Two Chester teenagers are furious that pictures they posted on Facebook to celebrate them both getting the all-clear from cancer were reported by people offended by their content.
Tiffany Williams and Jessica Versey , both 19 from Blacon , have been featured separately in the Chronicle during their brave battles with cancer, becoming close friends along their journey, and the pair were ecstatic when they went into remission around the same time.
So thrilled were they to share their wonderful news with their friends and family, both Tiffany and Jessica took to social media on separate occasions to post photographs of themselves towards the end of their cancer journeys, and were horrified when a number of the shots were reported to Facebook for causing offence.
Tiffany, who earlier this month was cleared of Hodgkin Lymphoma and regularly documented her struggle with losing her hair to chemotherapy on her Facebook page, decided to share a picture of her bald head with her followers and was horrified to get a notification from Facebook saying her photo had been reported for nudity.
She said: “I had decided to shave my head during chemo, which took a lot of courage. Every time I went to do it I decided against it but one night after treatment I made a 10 minute decision and got a friend to shave it off. Feeling proud, I updated my friends on Facebook with the caption “I did it!” and about 2 hours later found that someone had reported it for nudity.
“It didn’t get deleted but I knew it must have been someone I had as a friend. I posted a nice one of me with my makeup on the day after, and that got reported too.
“All I was doing was trying to help others that might need that little boost to show that no one is different, with or without hair or scars,” added Tiffany.
And she was further shocked last week when leukemia sufferer Jessica’s photo of the scar left by the removal of her Hickman line chemotherapy catheter, also got reported for nudity.
Jessica, who received lifesaving bone marrow treatment from her 10-year-old sister Maisy , said it was ‘a massive deal’ for it be taken out after her gruelling cancer battle. “Having that taken out was a big thing for me, as it essentially kept me alive for so long,” she explained. “I shared my scar to show people my body was one step further away from cancer.
“As soon as I put it up it was reported for nudity, then straight away a selfie of my bald head was also reported - the first ever picture I posed with no hair.
“It really upset me as I didn’t see what the big deal was. It’s weird that people find it acceptable to post half naked pictures but yet people get offended by me sharing my journey with cancer. “
Tiffany added: “To even report such photographs of two young girls showing their bravery during the world’s most horrible disease is very upsetting and gives me that little knot in my stomach knowing someone that knows me and Jess gets a kick out of it.”
A spokesperson for Facebook’s UK agency Blue Rubicon said: “Facebook is governed by a set of community standards which set out limits for acceptable behaviour and content on Facebook and I can confirm on background these images do not violate these standards.
“Further information about Facebook’s community standards can be viewed at www.facebook.com/communitystandards.”
