Brody's Notes... Small Gay Seattle Start-Up Company's Fan Page Banned From Facebook

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) June 24 | A small Seattle based Internet company that facilitates interaction between the LGBT community and Gay friendly businesses has had its Facebook Fan Page removed without warning for allegedly violating Facebook's terms of service.

In a press release from Unicorn Booty,  company co-founder Nick Vivion says:

“It’s very strange. Unless they consider a wild pink unicorn ‘obscene,’ the only thing that might ring their bell is that we have the word ‘booty’ in the name of our company. Maybe Facebook doesn’t have a sense of humor?"

Unicorn Booty's other co-founder Kevin Farrell added:

“Or a dictionary! Anyone that is a fan of Pirates vs. Ninjas knows that booty is pirate’s treasure. Our tagline is ‘The gold at the end of your rainbow’ after all!”

Facebook’s only response to the outcry from Unicorn Booty and its fans has been an automated response, saying that the firm had posted “prohibited content,” including, but not limited to, “nudity, sexually explicit content or hate speech."

“We connect the gay community to like-minded businesses. There is no hate speech, and absolutely nothing sexual or explicit about our content. We are a legitimate LLC in Washington State that donates 10% of our proceeds to LGBT non-profits. How we are violating their TOS is beyond me,” Vivion says. 

And without further information, the business owners have no idea what they have done wrong.

“Perhaps people are connecting ‘booty’ and ‘gay-friendly’ with sex. It’s childish, disingenuous, and has nothing to do with our company mission, which is to support gay-friendly business,” Vivion continues. “We feel that a select few have taken to our page and reported it to Facebook, giving anti-gay folks the power to remove our community of supportive individuals. We have no recourse to fight back and not only is it frustrating, it’s just not right.”

Unicorn Booty has been covered in Instinct Magazine, Perez Hilton, Towleroad, CNN, iReport, Queerty, Gay.com, Echelon Magazine, along with dozens of other blogs.

Unicorn Booty is an interactive website that connects the community with Gay-friendly businesses. Every day, a different company is featured and shared through custom video, photos, social media and on the homepage. The company believes that supporting businesses that support the LGBT community is the surest way to real and lasting change.

Vivion also noted that Unicorn Booty also gives 10% of the proceeds to a different LGBT non-profit every quarter