Amid the countless racy images posted on Facebook, you will not find a Toronto Public Health ad warning of the dangers of testicular cancer.

The wildly popular social network website has censored the public service announcement for being a “threat” to its online audience.

When health officials recently attempted to place an ad on the website urging men to “check your package” for signs of the disease, Facebook officials took exception.

The advertisement, which features a male midsection alongside text urging men aged 18 to 35 to do monthly self exams, was deemed distasteful and “threatening” by Facebook officials, according to emails obtained by the Star.

“It is disappointing that Facebook, many of whose clients we want to reach, doesn’t see the importance of providing them with clear and effective communication,” said Dr. David McKeown, Toronto’s medical officer of health.

“We can’t afford to be squeamish about an important health problem.”

In a written response, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company said that while it supports “creative and compelling” ad campaigns, “we must ensure that the nature of each campaign adheres to the policies and guidelines that we have set out.”

Testicular cancer is most common in young men, with about 900 cases a year in Canada and 30 deaths. With incidents on the rise, early self-detection is a vital message, said McKeown.

The city had hoped Facebook, with its vast and youthful subscriber base of more than 500 million people, would provide a cost-effective way to heighten awareness around the shadowy public health issue.

Toronto Public Health designed several different versions of the ad and tested the results in focus groups comprised of male university students.

The “Check Your Package” headline and image was the clear favourite, says Mary Margaret Crapper, a Toronto Public Health spokesperson.

So, the city made a $10,000 ad buy for a four-week Facebook campaign.

But once Facebook’s advertising department examined the ad package, the deal got sacked.

“Just got feedback from the policy guys — looks like ‘check your package’ won’t fly,” wrote Facebook ad operations employee Roger Lu in an Aug. 27 email to city staff.

“And we’ll need an image change. Is there anything else we can use?”

City staff pushed back in an email response saying, “That might be an issue on our end since this entire campaign is called Check Your Package and has the same exact image. Is there absolutely no way we can push this through?”

In a Sept. 1 email, Lu advised the city that following an internal “escalation,” the ad simply gave Facebook officials the willies.

The image “must not focus on a specific body part, particularly a man’s crotch” and the “Check Your Package” headline was “unacceptable,” the email reads.

Facebook also objected to the words “Men 18-35 are at risk” as being “threatening to the user and we don’t allow age callouts under any circumstance.”

In its written response, Facebook officials said they “worked closely with the Toronto Public Health officers to come up with alternatives and encourage them to advertise on Facebook to support their important cause.”

That included substituting the man-in-underwear image with a far less intriguing logo of the Canadian Testicular Cancer Association, replacing “Check Your Package” with the words “Be Aware” and making a complete rewrite of the copy.

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“Please keep in mind that it is not our intention to change the content/message of your campaign, but to take steps to contribute towards the overall success of the campaign,” reads the email from Lu to city staff. Lu declined comment to the Star.

Those efforts at compromise undermined the agency’s carefully crafted message, said McKeown.

“We feel we’ve already done the work required to identify an effective campaign and that’s our business. Clearly, Facebook’s policies are a barrier to effective public health education.”

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