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Scenes from Balenciaga’s controversial ads Twitter screenshots

(LifeSiteNews) – Luxury fashion brand Balenciaga issued an apology, deleted all of its Instagram content, and took down its Twitter account after being called out for a series of online catalog photos showing young girls holding stuffed bears wearing adult sexual bondage harnesses and displaying a page from a Supreme Court child porn case.

Balenciaga, which has famously catered to pop stars such as Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, was called out, then slammed, on social media for ads that viewers called “creepy” and “disturbing.”

“The brand ‘Balenciaga’ just did a uh….. interesting… photoshoot for their new products recently which included a very purposely poorly hidden court document about ‘virtual child porn’” popular Twitter commentator Shoe wrote.

“Normal stuff,” she added.

“That picture showed pages from a Supreme Court opinion that struck down a law designed to fight child pornography. Whoever staged the photo shoot made certain to include a portion of that opinion that use the word “sex” or “sexual” four times and of course, that was not an accident. Balenciaga wanted you to notice,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson noted.

“Here you have a major international retail brand promoting kiddie porn and sex with children,” Carlson continued. “And not promoting it subtly, but right out in the open.”

“This is true and disturbing,” tweeted Laila Mickelwait, CEO of the Justice Defense Fund and founder of the #Traffickinghub movement, which has successfully held Pornhub accountable for enabling, distributing, and profiting from rape, sex trafficking, and criminal image based sexual abuse, including child porn.

“If you scroll down on the home page they also placed a court document in an ad referencing Ashcroft vs Free Speech Coalition — the court case that made virtual/fake child sexual abuse images and videos legal in the US.”

“I thought people were trolling, but nope. It’s real. Maybe this is why Balenciaga left Twitter. They don’t want to be held accountable. Yes, these are children holding teddy bears dressed in bondage outfits,” Twitter user Sav! wrote.

“This is WHY Balenciaga bailed on Twitter!” another responded.

“Frightening how many adults must have been involved in this,” Nick Perry commented. “Parents, photographers, creative directors, copy writers, web designers, design agency staff, producers, managers, advertisers… and not one of them thought ‘hang on a minute’?”

“We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused,” the company said in a statement.  “We apologize for displaying unsettling documents in our campaign. We take this matter very seriously and are taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set and including unapproved items for our Spring 23 campaign photoshoot. We strongly condemn abuse of children in any form. We stand for children’s safety and well-being.”

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