiously pervasive and influential that now a simple and fun game ad like the one above is being censored on the grounds of being too "explicit" as a far-reaching indirect symptom of their influence.

And banning a beloved and totally innocent Christmas song--which anyone who has actually done any research into the matter knows fine well isn't what "they" claim it to be out of utter ignorance and completely misguided sheep-think led "good" intentions--is just one thing in a long, long, long list of the absurd extremes "they" will go to force the world to be the way "they" want it to be.

So where does it end. . . .

When is the world cleansed and bleached and everyone made, seen and treated exactly the "same" enough for it to be OK and "safe" for us all to live in true "fairness" and "equality" as per the way "they" see and deem it so. . . .

Because it doesn't seem like "they" are satisfied yet, and it's now getting beyond absurd--dangerously so.

@CharlieSmile Kinda summed up one of the important points I was making there in literally less than two words (actually, not even one full word).

@impurekind - well that was a lot to take in. But going to disagree with you as to the reaction being perfectly acceptable to be as overreaching as those they're counter arguing.

I will say, as said before, I denounced my faith a while back because how pervasive the "right think" was influential with how government should run others, and many I had to deal with were very extreme. Going through college I learned to be very liberal almost out of spite for my family who were just outright toxic. The last 4-5 years, the slight disagreements with others one a similar political spectrum turned into chastising and even doxing. I will agree a lot of these good intentions are paved with a strong misguided will. At least as of recently, because I am pro-choice and pro-marriage of any combination of gender, but have recently still became an enemy of many that were once friends cause of simple dissonance of minor topics.

So now I am floating around in the in-between, supposedly enemy to all.

@Paraka Well look, it has to start somewhere with someone doing wrong or these kinds of situations wouldn't arise, which in this case is these morons crying foul over nothing and ruining the fun for everyone because they're pandering to a bunch of similarly moronic people. And reacting to that by calling foul here is not wrong. In fact, that's kind of our duty as sensible human beings to call out the actual wrongs we see, in this case especially as gamers having our hobby attacked and insidiously eroded one small step at a time by a bunch of OTT PC loons, if we want to live in a world that's as genuinely "free" and "fair" and "equal" and "just" and all that other good stuff as these people think they're trying to make it.

And you're not an enemy to anyone if you're just doing the right thing based on actually being somewhat educated about the things you're standing up for, such that you are in fact standing up for the right thing and not the thing you think is right because you simply don't know any better but want to be part of the herd That's all that's needed here.

A case in point would be these same kinds of people recently trying to get the classic Christmas song, "Baby it's Cold Outside", banned everywhere: They're doing so because they are literally ignorant to the history of that song (to the literal original movie footage and dual scenes it was sung on), and just want to jump on the sheep-think bandwagon believing they're doing good when in fact they are actually doing wrong.

So we are right to call that absurdity out--that's not an extremist opposite reaction; it's the right reaction--but they're not right to call out that song, or censor this ad, or a bunch of other crazy stuff they've been doing of late.

@impurekind - Never said it's not okay to call out ridiculousness when it arises, surely it's one of the reasons I am viewed so negatively in a few of my former friends' eyes now.

For instance, this topic; We're all almost unanimous in agreement that this removal is ridiculous. The issue arises is when each "side" points a finger at the other for forcing this to happen. Morals VS. Ethics argument in a nutshell.

Ultimately this removal has nothing to do with the cultural denizens of the media platform and more having to do with algorithms and programs (and no, not the NPC variety). And FB cannot be asked to change it appropriately cause it would take money, and that's scary to them.

But there is a root to this as to why, and it has to do with what people find "offensive" and what groups would run the least risk to their bottom line removing. There has been a few instances where more progressive minds have gone on a hunt to damage a person's career for even just speaking ill-will over one person of their group, but not the group as a whole, they'll take that fight to their doorstep. The opposition currently cannot be asked, they call it out and complain if their soapbox is removed, and the more reactive one gets to remain and belittle. Happened one direction during the Bush era, this time it's going the other way. Just this time we got social media at its prime and it's extra dangerous.

@Paraka Well that's even more absurd if this is an algorithm making this call.

@impurekind
I think you're confusing the causes and effects here.

@Pod They're all linked in this case.

