Bishop Erik Swope-Wise

Bishop Erik Swope-Wise, right, and his husband Kelsey Swope-Wise stand before a unity candle on their wedding day on April 28, 2012. The photo was inadvertently removed from Facebook by the site after a complaint was made about the image.

A gay man whose wedding photo was pulled from Facebook after an anonymous complaint believes the social network’s reporting policy allows for a "subversive" type of harassment.

The photo of Pastor Kelsey Swope-Wise, 37, and his husband, Bishop Erik Swope-Wise, 49, of Elgin, Ill., was taken down from the Gay Marriage USA Facebook page on Monday after someone lodged a complaint with Facebook. The administrator of the page, Murray Lipp, said Facebook informed him on Monday that the image of the biracial couple standing together at their April 28, 2012, wedding "violates policies and community standards."

"It’s subversive, the type of harassment, meaning that you can do it anonymously," Erik Swope-Wise, who founded a local chapter of The Affirming Pentecostal Church International, told NBC News on Tuesday. “So you can throw the rock and hide your hand. There’s no accountability for somebody’s actions. So somebody could make that accusation, ‘Well this picture’s offensive.’ Well we don’t know who said that, so how can we even go back to them and say, ‘Why is this offensive? Tell me why it’s offensive.’”

Facebook restored the photo on Tuesday and apologized to Lipp, who told NBC News that the social networking site had initially blocked his ability to post for one week in addition to taking down the photo. This wasn’t the first time he has had problems with posts being reported.

“Sadly, Facebook's reporting system is so flawed that it allows people against equality to attack & target pages like mine and Facebook almost ALWAYS sides with those who complain. I was given no opportunity to respond or say anything … ,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Erik Swope-Wise said Lipp asked to post the image last weekend. He initially was pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of support in comments and likes, but then the messages turned “hateful” and “condescending.” Some who made comments were upset because the men are Pentacostal, which traditionally rejects same-sex marriage, though their church does not.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told NBC News in an email that the photo did not violate their “policies or community standards and was removed in error. The image has been restored and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused." A team reviews hundreds of thousands of reports every week, and occasionally mistakes are made, he said.

“I accept that … we’re all subject to human error,” Erik Swope-Wise said. “However the process by which Facebook uses to make those determinations is probably a little too mechanical. When a person puts an opposition to a post … it’s a list of choices that you choose to describe why this is offensive or inappropriate but there gives no validation, you know, as to what that really is.”

What might be offensive to one group may not be to another, and the term “offensive” was also “too general,” he added. “I think the scrutiny of it needs to be a little more clear before they take such harsh action.”

Rich Ferraro, a spokesman for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), said he has seen this happen before but that Facebook has always taken quick action.

“More often than not reporting tools on sites like Facebook are used positively to report anti-LGBT bullying or hate speech. Unfortunately, anti-LGBT users have also used these tools to target LGBT community members -- but when GLAAD has brought incidents like this to Facebook, they have always immediately restored the content,” he wrote to NBC News in an email.

Issues can arise when social networking sites wade into heated debates.

"This is involving a lot of judgment calls right, like what is hate speech and what is a political statement. It's extraordinary difficult some times," said Rebecca Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for the public’s digital rights.

She said best practices would be to have a “really clear procedure for contesting any kind of take down and for that to be followed consistently.”

"Lots of activists use these forums for their activism and so if you censor their activity through Facebook then you're functionally censoring their speech activity on the Internet,” she said. “Facebook isn’t like a state government. It can restrict speech in any way it wants, but sometimes the ramifications are the same."

A study of electronic billboards and traffic safety commissionedtThe Federal Highway Administration was supposed to have been completed in 2009, but it remains cloaked in mystery.

Billboard companies are moving aggressively to plant digital signs along U.S. highways and city streets. But debate persists on whether the eye-grabbing displays, which typically change messages every 6 to 8 seconds, pose a risk to traffic safety.

Combatants in the billboard wars -- including local and state officials under industry pressure to permit more of the lucrative signs -- are eager for a study by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). They have hoped that the much-anticipated study, launched in 2007, would help clarify some key safety questions.

Yet the politically sensitive research, which was supposed to have been wrapped up in 2009, remains cloaked in mystery. All the FHWA has said, time after time, is that the study is under review.

It turns out that officials may be afraid to make an embarrassing admission.

According to records obtained by FairWarning under the Freedom of Information Act, expert reviewers have told the FHWA that the study appears to have been botched. The key findings vary so wildly from previous research that, as one reviewer put it, they “are not plausible.”

The agency has refused to answer questions. “We have no one available to be interviewed,” said spokesman Doug Hecox, adding that “internal discussions about the draft of the study are ongoing.” He would not say if FHWA plans to toss the research or try to salvage it.

The hundreds of pages of agency emails and other records reviewed by FairWarning, however, speak loudly about the political and financial stakes, as well as industry efforts to influence public opinion.

The unreleased draft, which drew withering critiques from two experts, gave the billboard industry what it wanted, the documents show. Those results indicated that drivers’ glances at billboards were exceedingly brief, suggesting that the displays aren’t a threat to traffic safety. 

Yet the billboard industry, led by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, was deeply worried. The trade group campaigned to remove a study consultant that the industry accused of having an anti-billboard bias and brought out its own studies to frame public debate while the FHWA was still studying the issue.

