Facebook Bans Holocaust Film for Violating Race Policy
In early September, director Joshua Newton was working on the rollout of his Holocaust movie Beautiful Blue Eyes when he received a troubling email. Peter Ruppert, a digital media buyer for the film’s distributor, MovieFarm, informed Newton that Facebook had banned the filmmakers from promoting or advertising the recently finished 2009 thriller, which marks Roy Scheider’s final performance, on its platforms. The social media giant said the film’s title, which refers to the eye color of a child who perished at the hands of the Nazis and invokes a key scene in the movie, violated its policy against content that “includes direct or indirect assertions or implications about a person’s race,” among other personal attributes.
Newton, the son of two Holocaust survivors who based his film on his late father’s experiences, was disgusted.
“This is the action of haters – and there are sadly many in our society – who seek to damage the film in order to trivialize the Holocaust,” Newton told Rolling Stone at the Toronto Film Festival. “Surely, Mark Zuckerberg did not intend this to happen.”
The filmmakers appealed, and Facebook upheld the ban in a brief message to Ruppert obtained by Rolling Stone. “After a requested review of your Facebook account, we confirmed it didn’t comply with our Advertising Policies or other standards,” the note read. “You can no longer advertise using Facebook Products. This is our final decision.” Advertising for the film, including trailers, was now “permanently restricted.”
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