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Teh One Who Knocks
05-20-2012, 11:51 AM
By Radar Staff


http://i.imgur.com/Ihqg0.jpg

In the same week that Facebook went public, making billionaires and millionaires out of hundreds of employees including founder Mark Zuckerberg, it did the unthinkable to Heather Walker. It banned the photos she's posted of her deceased infant son, Grayson.

Grayson James Walker was born February 15 with the rare disorder, Anencephaly, which prevents the brain from developing. His mother and father, Patrick Walker, knew from the fourth month of her pregnancy of the baby's terminal condition. Still, Heather decided to carry him to term, knowing he'd live only a few hours.

Heather shared the heartache her family was experiencing on an emotional blog in the hope it might help other families.

And on the day of his birth, a charity called Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep sent in a professional photographer to take photos of the Walkers with their tragically deformed newborn and the delivery room nurses made clay hand and footprints for the grieving parents.

Last week, Heather decided to post the photos on her Facebook page and was stunned by the outcome. Facebook deleted her photos and banned her from the site for 24 hours.

"Facebook deleted them because of the 'content'," Heather said. "They allow people to post almost nude pictures of themselves, profanity, and so many other things but I'm not allowed to share a picture of God's beautiful creation."

Heather's friends rallied by posting the pictures on their own Facebook pages, and after the 24-hour ban was over, Heather's own page was back up with the photos. They are only available to people she Friends.

Ironically, the TV drama Private Practice just featured a storyline where one of the doctors discovered she was carrying a baby with Anencephaly. She carried the baby to term and then donated his organs to other infants in need.

Heather is keeping her blog going, and on May 16 even wrote about seeing the Private Practice episode.

"As I was watching Private Practice last night, I was taken back to that day for a moment. Amelia, one of the doctors, had a baby with anencephaly. As she voiced what she was feeling that day, I too can relate. I remember lying in the hospital bed wondering if he was going to be alive or how long he was going to live. I wondered what he was going to look like. So many thoughts rushed through my brain that Wednesday morning.

"Of course he was perfect and fought for 8 hours. He was so beautiful and sweet."

Hal-9000
05-20-2012, 09:15 PM
yet I can not only post pics of someone I hate...I can make an entire group page dedicated to someone that pissed me off, I can call her a slut and post public pics of her in various forms of undress...

In fact I can create a group page called - I hate Jane Doe Because She Slept with my Brother........and this poor family can't post a picture of their baby that died, on their own page. Talk about handcuffing the wrong forms of freedoms...

Arkady Renko
05-21-2012, 08:53 AM
apparently those responsible for banning these pictures were born without a heart.

Teh One Who Knocks
05-21-2012, 12:24 PM
By Radar Staff


Facebook has issued a public apology to Heather Walker and her family following the outrage that erupted over the social media site deleting photos of her baby son who was born without a brain.

RadarOnline.com reported on the heart-wrenching story of the Walkers. Four months into her pregnancy last year, the Tennessee woman learned the baby she was carrying was afflicted with Anencephaly, a rare condition that would prevent the brain from developing. Even though Heather and her husband Patrick knew their baby would be born severely deformed and would likely live only a few hours, she made the decision to carry him to term.

Grayson James Walker was born February 15, and survived just eight hours. During his short life, the Walkers introduced him to their two older children, and had photos taken.

Last week, Heather decided to post some of those images on Facebook, just as she had with her older kids. She was stunned to have the photos deleted and her account frozen by Facebook for 24 hours.

“Upon investigation, we concluded the photo does not violate our guidelines and was removed in error," Facebook officials said in a statement to RadarOnline.com.

"Facebook is a place where almost a billion people share more than 300 million photos a day. Our dedicated User Operations Team reviews millions of pieces of this content a day to help keep Facebook safe for all ages. Our policies are enforced by a team of reviewers in several offices across the globe. This team looks at hundreds of thousands of reports every week, and as you might expect, occasionally, we make a mistake and remove a piece of content we shouldn’t have.

"We extend our deepest condolences to the family and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience."

Heather Walker continues writing an emotional blog about her "sweet boy."

It's unknown in Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who married his physician girlfriend Priscilla Chan last night, was aware of the controversy.

Muddy
05-21-2012, 12:40 PM
Im really sorry for these peoples loss, but really pictures of a graphic nature like this should be closed to friends only..

Teh One Who Knocks
05-21-2012, 01:06 PM
It's on their own personal page, I don't see why they need to make it private? It's not exactly something the average person would just stumble upon unless you knew these people.

Arkady Renko
05-21-2012, 01:15 PM
Im really sorry for these peoples loss, but really pictures of a graphic nature like this should be closed to friends only..

I agree in principle, if something like that happened to me I wouldn't want to upload any pictures anywhere at all. But if this couple feels that posting their dead baby's picture mifght help them cope - who are the facebook censors to tell them not to? It's not like they were posting necro porn or something.