Stella's apologizes after photo manipulated and posted to Instagram
A customer of Stella's is horrified the restaurant would use one of her photos on social media and blur out important content.
Marieke Gruwel, 24, said she took a picture of her food while eating at a Stella's restaurant in October of 2016. Along with the food, a button was pictured in the photo that she had picked up at a feminist event.
On the button was a slogan that said "pro-choice, pro-woman, pro-brunch" and had the Women's Health Clinic website address on the bottom.
The version of the photo posted to Stella's Instagram account erased the 'pro-choice, pro-women" part of the slogan leaving only "pro-brunch."
"So I went on Instagram and searched for the photo and made sure to leave my comment that they blurred out the 'pro- choice, pro-women' and the Women's Health Clinic website from the button....and then I took a screen shot of my original image and the Stella's image and I posted it on my Facebook," said Gruwel.
"I was very surprised that they would take a photo of mine that I put up on Instagram a year and a half ago, just to edit it, and edit out the most important parts. When people go to Stella's, they post photos of their food all the time," said Gruwel who is a Winnipegger studying at Concordia University in Montreal.
"A lot of labour is put into these kind of buttons. People pass these around to get their message out. And there's a cost. And for not-for-profits, it's probably a lot of money," said Gruwel.
"So for Stella's to take something [the clinic] created ... I think it's horrifying that Stella's would blur out their information to use it for their own gains."
Stella's did post an apology on their social media accounts after backlash online over the photo.
"Yesterday, the @mystellas Facebook and Instagram Pages posted a photo that showed one of our breakfast dishes and a pin that said pro-brunch," they wrote. "The original photo was posted by one of our guests, where the pin said "pro-choice pro-women pro-brunch" with the Women's Health Clinic website. The @mystella's post was meant to convey our culture's love for brunch, but we took the wrong approach."
"We use a third-party agency for our social media and are currently evaluating our process for creating and approving content to prevent us from making this type of mistake in the future. We deeply apologize to the original poster Marieke Gruwel, the Women's Health Clinic, and all of our guests."
The Women's Health Clinic said they have also received an apology.
"As a feminist, non-profit organization we are disappointed a message that represents one of our core values was manipulated to suit a corporate purpose," said Christine Ens, chair of the clinic's board. "We have since reached out to Stella's and received an apology."
That apology doesn't go far enough, said Gruwel.
"They essentially shifted the blame to a third-party who they say runs their social media," she said. "But they made no stance, no clarification of where they stand — if they are in fact pro-women, or if they do support the work that organizations like the Women's Health Clinic do."
"So I think…a really good first step is some sort of compensation to the Women's Health Clinic."