@impurekind
Yes, except this kind of thing was happening long before the scapegoats you're pointing out entered the picture. They may be linked by theme and common origin, but this is not a cause/effect relationship.

@Pod Those "scapegoats" have been around since the late '40s through to the '70s in one largely obvious form or another, and in not so obvious ways long before that too. The root-cause it largely the same: A bunch of people [not always] thinking they're doing good but due to their ignorance and sheep-think, especially today, they end up just doing more damage than good, and some of it really insidious and dangerous.

@impurekind
I agree in your assessments about the dangers of movements thinking they're doing good, when really, what they're doing is dogmatically steamrolling everyone in their way. Typically for not using the same words or colors or whatever the name of the game is.

If we're really talking general corporate prudishness for reasons of public image, or calculated corporate appeal to prudish demographics, then these phenomenae have existed for centuries. Whether their prevalence is helmed by charismatic and publicly visible leaders who want to appear clean and neat, or PR showmen that want to give off a certain air, or attract certain customer groups, not a lot of it has to do with the customers themselves.
Moreso how the consumer groups are perceived by the corporations. And they certainly don't care about anyone's personal battles or ideals. Those don't earn them any fame or sales.

And this is why I call it scapegoats when blame is placed on so-called extremist lefties and feminazis for [International Conglomerate X] doing something which is deemed irrational to [Internation Media Publisher Y].

I dare you you to find the worst examples you can from either group you hold responsible, and show them this picture. Hear their opinions of whether Meatboy and Bandage Girl can have their cartoon butts visible in a Facebook ad.

Because to me, this seems like something Facebook would pick up on for entirely different reasons. Could be because of conservative American parents, who have historically had a dislike for implied nudity. OR - it could be because the main villain, Dr. Fetus, an evil under-developed baby, out of the womb and piloting a mech, is prominently on display here. And abortion happens to be one of THE hottest and most devisive topics in America in general, and certainly so on Facebook as well.

But this, as well, is speculation on my part.

Either way, please stick to blaming Facebook for what Facebook does, and Blitworks for not trying a bit harder, when wishing to get away with shoving comically provocative cartoons in everyone's faces.

And then have a great Newyear's.

@Pod Well, I can't be bothered actually going out and testing if some of the people from these groups would react exactly as I expect they would react to seeing the cartoon butt in this image, but I absolutely expect and know many of them would. lol

And I know you're right about corporations being like this for a long time, likely since they've existed, but I think the way they are so immediately and blatantly reactionary to anything in the current "social" media zeitgeist is more extreme than it has ever been, more ill-conceived and stupid than it's ever been, and more insidious and dangerous in the long run too.

Corporations have always been kinda slimy and supplicating to potential consumers, but now I absolutely know these groups are using the power of "social" media and the like to take advantage of that and bend the whole world to the way the want it to be. I've been knee deep in reading and watching and researching about a lot of these groups and all this kind of stuff for a bit now and can see how pervasive it is across all of our culture nowadays, including the video games industry, and far more so than ever.

It's just worse now than it's ever really been, particularly in relation to all their attacks on boys and gamers and the video game industry as a whole, because of how pervasive and influential "social" media and the like is (as well as it pervading throughout our educational institutions too), which these particularly groups are absolutely taking advantage of (something many people are finally starting to notice across academia and the like and actually stand up against), and I think most of us can at least sense if not directly see that happening right in front of our faces on a daily basis.

Political correctness, third wave femin*sm, far leftism, etc., has all gone a bit mad, and many people are starting to see that pretty clearly now and correctly speak against it when it's being used for wrong, which is rather a lot these days, rather than the original good it was intended to do.

Facebook rejecting this ad on the grounds of it being too "explicit" is just another good [crazy] example of the far reach/influence of all these various movements and the like, which is becoming more subtly and not-so-subtly pervasive and insidious over time, and this is one example where actual reasonable people need to stand up and say enough is enough--before this kind of near-Orwellian absurdity really goes far too far and actually starts to have dangerous effects and consequences on us all as a society (which, all being equal, it already has started to do in many ways that most people simply aren't aware of).

So I just want to stand up and clearly say "Enough is enough!" and do my bit to encourage us all to get back to something a bit more rational and reasonable and sensible--even us gamers.

And Happy [early] New Year to you too.

