Facebook hides image of cigarette pack because of 'graphic content'
Thursday, October 10, 2019 at 12:06 
Notification received from Facebook this morning:
We added a cover to your link because it may show violent or graphic content.
I clicked on the link, wondering what the heck I had posted in recent days that featured ‘violent or graphic content’.
What I found was an article from the Guardian, dated May 19, 2017, and posted by me that same day, concerning the introduction of plain packaging.
The image Facebook has decided to hide, over two years later, features a ‘standardised’ pack of cigarettes.
But it was clearly not the cigarette pack itself that prompted Facebook to act because last week I posted a link to another article that featured an image of a cigarette pack without a picture warning, and that photo hasn't been hidden.
The problem would seem to be the image of a gangrenous foot that appears on the front and back of the featured pack.
So in this increasingly weird world, Facebook has decided unilaterally that UK government-approved graphic warnings are too graphic to show without prior warning.
Perhaps the government should now demand that tobacco companies cover cigarette packs with an opaque film and the caution, 'This product features graphic content'.
Only then will we feel truly safe.
Below: The image hidden by Facebook because of its 'graphic content'
Reader Comments (3)
The images are revolting and offensive and actually don't relate to anything seen by smokers. The images show people with those conditions but we know they are models who don't smoke with the type of illnesses and diseases that we could all get smoker or non smoker.
It is true they are violent but the violence is aimed at smokers and the images aimed at those who do not smoke to look at smokers as revolting people. Graphic images are part of the organised hate campaign against smokers.
My annual stock this year seems to be a vascual diseased foot but it is always hidden in my lovely leather tobacco pouch or cigarettes in my elegant silver cigarette case.
I am sorry now that I said that. The swivel eyed hate mongers in ASH will now probably demand tobacco pouches and cig cases are made illegal just in a case a 2 year old child on its way back from the pub with its parents sees an old pensioner like me in a dirty corner somewhere getting my tobacco out of a non govt approved container.
When will Boris and his alleged new conservative party do something about the utter health obsessed nutters enforcing a Nanny State on people who just want to be left alone to get on with their lives without bothering others. Public health was founded on the concept of bothering others and it needs to be scrutinised for the message of hate it puts out to encourage bullying of people who are not acting in an illegal way. We are legitimate adult consumers and we have a right to be left alone.
There is not much difference between them at ASH and the doom laden messages spouted by the weirdo extremists in XR who gladly scare the life out of children for ideological gain too.
The oppression of smokers continues following an extreme Orwellian template. Non-smokers beware the totalitarian s will target you next (actually they already are as we now know that eating on public transport is the next sin in the eyes of the lifestyle controllers.
Don't worry, Pat. I too use a leather case for my cigs, but it wasn't made for cigarettes - it's actually a soft glasses case, and the neat little pocket at the front (designed for the cleaning cloth to be get-attable) is perfect for a couple of lighters! Rolling tobacco packs, of course, wouldn't work in a glasses case, but there are loads of different size/shapes/designs of smallish cases for all number of items (leather camera cases are good, too). Even the all-powerful Health zealots can't ban all of them just in case someone, somewhere, might use them for cigarettes or tobacco!
Oh, and I started keeping my non-plain packs before the plain ones came in, too, so I transfer all my cigs into one of those. So when the box emerges from the leather case - hey presto! - it's marked all over with my brand's trademark. It's enough to bring on an attack of the vapours for any passing anti-smoker - not only can you not see the warnings, you can see the brand name! Shock, horror!