Monday, December 29, 2008

Protests in Facebook Breastfeeding Photo ban

Talk about the power of the internet--the actual protest got no attention, but look at this.

n.b. when you're pregnant, apparently the breast's aureola can become huge...like small dinner plate size.

Online, the virtual "nurse-in" to protest Facebook's ban on breast-feeding photos has taken off, with hundreds hourly joining a group that crept toward 70,000 members Saturday evening.

The real-life, pavement-pounding protest drew fewer placards than photojournalists Saturday, with only a handful turning out to sing, chant and breast-feed in front of Facebook's downtown Palo Alto headquarters. But it had all the elements of a Palo Alto protest: A handful of peaceful pickets discreetly tucked away in a University Avenue plaza; placards reading "Hey Facebook, Breast-feeding is not Obscene,'' protesters chatting up the media; and indifferent passers-by. A member of the Raging Grannies, the Midpeninsula activists who stage various theatrical protests, showed up to proclaim in song that "our breasts aren't porn.''

It's hard to say whether either demonstration will move Facebook executives — who appeared to not be at work Saturday — to lift the site's prohibition of breasts displayed on members' profiles and albums. Facebook says the areola, the dark skin around the nipple, violates a policy on "obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit" material.

read more here.

4 comments:

  1. On January 1, I uploaded an image of my son nursing, on January 3 it was published in an article, on January 4 Facebook canceled my account.

    I only had one image of a nursing baby and no other "obscene" content.

    Facebook sucks.

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  2. Pierrette,

    Thanks for commenting. Gosh almighty it's hard to believe feeding your baby could be considered obscene. Although I did breastfeed in church and was kindly told to give a bottle--and I made sure to wear those discreet clothes with the hidden nursing flaps. Oh well. Some day...

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  3. My wife is not into breastfeeding, otherwise she would have loved to publish her photos online and I wouldn't have any problems with that.

    Robert

    ReplyDelete