Direct Line Blog

Note to Facebook: Don't call me fat

Ohhhh... Facebook. When will you get your online marketing right?

Staff writer Rachel Beckman blasts the social networking site in a column entitled "Facebook Ads Target You Where It Hurts" in the Washington Post today.

"Every time I logged in to my home page, Facebook's ads screamed at me with all the subtlety of a drill sergeant: 'MUFFIN TOP.' This particular ad had a picture of someone with said affliction," Beckman writes.  (A muffin top is what happens when a woman wears too-tight jeans and her flesh overhangs her waistband.)

Beckman, as any woman logging onto her Facebook page, obviously did not appreciate being told she was fat. The offending ad has since been removed, although it seems unlikely that Facebook has learned its lesson, Beckman reports.

After changing her status from single to married, Beckman says she started getting ads for fertility specialists.

"Thanks, Facebook, for calling me barren," she writes.
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