The touching image from Humans of New York which has gone viral.
Photo / Facebook
The touching image from Humans of New York which has gone viral.
Photo / Facebook
A gay teenager "worried about [his] future" has attracted a widespread outpouring of support - including celebrity comments from Hillary Clinton and Ellen DeGeneres.
A touching photograph of the young boy weeping went viral after being posted to the popular Humans of New York Facebook page.
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told the teenager "your future is going to be amazing".
Democrat presidential election candidate Hillary Clinton also commented on the picture. Photo / Facebook
A post from the page of the Ellen DeGeneres show reads "Not only will people like you, they'll love you. I just heard of you and I love you already."
Ellen DeGeneres' contribution, posted by the verified account for her US TV talk show, has itself been liked around 30,000 times.
Photo / Facebook
The photo caused a controversy after it was reportedly removed from Facebook after attracting thousands of comments.
According to ROYGBIV Jezebel, a blog about LGBT topics and news, administrators deleted the photo shortly after it was posted.
"Seems that Facebook removed the young man's brave statement and is now preventing me from uploading any further photos. I'm hoping it was a mistake," they quote Brandon Stanton, a photographer who has spent the past five years capturing photos of New York inhabitants, as saying.
"It is currently still on Instagram and I'm trying to figure out how to get it back up."
The photo has since been re-uploaded to Facebook, where it has been shared more than 56,000 times and received almost 600,000 likes.
A spokesperson for Facebook said: "A bug with our technical infrastructure led to the Humans of New York post not being visible temporarily. It wasn't purposely removed and it's displaying correctly now".
Thousands of users have messaged their support to the teenager, with one posting: "I'm homosexual too, little man. My future is bright and I am loved. Most importantly, I love ME and wouldn't change a thing about myself. The same can and will absolutely hold true for you. Sending you strength."
Another wrote: "If you were my son, I'd Love you just the same and I'd be the Proudest Dad for having the Courage to admit it to yourself and the World."
Facebook has previously been criticised for initially refusing to remove a video of a newborn baby being thrown around.
In 2013, the social media site backed down over its stance on beheading videos following pressure from David Cameron.
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