Petition Urges Facebook To Eliminate The “Feeling Fat” Emoticon
A new petition is urging Facebook to get rid of its “feeling fat” status emoticon, claiming it’s hurtful.
The campaign from “Endangered Bodies”, an activist group, claims the popular social network is endorsing body shaming and needs to remove the “fat” options from its present moods feature.
Catherine Weingarten, writing on the petition page, said fat isn’t a feeling. Instead, it’s a natural part of the human body – regardless of weight.
Facebook’s “feeling fat” statues is a plump and rounded-cheeked smiley face that goes with the “feeling stuffed”. It’s one of 100 feelings users of the social media website can include into their posts and status updates.
Weingarten said people can choose the status as a joke, but with so many people suffering with low self-esteem and eating disorders, the “feeling fat” status is a loaded idea. She said it’s about self-worth. Weingarten said people say they feel fat to put themselves down.
According to a company spokesperson, Facebook has no plans to get rid of the option. The spokesperson said people use Facebook to share feelings they have with their friends and support one another. One way, the company said, they do that is adding feelings to their posts.
The spokesperson said the website has numerous preloaded feelings based on what people say, although people do have the option to choose their own.
As of Sunday, there were over 15,000 signatures on the Change.org petition for the “Remove the Feeling Fat Emoticon Option”.
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