Posted on 01/12/2009 10:50:14 AM PST by Paleo Conservative
Facebook's ban on nursing pix is blowing up in its face -- more proof that Net censorship invariably leads to trouble. Cringe has more.
TAGS: Anti-social networking
Yet another social media site has waded into the treacherous waters of deciding what is and isn't obscene and ended up with egg on its face -- or in this case, breast milk.
Last month Facebook decided that posting photos of babies sucking happily at their mothers' bosoms were naughty, not nice, and banned them from the site. Boy was that a mistake.
Angry moms immediately formed a Facebook protest group that now boasts nearly 160,000 members. Sharon Kennedy Wynne of Tampabay.com's Whoa, Momma! blog writes:
The first five days of the year, the group was getting 10,000 new members a day. That's about the number of people who defiantly posted breastfeeding photos online that day. There was artwork of Mary nursing Jesus, of cows nursing their calves and lots of Mommas feeding their babies, Stephanie Knapp Muir, one of the organizers, told me. But she was peppered with complaints that many had their photos removed and a terse letter from Facebook warning them not to do it again or risk losing their membership to the site. Other bloggers took up the call; Google "Facebook breastfeeding" and you'll get more than 2 million hits. Now the ticked-off moms are building a mosaic of breastfeeding photos that organizers say will ultimately feature 100,000 images.
Personally, I'd rather tussle with a grizzly or a great white than with an angry mother of a newborn. And yet Facebook refuses to back down.
OK, I'll just say it, because you expect it: What total boobs those people are. If Facebook had simply asked the moms to mark these pictures as private, or limit access to adult family members, this whole controversy could have been nipped in the bud. Now thousands of ticked-off moms are nursing a grudge against the service.
And yes, I am milking this topic for jokes. (Have I missed any?)
The bigger issue of course is Net censorship. Trying to define obscenity is like trying to drive a nail through a bar of wet soap while wearing roller skates. Nobody wants Facebook to turn into a porn palace (except maybe the porn industry) but why it's picking on lactating moms is a complete mystery. If watching a suckling babe in arms gets you all warm and wiggly, you have bigger problems.
And it will very likely backfire. Instead of Facebook banning moms, they might just decide to leave the service en masse. You might even call that offering tit for tat.
What did these protesting moms do before facebook came along? Did they take pictures of themselves breastfeeding and staple copies to all the telephone poles in town?
Gee... thanks!!
What would possess any woman to have someone take pictures of her breast feeding AND then want them posted on the net? I don’t have any problems with breast feeding BUT facebook owns the servers, so therefore, if you want to use their servers to post your pics they better be compliant with the user agreement.
Whats the big whoop, to me this is silly, breastfeeding is a natural, nonsexual part of life.
______
I dare you, start a thread on public breastfeeding and then stand back.
It may be natural and nonsexual (to most normal, thinking human beings), but a thread on public breastfeeding is akin to the old crevo debates. More ire per word than about any other topic.
I read this article as I like to keep abreast of things. I am not a boob. Indeed, I am the milk of human kindness. I’m going to stop now as I may be busted by the moderator.
I will tell you this. Facebook has nuts that no other site has.
They tossed Jihadis when YouTube won’t.
And it’s Facebook’s place to make the call. Today it’s a woman breastfeeding, tomorrow it’s a woman holding a baby with her boobs hanging out with a caption “About to breastfeed”
All in all, just like FR, it’s their playground. If you want breastfeeding photos, get a Photobucket.
I love Facebook for standing firm on this.
>>“no bare breasts” seems like a pretty intelligent place to start.<<
Exactly.
Kudos to Facebook!
understan = understand
(pizza crust stuck under the d again.)
:)
>>the moms should boycott facebook (tit for tat)<<
Yup.
I like my Facebook and don’t care at all if they leave.
I can not understand that either. I have seen some guy’s photo when it was very, very clear, he should have had a bra on! Like T. Kennedy.
Oh hell.
Now I can't stand up.
I remember a little thing that was in Reader’s Digest when I was a kid, probably around 1955. A medical student was asked on a test to name five ways a mother’s breast milk was superior to other forms of nutrition. He was at a loss for a number five and wrote in “packaging more attractive.” He was given credit for a correct answer.
Isn’t it funny how things stick with you for 50 years? And not just things about breasts! I remember several of the articles from RD in those days.
um...ok?
Of course the story is not accurate. What Facebook banned, and it’s been the rule for a while, was any picture that shows the areola in any way regardless of what verb is going on in the picture. A few of these nursing pictures that showed areola and got rid of them. Then a bunch of people decided FB was banning pictures of women nursing and blew the whole thing out of proportion. Nursing pictures aren’t banned, areola pictures are, if your nursing picture shows areola it’s forbidden, if your picture of some verb other than nursing shows areola it’s forbidden, if your nursing picture doesn’t show areola it’s not forbidden.
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