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Redditor Maleficent-Fortune88 is a woman who can sympathize with a close friend who suffered a miscarriage.
But the manner in which her friend processed the traumatic experience "upset and grossed out" the Original Poster (OP).
So the OP took action leading to consequences that later weighed on her conscience.
She visited the "Am I the A**hole" (AITA) subReddit and asked:
"AITA for reporting my friend's miscarriage photos to Facebook?"
Warning: contains graphic descriptions.
The Original Poster (OP) indicated the post was a:
"Throwaway for obvious reasons."
"A friend announced a few months ago that she was pregnant. She and her boyfriend were very excited. We've been friends since childhood and I was happy for her."
"I had a miscarriage two years ago and it was pretty traumatic, so I'm mentioning that for full disclosure."
"When my friend would have been 15 weeks pregnant, she posted a graphic, gory photo of her miscarried fetus saying she was devastated."
"Note the terminology: miscarried fetus, not stillborn baby. This pregnancy wasn't even close to viability and it did not look like a baby. It looked like a shock image. The fetus looked like it had been dead a while and was sort of disintegrating. :("
"I was upset and grossed out but simply offered my condolences and clicked 'hide' on the first image."
"Then it got weirder. A few hours later, she and her boyfriend rolled out a bunch of bizarre photos where they were posing with this visibly decaying fetus in their hands and one where she was kissing it."
"It looked like they were trying to replicate the photos that parents take with actual stillborn babies but like they weren't even realizing that this was not the same thing."
"actually got physically sick seeing the pictures where she was kissing it and I reported all the posts to Facebook for graphic violence. Facebook removed them."
"She and her boyfriend have spent the last several telling everyone they could about how they were victimized and abused by Facebook and how they had a beautiful, perfect baby and someone thought their baby was 'graphic violence.'"
"And of course the obligatory 'If you think my beautiful child is violent or gory, unfriend me now.'"
"The only reason I haven't unfriended her is because I'm realizing I might have been TA and I may owe her an apology and may need to process through my repulsion on my own, rather than reporting someone to Facebook while they were grieving."
Strangers on the internet were asked to declare one of the following:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH - No A**holes Here
Redditors weighed in with their thoughts.
"Whoa. Firstly, I would say NTA. I know people grieve different ways, but that is a little shocking."
"Secondly, I have reported things on facebook before (like mangled and bloody animals in hunting photos, images of dead bodies that I did NOT want to see) and they haven't gotten removed by facebook because they 'didn't violate any terms and conditions.'"
"So if they actually got their pics removed, then you probably weren't the only person who reported it and facebook has to review all of those cases." – StarrFoxx92
"NTA. I started to feel sick reading this, without even seeing the pictures."
"A miscarriage can be extremely distressing and take a toll on your mental health, but this just seems disturbing." – ItsGoodToChalk
"Exactly. But, for the love if god dont say anything. Dont tell them you reported it, dont apologise for anything (other than their loss obviously)."
"She'll get really mad and you'll be made out to be the bad guy. You arent wrong but that wont count for anything to them. Shes already being aggressive without even knowing who reported it, imagine how mean she'll be to you if she knows you're the one who reported it."
"NTA." – beautifulblack-child
"Reporting pictures to Facebook is anonymous, Facebook will never inform her friends it was her who reported it." – ItsGoodToChalk
"Yeah, posting them on social media is where it tips for me. I'm not going to judge this couple for grieving in a different way than I probably would, but those photos really should remain private for just the close family to be able to view." – Sensitive_Raccoon_07
"NTA. While it's clearly tragic that they lost their child, I don't think it's unreasonable that other people wouldn't want that appearing in their feed."
"I do think you could have unfriended them and moved on, but facebook (Or the bot representing facebook...) clearly agreed that this was against the guidelines." – cyfermax
"One big reason that Facebook deletes violent and gory photos is that those images can trigger people with trauma, like OP."
"I'm sure that OP was not the only one that had an extreme reaction to those photos. She did the entire Facebook community a service by getting them deleted. NTA." – mference123
While most Redditors declared NTA and expressed their sympathies for the miscarriage, they thought the friend posting the photos on Facebook was probably not a good idea.