One Direction forced to delete Twitter and Facebook requests for fans' tattoo photos amid accusations they were 'encouraging body art'

One Direction have been forced to delete social media requests for fans to submit photos and footage of their tattoos after accusations they were encouraging their young fans to have body art.
On Saturday night, statues on their Facebook and Twitter pages asked for devotees with One Direction tattoos to share photos of them online.
As many of the boy band's fans are under 18 - the legal age in the UK to have a tattoo - there were fears many would want to go under the needle in a bid to be noticed by their idols.

Body art boy band: One Direction were forced to delete social media messages appearing to encourage tattooing

However, the controversial tweet and Facebook status were removed on Sunday.
The band's spokesperson Simon Jones said: 'This tweet was posted in error and has now been removed.

'One Direction do not want to encourage any of their fans to get 1D tattoos.'
On Saturday, the band tweeted their 10.4million followers: 'Have a real #1D tattoo? Show us! Submit a 90 sec YouTube video to 1d3dfan@gmail.com and show us why you should be in the @1D3Dmovie.'

Ill-advised: One Direction appealed for fans to send in footage of their tattoos on their Facebook page

Social media: The request was also tweeted to the band's 10.4million followers

A similar note was posted on their Facebook page around the same time, which has over 13million friends.
Within a few hours the band's Tweet had been retweeted over 4,000 times and 'liked' by nearly 6,000 people on Facebook.
One Facebook friend Julia Zwagermen commented: 'Okay One Direction, I love you guys to pieces I really do, but promoting young girls to get a tattoo?'
One fan Hannah Morgan wrote: 'I shall now go beg my dad for a tattoo even though I'm only 13 haha.'

Tattooed man: Harry Styles is well known for his ever expanding collection of body art

The manufactured five-piece are well-known for their tattoo collection - with Harry Styles recently debuting another new tattoo of a butterfly across his chest.
Harry's new tattoo is without a shadow of a doubt the most ostentatious yet.
The heartthrob has had a huge butterfly design etched across his stomach - and it takes up an enormous amount of room on his body.

Blowing his other inkings out of the water: Harry Styles has a huge new butterfly tattoo across his chest

The tattoo artist proudly posted a snap of Harry's topless torso on his Flickr page in order to show off his handiwork on January 22.
While Harry's face cannot be seen in the image, some of his other unique tattoos make the singer easily identifiable.
The 19-year-old singer is believed to have over 30 tattoos, including an Iced Gem biscuit, birdcage and theatre masks.
Liam Payne, also 19, has 'Everything I ever wanted, but nothing that I'll ever need' written along his arm.
Louis Tomlinson, 21, has a particularly random collection of body art, including the words 'oops', a cup of coffee and a compass.
Zayn Malik, 20, has the word 'zap' written in a colourful cartoon speech bubble and a large microphone on his arm.
However, Irish bandmember Niall Horan isn't believed to have any tattoos as of yet.