Anti-nudity policies NEVER have good intentions. We need to remove anti-nudity policies from this country once and for all!
Web-savvy moms who breast-feed are irate that social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace restrict photos of nursing babies. The disputes reveal how the sites' community policing techniques sometimes struggle to keep up with the booming number and diversity of their members.
Facebook began as a site just for college kids, but now it is an online home for 140 million people from all over the world. Among the new faces of Facebook are women such as Kelli Roman, 23, who last year posted a photo of herself nursing one of her two children.
One day, she logged on to find the photo missing. When she pressed Facebook for an explanation, she got form e-mails in return.
Facebook bars people from uploading anything "obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit" -- a policy that translates into a ban on pictures depicting certain amounts of exposed flesh.
Ms. Roman responded by starting a Facebook group called "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!"
"There is nothing about bottle-feeding a child that has to be discreet," said Ms. Roman, who lives in Fallbrook, Calif., in an interview. "With breast-feeding, it should be the exact same way."
Today the group -- part petition, part message board, part photo-sharing hub -- has more than 97,600 members.
One of them, Stephanie Muir of Ottawa, was new to Facebook when she stumbled across the group last year. Ms. Muir, a mother of five, does volunteer work related to public health and breast-feeding and said the issue is important to her.
"I think it's time we all get over this notion that women's breasts are dangerous and harmful for children to see," she said. So she organized a Facebook protest last weekend against the site's policies, which she believes are arbitrarily enforced and discriminate against women.
Ms. Muir said more than 11,000 people participated in the group's "virtual nurse-in" by swapping out their regular profile pictures on Facebook and uploading ones depicting breast-feeding.
At Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., 23-year-old mom Heather Farley, who was visiting from her home in Provo, Utah, led a real-world nurse-in to complement the online event. About 10 women showed up to breast-feed their babies outside the front door, drawing attention from local media if not Facebook employees, who were scarce on that Saturday after Christmas.
Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said the company's guidelines regarding exposed flesh allow most breast-feeding photos. However, Facebook draws the line at a visible nipple or areola, he said.
Facebook doesn't generally go looking for nudity, but it does respond quickly when someone on the site flags another person's photo as inappropriate. Mr. Schnitt said the policies were instituted years ago, when Facebook was much smaller, but they reflect common practices on mainstream Web sites.
"We decided nudity was something we didn't want on the site. It doesn't matter the context. We would agree that there are absolutely many contexts for nudity where it is not obscene," Mr. Schnitt said, but emphasized that Facebook can't practically convene a panel to decide on a case-by-case basis.
John Palfrey, a Harvard Law School professor who specializes in Internet issues, called Facebook a victim of its own success.
"As we wrap more and more of our lives into a single environment on the Web, the feeling that civil liberties ought to be protected there continues to grow," Mr. Palfrey said.
But it's really just that -- a feeling. Online hangouts might simulate a public place, but they're still private Web sites where the company is king, not the Constitution or the myriad state laws that apply to breast-feeding outside the home.
News Corp.-owned MySpace, which prohibits nudity, also has sparked online protests over photos taken down of breast-feeding mothers. A company spokeswoman did not return messages seeking comment.
One contrast is LiveJournal, a popular blogging network, which made an exception for nursing in its no-nudity policy.
Comments
Anti-nudity policies NEVER have good intentions. We need to remove anti-nudity policies from this country once and for all!
I don't know how the breast ... err, rest of you feel but I'm not offended!
I can't understand why anyone would want to show themselves to the world nursing. It makes no sense! All we have to do is look in our own homes. One has to wonder what her motivation was in the first place. Yes, it's natural--my wife (an R.N.) and I have three children. I know all about it. But why is it necessary to put it on a national forum?
I have always wondered why its okay to show a male nipple anywhere and a female nipple nowhere. What about them equal rights? And while I defend any womans right to breast feed her baby when needed, I don't see it as a public event. I would think a more secluded area might be best for baby and mother. As for the web sites, it is really their right to regulate as they see fit. You don't have to register or view or sign on if you don't like the way they run their site.
grow up little girl, why would you want to put a picture of you breast feeding on FACE BOOK? I'm sure you've just showed your business to alot of perves out there!!!!!!!!!!!
Breast feeding is a natural process, but it is also a private affair between mother and infant. It galls me to sit in a restaurant when "mom" whips out her breast to feed her baby and looks around daring anyone to make a remark. That attitude takes the beauty of mother and child to a low level and is disgusting. Have some pride in yourself and use common decency in keeping PRIVATE matters private. Even the new mother in a covered wagon had pride and dignity by nursing her infant in privacy.
Prudes.
mable8 pretty much sums it all up in three words...pride and dignity...That says it all...Back in my day nursing was as natural as it gets but we, moms, had enough pride in our blessed state of motherhood not to take it out for all the world to see...This is something that is beautiful and private between mother and child...
The Facebook spokesman said that they can show breastfeeding pics as long as they don't show nipples or areola. That should suffice but who knows with some people. She should either follow the rules or take her nipples elsewhere. It's not her right to show her nipples on Facebook's intellectual property.
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