@impurekind
I'm completely with you in overdone political correctness being the bane of good discussion, and exchange of ideas through art. Though I see this kind of invasion on language and imagery happen from all ends of the political spectrum. Extremism and demonization of the perceived enemy is poisonous to clarity in a debate, and dangerous to freedom of thought.

You maybe be right that some in those groups would react as you expect to the imagery, though to the question "should it be allowed to be shown on Facebook" I would not expect the majority to be in favor of censorship.

Facebook, however, decided to not show this ad at all. They'd rather people not get to have an opinion, than have a slightly upset opinion. And I find this to be the real issue. The people in power decide. Not the people with the opinions.

@Pod "The people in power decide. Not the people with the opinions."

That's certainly true, but unless it's an algorithm that actually decided in this Facebook example, and I still kinda doubt it, I expect the people or person in power that made the decision in this case likely fall/falls very much into one of the camps I'm very wary of and worried about. And even if it was an algorithm, I think that algorithm being so extremist PC is also a symptom of all of this too, because it was designed by and written by a person or persons at the end of the day, and I think the end result points to the same cause once again--everything has been guided and distorted by a largely ignorant and misguided mob into OTT PC insanity.

So, for me at least, it still goes back to the danger of the way those groups think and the sway they have over so many people (and over all the systems and technologies and services and so on people interactive with every day), including people in positions of power making important decisions like who should be heading our companies and teaching at our schools and running our governments and passing our laws and so on.

We see this so often these days in tech companies and those kinds of industries (to pick something in an area we're both likely interested and maybe even emotionally and/or financially invested in), where more than one person has been fired for saying things like "there's only two biological sexes" or "there an in fact some differences between men and women, as just two examples I can recall off the top of my head, both of which are matter-of-fact true and in no way discriminating or sexist or whatever.

So it's very dangerous when people speaking basically rational and indeed scientific truths are at the mercy of corporate whims and the hands of these weird OTT PC extremists calling many of the shots these days.

It's actually frightening how much the world at large is listening to these people, buying into their misguided rhetoric, and actually doing their bidding (be it intentionally or unintentionally and directly or indirectly).

The example with Facebook and this ad being considered "explicit" is a perfect case in point imo: I simply do not believe this would have happened, these people and/or algorithms that made such a dumbfounded decision would not be in place today, without all the stuff I'm getting at above having been eroding away all common sense for so long and being at the root of it all and slowly and insidiously guiding everything towards the absurd craziness it's at now.

'Tis crazy times indeed:

Can't post a silly gaming ad showing a couple of very tame cartoon butt cracks, can't whistle at a woman in the street without it being considered a literal "hate" crime in some UK cities, forced by law in Canada to call a person you see as a man a women or a "they" or "zee" simply because they say so and nothing more, some game designers afraid to put a remotely sexy woman in their games for fear of being hunted by the PC mob, movies removing male hero figures left, right and center and replacing them with females simply to pander to one loud group, even where it is totally dumb, and many young boys losing important on-screen male role models as a result, people having to literally lie and say there are no differences between men and women so they don't get burned at the stake for blasphemy, and so on . . .

Ultimately, Facebook is just a bunch of people making decisions on what the company does and doesn't do with its products and services, and right now I think it's a bunch of rather particular people there (the kinds I mentioned above) who are making most of these important and impacting decisions.

@impurekind
I see Facebook as being completely impartial to the debate. They simply react. If you saw Zuckerberg on trial and thought "he's the kind of guy who'd employ a radical young leftist for decision making on advertisement censorship" then I'd call you a radical optimist.

They don't give a single toss. They want the least about of "upset" users, and this is how they estimated to get that result. Again, much more likely to be because of traditional conservative values of those over 40 (Facebook's primary userbase) who have strong opinions on nudity and abortion.

And all this, by itself, is not a problem to anyone or for anyone, except to Blitworks and Edmund McMillan, who now have to put together a new ad.

It's a private institution, and their rules are their rules however stupid they are, and nobody else can be held accountable for their decisions. It's not an art exhibition. It's not a public street. It's not an area of open, free, debate. It's literally Zuckerberg's livingroom, and he can tell you to shush if he feels like it.

I simply do not believe that this decision making is in the hands of the groups you mention. Not only do those groups experience such an intense level of in-fighting on which beliefs should be imposed on others via law, that they'd never agree on which things should be censored and which shouldn't, but having them in charge of advertisement would simply be bad for business.

