A photo of a San Marcos mother and her shirtless son at the river has sparked controversy online after Facebook removed the photo claiming it violated community standards.
"I had my phone and I just took a picture of them playing in the water,” friend and photographer Christopher Cardoza said.
He captured the moment of Kelly Stone and her 8-year-old son Mayne taking a dip in the San Marcos River. Stone made it her Facebook profile picture.
"And then two days later when I logged on to Facebook, Facebook showed me we removed some content you posted and it was that picture,” Stone said.
Facebook claimed the image displayed nudity and sexual activity.
"I think it’s some type of automated system, I think someone needs to take a look at the picture. It's obvious a mother with a child.,” Cardoza said.
This isn't the first time this has happened. Back in April, a similar photo was reported for the same reasons.
For 8-year-old Mayne, it doesn’t make sense.
"I felt a little mad because it was just me on her shoulders,” Mayne said.
After removing the photo, Facebook blocked Stone from using the site, she said they enacted a seven day probation period.
"I can basically just watch Facebook, like behind computer bars,” Stone said.
She couldn’t comment, post or like, which not only made it difficult for socializing but for work purposes too.
"I organize my panels for teaching through Facebook messenger. I am a comedian, so bookers contact me through messenger and I can't even respond,” Stone said.
Once the ban was lifted, she took matters into her own hands by re-uploading the photo, but as a meme.
"And it says, 'Dear Facebook, it's a boy,'" Stone said.
Stone says she hopes the company can fix their algorithm to prevent something like this from happening again.
KVUE reached out to Facebook and they sent this statement:
The photo was removed, and account suspended, in error and restored as soon as we were able to investigate. Our team processes millions of reports each week, and we sometimes get things wrong. We're very sorry about this mistake.