Facebook hides image of cigarette pack because of 'graphic content'

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'