Ask representatives of those movements if they believe Facebook ever does things the way they'd do them, and you'd get "no"s across the board. #freethenipple became a thing for a reason.

@Pod Well, I agree that if you asked these groups if Facebook ever does things the way they'd do them that they'd say "no".

This actually goes to one of my big issues with these types of people (and those who blindly enact their misguided will in the name of being "decent" human beings as dictated to them in this day and age by "social" media--see Facebook--and the like): It's never enough for these people in their fight to make us all "equal" and make everything "fair" and "safe" and "better" for everyone. They'd silence and enslave us all to ensure we are all "safe" and "free" and "happy".

But I'm not at all convinced they aren't making up many of the staff in these huge corporations and making many of the day to day decisions too, especially when it comes to choosing some random employee to "moderate" what's being posted and what's not. In fact, I think these are exactly the kind of people a necessarily conservative company like Facebook would gravitate towards for precisely these types of roles. And in this case I think the ad guys are just as fallible and easily swayed by "social" media and the like as anyone else to act in the way they think is "correct" and "best" for everyone.

I even see the same thing happen on sites like Nintendo Life with the moderators too: They're almost always the same kinds of people who follow the heard mentality and will instantly warn and eventually ban anyone who doesn't fall in line with the usually misguided views and beliefs of the moment in their bid to keep everyone "safe" from "harm". Even using self-censored swear words netted me a stern warning and nearly got me banned, words written literally like this ****, because "people can still tell you're swearing". And God forbid anyone should feel even slightly upset by the very hint of swearing--but not actual swearing.

We're all influenced by these groups and act out much of our modern daily "social" life's bending to their will, more so than most of us realise. That's how pervasive and insidious they have become across all facets of normal life these days, which is why I still lay this recent Facebook decision at their feet ultimately.

I'm basically trying to get to the real root-cause here rather than focus on a long-in-the-making and inevitable symptom.

I think the main difference between how we see things is simply that you don't think the dots connect and I absolutely do.

@impurekind
I think the dots connect. But I don't think they connect in the way you perceive them to.

As I see it, they all connect way way back.
The groups we initially quarreled over here, really are mere symptoms, as you put it. They're little buds on a twig, connected to a larger branch, that grows from a trunk. And accusing them of anything of this sort is fruitless, as not only will they not accept the blame, but putting blame on such a disparate mass of ideals is the opposite of pointing out a root course, and starting a discussion that would lead to any solutions.

That come's off as a little blunt, but I do think that placing blame on completely non-organized groups, that you single out as inherently dangerous, as being accountable for something a fully responsible private entity has done, then you're doing exactly the thing you're afraid of other people doing.

You're moving the discussion away from the issue, and dispersing the blame unto a completely faceless and unquantifiable foe. You might not have thought of it this way, but when I see this happen, I don't find it to be much better than when I hear a person blame "society" at large for some vaguely defined hardship they are experiencing, and then immediately after acting like they're being "victim-blamed", when you ask them to clarify.

We don't know the inner workings of Facebook. What we know, is that they're a very efficient money machine. My bet is on this having to do with company advertisement guidelines, which are likely based on how to make the most money, by causing the least amount of upset viewers flagging the ad as inappropriate. And that these guidelines themselves are entirely based on user metric statistics, rather than some nefarious overly politically correct head of advertisement boogieman.

And in the end, even if it was such a person to be responsible, they are still employed by Facebook, and acted as an individual in company interest. Otherwise, they ought to be fired. And their co-horts from some hodge-podge communities on the internet are not to be blamed for their lapse in judgement.

That's probably all I have to say about that.

I don't disagree that these people are annoying. But that someone else would imaginably pay some of them to be annoying REALLY isn't their fault.

@Pod I think we just see and understand these groups I'm on about very differently.

You have a grasp of what you think a corporate entity like Facebook is and does and how it works, but I'm not sure you view these groups I'm talking about anywhere near the same as I do. Because I see them as very obvious tribes of single-minded people who generally think and act very similarly as a mob, in a way that they think is doing good but is actually usually doing more harm than good, and that can very easily be pointed at in an actual physical/tangible form as a group, often literally when they are marching together for some cause or protesting some "evil" as they see it, and most of the time out of pure ignorance and sheep-think more than anything else.

