A son of Holocaust survivors is demanding an apology from Facebook for blocking ads for his newly-released film “Beautiful Blue Eyes.” British filmmaker Joshua Newton said the tech giant’s move hurt his film, which was released in 143 theaters earlier this month. When his ads featuring the late actor Roy Scheider were flagged with a message that they violated Facebook’s policy against content that “includes direct or indirect assertions or implications about a person’s race,” Newton assumed it was an algorithm error. He grew increasingly frustrated when on an appeal, Facebook upheld the ban in a “final decision.” He said the claim that it violated a race policy made no sense, as the phrase “blue eyes” is in no way racist, nor is it limited to one nationality, and that his film is geared at fighting hatred rather than promoting it.
Only after Rolling Stone released its story on the controversy, Newton believes Facebook was motivated to lift the ban. He learned about the volt-face on Sept. 16 by reading about it in an article on the Ars Technica technology new site. “My view is that someone there has something against the film,” Newton told Zenger News. “There are people that don’t want the film to succeed. Obviously, [Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg is one of us [Jews], but he has 72,000 employees.”