Digital signs proliferate
Today, of more than 400,000 billboards in the U.S., estimates of digital displays range from slightly more than 2,000 to as many as 3,200. The industry has been adding hundreds of the more-profitable signs each year.

The FHWA study followed a controversial memo by the agency in September 2007 that appeared to green light the digital expansion. The memo stated that electronic displays were not prohibited under longstanding federal-state agreements that ban “intermittent’’ or ‘’flashing’’ signs. 

Anti-billboard groups, including Scenic America, denounced the memo as farcical, saying billboards that alternate content every few seconds are the exact definition of “intermittent’’ signs. Responding to attacks, the FHWA said that it was only clarifying existing policy. 

Stung by backlash from the memo, the FHWA launched its study. It relied on sophisticated instruments to monitor how long drivers on fixed routes in Reading, Pa., and Richmond, Va., glanced at digital billboards.

“Lots of interest from all sides,” said an email from senior agency official, referring to the research. “There is huge money involved here, so the interests are getting pretty strident.” 

A consulting firm, Science Applications International Corp., was hired to run the study. It brought on Jerry Wachtel, a Berkeley-based traffic safety expert, as an adviser. Science Applications declined comment.  

The industry at the time was smarting from a report by Wachtel for Maryland transportation officials. They had asked him to review two industry-sponsored studies that the industry said confirmed the safety of digital billboards. Wachtel’s report said both studies were biased and misleading. 

Scenic America

A Clear Channel digital billboard advertises itself through electrical wires in Sarasota, Fla.

In a seemingly orchestrated campaign, several industry groups and members of Congress fired off letters attacking Wachtel and seeking his removal from the FHWA study. In its letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the outdoor advertising association blasted what it called Wachtel’s “high-profile activism.” 

Five House members from Pennsylvania — Democrats Jason Altmire, Christopher Carney and Tim Holden, and Republicans Charles W. Dent and Todd Russell Platts — signed a letter to FHWA Administrator Victor Mendez complaining of biased remarks by Wachtel at a hearing on billboards in their state. His involvement, they wrote, “may undermine the credibility of ongoing federal research.”

Billboard industry's political donations
All five lawmakers have received campaign support from billboard executives or political action committees since 2006, according to research by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. The donations totaled at least $26,484. 

Altmire spokesman Richard Carbo said in an email that the congressmen “were concerned that the reports from the Federal Highway Administration were not unbiased.  That was the only purpose of the letter.”

In fact, Wachtel’s role was limited and his involvement basically had ended by the time of the protests.  However, FHWA officials wanted to avoid any appearance of caving in. “I think we have to be very careful in dealing with this issue,” one official said in an email.  “We do not want industry dictating whom we may or may not employ on our projects.” 

Responding to the outdoor advertising association, FHWA Associate Administrator Gloria Shepherd wrote: “We are well aware of the sensitive nature of this research. … I can assure you that we will be monitoring’’ the work “to be sure it is accomplished in an objective manner.” 

Wachtel, who has worked for billboard companies in the past, told FairWarning that “in their eyes, I have been both the world’s smartest guy and the world’s worst individual. I’m the smartest guy when I tell them what they want to hear.” 

In response to questions from FairWarning, the association said in an email that “OAAA and the outdoor industry support fair research. In fact, we’ve researched traffic safety for years. …The results have not indicated a correlation between digital billboards and traffic accidents.” 

Records show that FHWA officials rebuffed a Freedom of Information request from an industry lawyer to disclose the research locations, saying they would be kept secret “until the tests are completed to protect the integrity of the results.” 

But the industry found out, anyway. It launched its own studies in Reading and Richmond and blared the results. “Digital Billboards Not Linked to Accidents,” a press release said. 

Records show the FHWA study was submitted in September 2010, and circulated for internal review in the fall. “The final report is scheduled to be released to the public in December 2010,” an agency memo said. 

However, the review continued into 2011, when the two outside experts criticized it. Identified only as “REVIEWER 1” and “REVIEWER 2,” they concluded that the data appeared to be wrong. 

Distracted driving research has sought to find the amount of time when drivers looking away from the road raises the risk of a crash. In the scientific literature, glance times associated with a higher crash risk have been variously estimated at 2 seconds, 1.6 seconds or three-quarters of a second. 

Almost impossible
In the FHWA study, recorded glances were so brief that none came close to 2 seconds or even 1.6 seconds. Only about 1 percent were above three-quarters of a second.

In fact, the average was slightly below one-tenth of a second -- a number both expert reviewers considered almost impossible.

“The reported glances to billboards here are on the order of 10-times shorter than values reported elsewhere,” one reviewer wrote. “The pattern of results certainly raises questions over the quality and legitimacy of the underlying data.’’

The other said, “The data reported as average glance durations are not plausible.”

Two other experts contacted by FairWarning confirmed that the data was highly suspect.

Alison Smiley, president of Human Factors North, Inc., in Toronto, said the glance times were “extremely short’’ and substantially at odds with her own studies.

Paul A. Green, a research professor at the University of Michigan Transportation Institute, said glances so brief would mean the drivers “never really looked’’ at the billboards.

“It’s a flaw in the data,” Green said. “You wonder, if they made this mistake did they make other mistakes?” 

FairWarning is a nonprofit, online investigative news organization focused on public health and safety issues.