One case in point: https://youtu.be/3WMuzhQXJoY

The people I'm talking about are the same kinds of people who actively tried to silence/suppress The Red Pill documentary, which in this case was almost universally a bunch of femin*zies and extreme lefties coming together in mobs and making such a noise that the ignorant morons of the world heard and believed them above the actual truth, and actually acted based on this. And those are the same people who can actually be very insidiously influential and dangerous across all of society when other weak minds buy into there rhetoric: People who start suggesting every guy is "mansplaining" all the time to effectively shut men up, that say women earn less than men when they actually don't, that say we need more "equality" of sexes and religions and ethnicity and so on in the workplace without understanding that equal opportunity is not the same as equal outcome, that start to perpetuate the myth that men are all sexually perverted and dangerous and women need to fear them so men are now the ones scared to go up and talk to women for fear or any repercussions, that say there's a problem with "r*pe" culture in our society but never question that usually nothing happens to the woman who falsely accuses a man of rape, that go on about "me too" and "black lives matter" just to be part of the crowd and turn it from something with good intentions to something really insidious and dangerous, that think we need actual laws to force us to use very specific words when talking to certain people so free speech is in danger, that think a man whistling at a woman is a "hate" crime and actually get laws passed saying so, that think an old and utterly innocent Christmas song is dangerous and try to get it banned, that think we need to remove all hints of sexual appeal from women in video games and get many game developers to start unnecessarily removing stuff from and censoring their games as a result, etc, etc, etc. . . .

You apparently don't think the groups I'm talking about and the people calling the shots at Facebook are linked at all, or that what's going on today is a result of the wide and far-reaching influence of these groups (using this Meat Boy ad case as the example), whereas I know they ultimately are.

I just think you don't quite realise the power and reach of these groups and movements, how insidious and infectious they are (more so than ever), and how deeply most of their misguided beliefs are now ingrained in and negatively affecting almost every aspect of on our society, especially when it comes to literally anything that the likes of "social" media touches (quadruply so in any business capacity, and octuply so in any business built around active and vocal daily users like Facebook).

You, it seems, are the one that wants to put it on basically a fictional corporate entity that ultimately we as people can't really do much about if things are going all skewed. Facebook is just a name for a corporation, we cannot really affect "Facebook", but it's a bunch of very real people who make up that corporation and still make many of the important decisions there. And I am the one who wants to put it on those actual people who are making the decisions, and the people and groups and systems who imo are very clearly influencing those people and their decisions (which I think is obvious if you look at the bigger picture here), and actually see if we can get them to come at things from a more sensible and informed place, so they are actually doing the properly-right things by us all.

Again, this ad being a case in point: It's clearly ridiculous, any sane person can see that (appeasing neither these people nor any "metrics" is the right way to go in the long run), and all it would have taken is a few sane people to point that out and then make a more sane decision. But clearly it's wasn't a group of sane people who made the decision; it was a group of people who have been both subtly and not so subtly and insidiously affected for many years now by the ongoing influence across all of media and beyond by a whole bunch of ignorant and misguided mobs (and some highly influential individuals like Anit* Sarkeesi*n) on war paths to save us all from the evils of the world. And the same point is true even if it was an algorithm (written by a bunch of human people) that ultimately made the call, or even a bunch of metrics that led to the decision (because those metrics are saying it's best just to appease these people for the sake of short-term gains, views and clicks and the like, without really looking at the bigger picture and longer-term effects).

It all comes back to entirely the wrong beliefs and causes and rhetoric being heard and spread en masse, which the various groups I mention are absolutely at the heart of imo (especially in relation to all the OTT PC crap going on right now), and how everyone thinks and acts and how everything in modern society is influenced and basically distorted around it as a consequence of that (which this Meat Boy ad being rejected by Facebook for being "explicit" is just one more example of).

Or that's exactly how it seems to me at least.

@impurekind
You bring up many interesting topics here, and I appreciate the mention of Cassie Jaye, whose efforts will soon enough be recognized, I should hope.

