Facebook Makes a FUS

My alma mater the Franciscan University of Steubenville submitted a series of Facebook ads on Holy Thursday for their online theology courses. Not all of the ads passed FB’s rigorous screening process. Here’s the one they rejected:

Facebook’s stated reason for rejecting the ad?

FUS issued a statement on their official blog.

We posted yesterday a series of ads to Facebook to promote our online MA Theology and MA Catechetics and Evangelization programs.

One ad was rejected, and an administrator of our Facebook page noticed this rejection today. The reason given for the rejection?

“Your image, video thumbnail or video can’t contain shocking, sensational, or excessively violent content.”

The iconoclast heresy is alive and well. This remarkably tone deaf incident provides more evidence that SJWs are the mutant offspring of commies and puritans. Sure, FB is targeting Christians here, but remember: SJW-ism is a Christian heresy, and heretics reserve far more wrath for their orthodox forebears than they harbor for outsiders.

Brief aside: Zuckerberg’s upcoming testimony before Congress should be a hoot. Divest from Facebook. Invest in popcorn!

The FUS blog continues:

The San Damiano Cross.  Jesus in glory, reigning from his cruciform throne. This is what the monitors at Facebook consider excessively violent, sensational, and shocking.

And indeed, the Crucifixion of Christ was all of those things. It was the most sensational action in history: man executed his God.

It was shocking, yes: God deigned to take on flesh and was “obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8)

And it was certainly excessively violent: a man scourged to within an inch of his life, nailed naked to a cross and left to die, all the hate of all the sin in the world poured out its wrath upon his humanity.

“but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, an absurdity to Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jew and Gentile, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24)

Remember the MySpace reference in the first Iron Man movie? That scene was probably filmed in 2007. By the time the sequel came out in 2010, MySpace was already an irrelevant joke. I’d say the time was right for a Facebook boycott, but it looks like there’ll be no need. Zuckerberg’s data mining social network operation is imploding nicely on its own.

Thank God for that. Only Google more richly deserves the MySpacing that Facebook is about to get–either from antitrust suits, users abandoning the platform in droves, or both.

Personally, I keep my Facebook use to an absolute minimum for business needs. Suffice it to say you won’t see me buying ads from Zuck. But if you want a story that’s often shocking, sometimes violent, and definitely sensational–and that bows the knee to the hope Christ bought for us, check out the final book in my thrilling Soul Cycle, The Ophian Rising.