An artist was stunned when Facebook blocked her from posting images of her scientific work - as it was deemed too sexual.
Rebecca Harris was told she could not show pictures of her hand-stitched textile of the human body on her Facebook page because they are "overly sexual images" that "suggest nudity" and "show a lot of skin or cleavage."
The artist said she was dumbfounded that it could be too rude for Facebook.
The piece shows the body's microbes and was commissioned for an exhibition titled Invisible You: The Human Microbiome at the world-famous Eden Project in Cornwall.
The mother-of-three attempted to set up an advert on the social networking site to promote her work but this was rejected for breaching their guidelines.
She was shocked when she received the following message from "Jane" of the facebook team.
The Cornwall-based artist, who has three children Nicole, 17, Zoe, 15, and Brae, 6, said: "I initially got a generic computer response describing it as a sexual, which I thought was quite funny at first.
"It was so ridiculous so I appealed and thought as soon as a human being saw the advert they would allow it go ahead.
"That was when I got the e-mail from Jane from Facebook ads, who described it as overly sexual.
"I just find the whole thing bizarre that you see some horrific things on Facebook yet something like this can be censored. "
Rebecca, from Launceston, Cornwall, was commissioned for the project in August last year and started creating the work of art a month later.
The 'stitching science' piece will play a major part in the exhibition, which opens on May 22.
"Needless to say I was shocked by Facebook's comments and sat looking confused at the screen for some time," the 37-year-old said.
"Then I decided I must make this public, so I shared the offending image via Twitter and it soon got many, many re-tweets as others obviously agreed at how absurd this was.
"So what started as a day where Facebook would not give me any exposure to up my likes to a round figure of 500, paying them £7 per day over seven days - turned out to be the best exposure the work has received so far and I haven't given them a penny."
She added: "We have had the last laugh though and my work has now got more publicity than I could ever have imagined."
A spokesman for the Eden Project said: "The work is an embroidered textile hanging that represents the microbial communities of the skin and illustrates that the womb does not contain a microbial community.
"We are pleased that Rebecca's striking, thought-provoking work is due to be part of Invisible You exhibition and we're glad that it is sparking debate already."
Facebook have yet to comment.
Last month, dozens of mums posted breastfeeding selfies on Facebook after the social network removed a photo of mum Kaya Wright, because it violated their nudity rules.
Many more Mirror Mums posted their own images in a worldwide show of support.
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