Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Nudity Policy Draws Nursing Moms' Ire
HSRD writes "Web-savvy moms who breast-feed are irate that social networking sites like 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."
Legally, female chestal nudity is defined as showing of the nipple and/or the areola.
That is unfair because areolae come in different shapes and sizes. A woman with the nicest nips and smallest, densest areolae wouldn't break this rule because the baby's mouth would nom-nom-nom both the nipple and the areola, obscuring them from the sight of observers in which case the nudity rule wouldn't be broken.
More unfortunate would be the women with really puffy areaolae or the ones with the really big, stretched-out pancake areaolae. There would be no hiding then no matter how big or hungry their baby may be. The puffy areaolae would push the baby's head further away from the teet, increasing the likelihood of passers-by seeing the defiant areola or even the nipple. Big silver-dollar areolae require no explanation as they would be impossible to hide unless the baby is hydrocephalic.
Just my 2 cents as I am not a lawyer, but I hope that more and more brave women step up to fight these sexist, unjust laws.
The problem is simple - Facebook has a black and white policy for censorship, when censorship is a gray area. That's why you have various ratings for movies and video games. The article hints at changing culture to accept the pictures. There is a technological/social solution besides forcing acceptance - a rating system for objectionableness and the ability for an individual user to set what level of objectionableness they are willing to tolerate. The article offers another solution at the end:
I was going to predict that some conformist submissive would repeat the trite refrain "their website, their rules" to whore karma, but damn it, you beat me to it.
You know the great thing about individual sovereignty? People can ignore those rules. And they did. And Facebook knows they'd better not piss them off again, because they need mothers' eyeballs more than mothers need Facebook.
Actually, they might not.
There was a real flap in my hometown a couple of weeks before Christmas where a mother was breastfeeding in a restaurant, and the waitress asked her to stop. When the mother refused, the waitress got ugly, had her manager come out, and even called the police. The police said the restaurant had the right to ask her to stop, and that the mother was in the wrong.
The thing is, it's legal to breastfeed anywhere that you're legally allowed to be while not breastfeeding, and noone has the right to ask you to stop, or to ask you to leave solely on the fact that you're breastfeeding.
Now there's a lawsuit against the restaurant, and the city police department, who had no clue about the laws they're supposed to be enforcing.
Would laws like this regarding breastfeeding translate into the online world? Depends on how they were written, but I know the one in this case says you're not allowed to ask a breastfeeding mother to "cover up." Does removing a photo of breastfeeding constitute asking her to cover up? It might.
Of course, with MySpace, we're talking about the US here, where babies are legally required to close their eyes while breastfeeding, because seeing the nipple during feeding would irreparably harm the child's fragile brain.....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
And yet sex is an intimate act between two individuals just because certain religions and cultures have deemed it so. It used to be just about procreation and there was zero emotion or intimacy attached, do you see monkeys having trouble with sexual acts in public? No, because it's a normal act of furthering the species.
Next argument please.
Breast feeding isn't an intimate act? Do you know that the chemicals released in the brain during breast feeding are what help bond mother and baby? That those same chemicals are used by con artists to get people to be more trusting?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
And those chemicals are exactly those that also create the bonding during the sexual intercourse.
From a hormonal point of view breast-feeding and sexual intercourse are pretty similar.
FYI...breast pumps usually damage a woman's milk ducts (leaky teats). That is a reason why some mother's only breast feed.
Facebook is filled with networks of mothers. A lot of ads cater to them. They make money off of mothers. I cannot believe the number of ignorant comments to this thread -- more so than the average slashdot thread. But then, this is one where women would understand more than men, and parents more than people who are childfree. Still, I'd expect at least a few more enlightened people who understand basic human biology, laws pertaining to breastfeeding, the amount of women (especially mothers) who are are the internet, and other things outside the little slashdot world. I was wrong. I'm used to diversity, I guess. I suggest the mothers contact the people who are paying facebook to reach us. Why should we buy products from companies that support a place like facebook? Mothers are a POWERFUL force as far as consumers are concerned. This might not end the way some of you expect it will.
Yup, I'm with you. In the end, breastfeeding in public isn't something I would really want to see, but whatever. But posting pictures of yourself breastfeeding just seems like being deliberately provocative.
Those aren't the kind of pictures you need to share with everyone - if you want people to see them, there's always email... but I can guarantee you that the majority of those 400 Facebook "friends" you have really don't want to see that, any more than they want to hear about your newborn's growing poo-poo production or the consistency of his vomit. Parents need to accept that there are a hundred little things that are "cute" to them but pretty distasteful to the general populace.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Yup, I'm with you. In the end, breastfeeding in public isn't something I would really want to see, but whatever. But posting pictures of yourself breastfeeding just seems like being deliberately provocative.
Those aren't the kind of pictures you need to share with everyone - if you want people to see them, there's always email... but I can guarantee you that the majority of those 400 Facebook "friends" you have really don't want to see that, any more than they want to hear about your newborn's growing poo-poo production or the consistency of his vomit. Parents need to accept that there are a hundred little things that are "cute" to them but pretty distasteful to the general populace.
This is the huge downside to using some third party to manage your socializing. They will inevitably want to set some standards of acceptable use and that will certainly step on someone's toes. Facebook is excluding a small group of people. Since the vast majority aren't posting breastfeeding pictures they have no motivation to get upset over this. Since Facebook is a business they will never do anything to exclude a large number of people, but there is no reason for them not to exclude smaller groups (perhaps large numbers of smaller groups) in the name of "decency" and "family friendliness". Of course no one "needs" to share breastfeeding pictures just like there is no "need" for the vast majority of the crap that is on the Internet. Need is not the point. We do not know this lady or her 400 friends so who are we to say which pictures she shares with them.
Personally, I refuse to use things like Facebook because why should I allow anyone to regulate how I can interact with my friends.
Most (well, okay, all) Europeans I know consider our government's attitude towards sex in general, and the human female in particular, to be provincial at best, uncivilized at worst. This is one case where I'm in complete agreement with them.
The funny thing is that the bible-thumpers who faint at the sight of a breast perhaps need to read that little story about a woman and a man happily prancing around naked...the way they were apparently created in the image of some supreme being. Right up to the point where some snake convinced the lady to have a bite of an apple anyway.
So chronologically speaking:
- man and woman are naked and innocent, and all is good.
- man and woman are coerced by his Evilness to eat of an apple, lose their innocence, and start covering themselves.
- man and woman are kicked out of Eden.
- woman strives to regain innocence while using breasts for their intended purpose, being the feeding of babies.
- biblethumpers everywhere get up in arms about breasts being visible, be it in public or on the webz...
So whose work are the biblethumpers doing?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.