STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.

Still Visible

Does Facebook keep taking down a photo of a police officer praying? No, that's not true: A spokesperson for Facebook told Lead Stories in a June 14, 2022, email that this was not true. The post does not violate Facebook's policies and there has been no enforcement on the content, according to the spokesperson.

The claim appeared in a Facebook post on June 6, 2022. The post reads:

Supposedly this photo keeps getting taken down by FB. It would be a shame if we shared it far and wide. Seriously, why would a police officer praying before a meal be something to take down! Unreal! GOD BLESS OUR OFFICERS AND GOD BLESS AMERICA

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Jun 15 15:01:19 2022 UTC)

Lead Stories had an email exchange with Facebook's press team on June 14, 2022. In that email, a spokesperson for Facebook said:

The post doesn't violate our policies and there has been no enforcement on the content.

As of June 15, 2022, this photo of a police officer praying can be still be seen on Facebook. Here are two examples of the photo being visible in a post on June 15, 2022:

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed June 15 16:39:19 2022 UTC)

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed June 15 16:41:39 2022 UTC)

(Editors' Note: Facebook is a client of Lead Stories, which is a third-party fact checker for the social media platform. On our About page, you will find the following information:

Since February 2019 we are actively part of Facebook's partnership with third party fact checkers. Under the terms of this partnership we get access to listings of content that has been flagged as potentially false by Facebook's systems or its users and we can decide independently if we want to fact check it or not. In addition to this we can enter our fact checks into a tool provided by Facebook and Facebook then uses our data to help slow down the spread of false information on its platform. Facebook pays us to perform this service for them but they have no say or influence over what we fact check or what our conclusions are, nor do they want to.)