AN ADVERT showing a picturesque landscaped garden was rejected by Facebook as “sexually explicit” – because of a glimpse of a naked statue.

Catering company Beales Gourmet was attempting to advertise an event organised by its fine dining society at the Italian Villa at Compton Acres.

But the glimpse of a naked statue, which has been in the Poole garden since 1924, was apparently too much for the social media giant’s algorithms.

Justin Cohen, commercial manager with Beales Gourmet, said: “We’ve been doing a lot of advertising with Facebook in the last year or so.

“This was the first time they’ve said ‘I don’t think so!’. It said ‘This ad has been declined due to sexual or erotic products’.”

Some time later, he realised what the offending content was. “At the very front of the garden, as you enter, there are two Romanesque naked man statues,” he said.

He said Facebook eventually admitted an error and allowed the ad, but the event had sold out anyway, Mr Cohen said. “It’s taken 8-10 days to resolve,” he said.

“They’ve had this quite a lot with artistic paintings of nudes. The algorithm just looks for body parts. They are costing themselves revenue but more importantly they’re stopping people advertising things,” he said.

Mr Cohen said he was lucky he had been able to raise it with a Facebook representative who was speaking to customers in the area.

“This is a campaign that they run which is geographically based. Some people will be waiting years to have an appointment. We are lucky we happen to fall within that period,” he said.

Facebook’s advertising policies say ads “must not contain adult content”, including “nudity, depictions of people in explicit or suggestive positions, or activities that are overly suggestive or sexually provocative”.

But the guidelines include a photo of a statue with the caption: “This image shows nudity in a statue and is compliant.”

Earlier this year, the Flemish tourist board complained to Facebook after a number of posts featuring paintings by Flemish artists were removed because of nudity. An Australian auction house seeking to advertise an acclaimed painting, Women Lovers by Charles Blackman, also fell victim to the policy. A teacher in France won a high court victory there after Facebook suspended his account because he posted a 19th century erotic painting. which hangs in the Musee d’Orsay.

Facebook told the Daily Echo it was investigating.