Congratulations, Boob Ninjas - the Breast Fest has been a great success! You video-nursed, you blogged about nursing, and you posted photo after photo after photo. YOU ROCK.
But we're not done with Mission: Up With Boobies yet. We've yet to see any movement from Facebook on their policies v.v. breastfeeding pics. We're waiting for a response to the letter below; in the meantime, keep posting buttons and writing about the importance of celebrating images of nursing mothers, not censoring them. And keep spreading the word around - steal this letter, and pass it around, and post it! The more voices, the better!
THE LETTER:
Dear Facebook,
We represent an online community of parents who are concerned about Facebook's recent actions against photos of breastfeeding mothers. We have, in fact, launched an online crusade to voice our concerns and to urge like-minded parents and others to deactivate their Facebook accounts until Facebook issues a clear statement exempting breastfeeding photos from the categories of 'obscene' or 'inappropriate' photographs in its terms of use.
It is our understanding that Facebook does not have a specific policy about breastfeeding photos. However, the nature of the photographs banned, and statements from a Facebook representative, indicate that Facebook employees are inclined to treat breastfeeding photos as indecent. Considering that the original picture of a woman breastfeeding two children had absolutely no breast showing, we don't understand how this qualifies as indecent. Further, we don't understand how Facebook could deem such pictures obscene while allowing pro-anorexia groups to post and share pictures -- something that has been deemed by almost all medical professionals as being detrimental and even harmful. Public nursing is a legally protected right in most states and provinces – and it is well-recognized that the protection of this right serves a very important purpose in removing barriers to breastfeeding, which has been proven to be a best practice in the care and rearing of children - why should something that women are legally permitted to do in real public spaces be deemed inappropriate for virtual public spaces?
We're not asking for special treatment in regards to posting our pictures, many of which Facebook is allowing in the protest group. We are asking for Facebook to clarify its terms of use for photographs, and to allow an exemption for photographs that depict the act of nursing.
Until these terms are clarified, we will continue to ask like-minded citizens of the Internet to consider deactivating their facebook accounts, and to utilize more socially progressive and family-friendly networking sites instead.
Sincerely,
The League of Maternal Justice
We'll keep you posted about any response - or lack thereof - that we receive. And stay tuned for our next mission!
The thing that irritates me as much as anything else is that facebook allows images of intercourse (perhaps simulated, I'm not sure). From a September post of mine (thought about linking, but my objective here isn't to try to increase traffic to my blog and didn't want it to appear as such):
"For fun, I googled 'facebook images.' Go ahead, open up another tab and try it (it's a regular google search, not an images search). There's a couple of pics at the top and then, the first result is called, 'Facebook Images.' Click it. It takes you directly to the facebook site of Mark McGowan, whom it seems is a UK based performance artist/protester. Check out the image first column, fifth row down, titled "THE RE-ENACTMENT OF THE CONCEPTION OF PRINCE WILLIAM 2007." DON'T do this if kids are around.
This is obscene per Facebook, but simulating (or photographing?) doggy style sex isn't. Weird."
Posted by: Christine | October 12, 2007 at 09:31 PM
We were all very interested to read this. Last week we just launched a social network in the UK with facebook-style functionality designed exclusively for mums and mums to be where we actively encourage members to upload images of breastfeeding. Please all feel free to come and visit us at www.gurgle.com
Posted by: Nifa | October 29, 2007 at 01:55 PM