I do find it a bit reductionist to label groupings that don't even have names or assigned leaders as "single-minded", when the only thing keeping them together are a handful of ideals, that they frequently disagree upon.
Actively accusing all members of these groupings for doing things that are "clearly ludicrous" and which "no sane person" would do, is absolutely uncalled for. These are mostly intellectuals like you and I, however misguided they may be on a couple of points. Derogatory slurs like feminazis and leftists don't help either.

If you ever want to talk to these people about your concerns, or even just talk about them, you might need to moderate your approach.

I do find that you are the one turning Facebook into a spook story in your description. They're just a for-profit company that deals in information, statistics, and facilitation of advertisement. Of course we can affect them. But not if we perceive someone else to be the enemy. They practices aren't unique either. Television stations have acted on behalf of their viewers for over sixty years, censoring what you'd expect to upset people, rather than waiting and seeing what will happen, as it would be too late at that point.

And here's where we return to my initial intrusion on your assessment of the situation. NOT showing this kind of ad has nothing to do with NOT offending feminazis and leftists, to bring those terms back. It has everything to do with not upsetting the typical Christian mother of a good American family, many of who happen to be very vocal, while ALSO being very organized and very on-point with their values.

You can demonize the foot soldiers of contemporary political correctness as fiercely as you feel like. This isn't my beef here. My beef is with pointing to groups that just historically have no interest in consoring this type of cartoon imagery, when we have very vocal guardians of our children's minds haging out right next to them, who readily takes the blame (the honor) for doing "ludicrous" things that "no sane person" would.

If I may offer you one piece of advice for this new year, it would be to work on not perceiving yourself as quite as helpless and insignificant as your accusations make you seem. You can talk to the people you disagree with, and you can affect the corporations that cramp your style. Don't make yourself a victim to either.

@Pod I find it strange that you struggle to see a group where there clearly is one, and with a bunch of ring leaders and well known popular speakers and so on.

It's like saying there's no such thing as Anonymous because you can't quite say who's the real boss and exactly who is involved and how. But there is such a group as Anonymous, and it plans things and does things, and people get involved, and it actually has a pretty big impact in certain situations and in various ways.

Well the whole combined "femin*sm" wave 3 and extreme left*sm crowd is like Anonymous times a thousand, and far more dangerous than Anonymous actually is (a group that is actually largely misunderstood and incorrectly demonized by the media and the very same people I'm saying are the real danger here), except in this case most of the people who form this mob don't even realise they are acting as part of an ignorant, insidious and dangerous mob.

And I'm not accusing all femin*sts or people on the left; I am literally accusing the femin*zis, not just every femin*st, and extremist lefties, not just lefties. There just happens to be a lot more of them now than in the past, and imo they now make a majority of the kinds of people being vocal about any kinds of related issues that we're hearing about over and over and over in the media these days.

It's like you're not quite reading what I'm saying properly.

And again, I find it bizarre that you can't see the very obvious connection here with where our society is en masse as a result of the influence of these groups and how this almost certainly has affected many of the people at hugely "social" companies like Facebook who make important decisions. You think they're just doing what's best for business, that's it's really only about metrics and so on, but what they think it best for business is literally directly connected to appeasing the types of people and groups I'm talking about, as those are the people who can literally get execs fired and generate huge amounts of negative publicity if some company should step out of line as they see it, who can make all those positive up-votes disappear, and lose companies millions of fans and so on, and that is absolutely clear at this point.

And again, it's like you are blind to the huge difference between the way things were in the past and how rapidly and insidiously it's all changed as a direct influence of the Internet and particularly "social" media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and so on, which is a relatively new thing but one of the most powerfully influential forces on the masses that has ever existed in our society.

And these groups, the extreme lefties and extreme femin*sts (referred to as femin*zis) are actively trying to censor and sanitize and whatever else pretty everything in existence these days--and they are extremely effective at it. I'm literally reading a new story about it nearly every single day, even just on the gaming and entertainment sites I visit, never-mind all the other news sites and the likes. That's how pervasive and widespread it is.

What I have literally tried to show you in the example above is that you precisely cannot talk to these people I am referring to--they simply do not want to listen to anything contrary to their agenda, and they are actively trying to sensor and silence anyone and anything that they see as contrary to that. And they are literally calling any guy who even tries to speak up a r*pe apologist and woman hater and misogyn*st and saying they are all aggressive and naz*s apologists and so on, so they aren't willing to hear these people in the slightest. The video I linked shows you literally how they will even turn on their own as soon as they say even the slightest thing that's maybe contrary to their own misguided and ignorant beliefs--to the detriment of us all.

