Most Facebook photos flagged as 'offensive' are just 'unflattering'

The majority of the photos being reported as 'offensive' on Facebook weren't really offensive at all, but rather portrayed the tagged person as unflattering or unattractive, the social network has found.

Below every photo on Facebook is a button allowing the person who has been tagged in a photo uploaded by one of their friends or another user, to report it for violating the site's terms of use.

Facebook, however, revealed that the majority of photos which were reported as offensive last year, were not so, and were actually flagged because the subject of the photo didn't like the image for vanity reasons, technology site All Things D reports.

According to The Telegraph, Facebook said that it only wants to take down 'offensive' photos not just unflattering ones.

The site's engineering director, Arturo Bejar, speaking on US radio station NPR said that Facebook would not delete or take down individual's photos, which contain other members that simply displeased people.

He encouraged users to talk to their friends on the site and ask them to delete them instead.

According to the paper, Facebook is the largest photo-sharing site in the world, with its 800 million members uploading an average of over 250 million photos per day.