Facebook Blocks Dating Company Forever For Using Photos Of Rehtaeh Parsons

Dating websites, Facebook apps, or any other internet based site that uses a profile system is likely to be misused and contain fake profiles, but it is also known that some companies skim images from the internet and use them to fill out their sites to make it look busier, unfortunately it seems one site has been using the image of 17 year old Rehtaeh Parson to advertise their dating website on Facebook.

“Immediately I thought, ‘Wow, somebody must not know whose picture they’re using here,'” said Rob Russell of Toronto, who spotted the advertisement on Facebook.

“I’m looking at this and I’m thinking, ‘How sick is that?'” said the late teen’s father, Glen Canning.

Parsons died in April after a suicide attempt at the age of 17. Her parents said she was sexually assaulted when she was 15 years old and then bullied relentlessly for more than a year. The advert was pulled immediately after receiving complains, but the company behind the advert, ionechat.com, will never be allowed to advertise with Facebook again.

“This is an extremely unfortunate example of an advertiser scraping an image and using it in their ad campaign, we apologize for any harm this has caused.” Said Facebook in a recent statement.

“What a thing for a parent to see. Especially because Rehtaeh is the victim of a sexual assault and they have her on a dating website,” said Canning, “not only that, she’s also a minor. What does that say?”

A spokesperson from Facebook encouraged people to report other advertisements if they have concerns.

Thank you CBC for providing us with this information.