Again, I'm talking about the femin*sts who aren't really femin*sts anymore but more femin*zes, which in today's culture is sadly sooo many of them (purely because so many of them are acting based on ignorance and sheep-think), and the extreme lefties, which, again, in this culture is sooo many of the people who think they are just doing the right thing.

I guess you simply have not seen all the examples I've seen, you've likely spent very little time looking into this stuff at all (which is true of 99.99999% of people out there), so maybe you just don't think what I'm talking about is as big an issue as I'm making it sound--but it is.

We literally had people calling out Smash Bros. the other day for having totally innocent references to old gaming characters as being some kind of insidious racism and the like--another ridiculous example--and it's the groups I'm talking about who are the ones making the fuss about this. It's the kind of people who listen to and believe a tool like Anita Sarkeesi*n and her kind, as just one example of the kinds of "leader" figure they are listening to, and indeed "news" media and "social" media and a whole load of powerful and influential people are listening to and believing.

People who are so drunk on this whole OTT PC garbage that they are finding issue with almost every single thing in existence where literally no issue actually exists most of the time. And, imo, Anita is actually falsely creating issues where they don't exist most of the time literally just to get rich off the backs of a bunch of often well intentioned but extremely easily led morons.

The same people who say whistling at a girl is and should be a "hate" crime, that even just touching a woman on the should is sexual ab*se, who say that we have a problem with sex*sm in the gaming industry, that we live in a r*pe culture, who believe our children have to be taught the total fallacy there are literally no differences between men and women or else we're breeding a bunch of woman hating men--just a tiny selection of examples--and that their influence is so far and wide at this point that companies like Facebook are censoring stuff way too much just out of some fear of rocking the boat and getting bad publicity and negative backlash, from these people, and so on.

You want to make this example above an non-issue and say it's not connected at all, which might have been the case if it were an isolated incident ten years ago but not now, and I just assert that if we don't start calling out all these crazy situations every time it happens, even the ones you think aren't a big deal, then it's just going to get worse and worse and worse.

I'm telling you, this is simply a matter of you've not done enough research to see how bad the problem is, and how deeply ingrained it is and spread across all of society at this point--even though there's sooo many examples to see in this day and age, even in the sphere of gaming alone--so to you it seems like I'm just overreacting and connecting dots where there is no connection.

Trust me, I'm under-reacting, and the dots connect.

To be very clear, my reaction to them is simply a way to stop dangerous reactions by others, in the sense of breeding absurd levels of censoring and so on. Their reaction to nothing is creating dangerous reactions from others, in the sense of breeding absurd levels of censoring and so on.

So my "overreaction" is actually warranted and necessary in order to bring back some sanity and balance. Their overreaction is dangerous (so much of which is aimed at men and against anything male and masculine), especially to all the boys and men of this world.

Facebook's reaction here (calling this ad "explicit" and not allowing it)--one more time--is literally an obvious symptom of this bigger issue as far as I'm concerned.

But I get it--you don't think it is.

@impurekind
I don't think it's a direct symptom, and I don't actually even think it's an issue.
Facebook as a company not posting some other company's ad for whatever reason really isn't a concern that I would use for smearing anyone as an interest group at all, particularly not groups that just do not have history with causing any such thing to happen.

This one is on Facebook's shoulders for being spineless pushovers and having lost sight of what kind of media company they want to be. They make the decision and they alone hold the responsibility. In the long run it just makes their site and their services more and more boring, and justifies young people in moving on to other social media platforms.

@Pod Yeah, I get that you think it's just on Facebook--and I obviously think it's down to something that reaches far beyond just Facebook. Although, I'm more than happy to point the finger at Facebook for it's part in this particular incident too and tell it to get its act together, because obviously each company has a responsibility to act sensibly and appropriately as well, and not feed this out of control OTT PC monster.

@impurekind
Likewise, I'm not averse to calling out the hypocrites of this world, when I catch them actively silencing their opposition, in the names of justice, tolerance, and equality for all.
Whether that be in the form of attacks on individuals, a particular movie or game, or in the form of demands for some company to stop doing or showing something they have every right in the world to do or show.