9/11 Terrorist Featured in Ad on Facebook

An image of Mohamed Atta reportedly appeared in an insurance ad on the site.

As Facebook gets ready to go public, the eyes of the world will become even more focused on the Menlo Park-based social network.

That's just partly why Friday's report of an insurance advertisement on Facebook featuring the face of 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta is not the type of publicity the site wants ahead of its initial public offering.

Atta's face reportedly appeared on the site as part of an ad selling car insurance. The ad appeared on the right hand side of some users' profiles and it read "Important: Drivers in Texas Who Drive Less than 35 Miles a Day Read This."

The text was alongside a Texas driver's license with Atta's picture on it, which was actually originally taken from his Florida's driver's license.

The company behind the ad has since removed it and said it is conducting a full investigation as to how the image was used.

A request for comment from Facebook was not immediately returned.

Often times smaller advertisers on Facebook pick images randomly from the Internet to show in their graphic.

But this is also not the first time Atta's face has appeared on the social network. Two years ago Atta's image was reportedly used in another insurance ad but it was not clear if it was by the same company.

Atta was named as one of the terrorist who crashed a plane into the World Trade Center in New York more than 10 years ago.
 

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