OK, so the last time I got properly ranty on More Than A Mum was about breastfeeding and people’s, frankly bloody silly attitude towards breastfeeding in public. Well, @plus2point4 just made me aware of Facebook’s removal of photos from Beautiful Breastfeeding’s page for being “sexually inappropriate” and I’ve just got to get ranty again. Sorry if I’m being repetitive.
Beautiful Breastfeeding has had a number of photos removed from its site (see which one’s here at the Beautiful Breastfeeding blog) for being sexually inappropriate. I find that language inappropriate. What is sexual about feeding your child? Nothing. If Facebook censors/bosses find breastfeeding sexual then it is their own morality that should be questioned.
Yes you can see some breasts, but they are not being paraded for sexual reasons, they are being used to feed children. Does Facebook remove pictures bottles, or of food for that matter? With the prevalence of free porn on the internet now I don’t think that many teenage boys need turn to facebook pages of mothers feeding their children for their kicks. And let’s be honest, if you’ve gone to a page entitled Beautiful Breastfeeding, you’ve got to have an inkling of what the photographic content might be, so no need to be offended.
If photos of women breastfeeding offend you, don’t look at them. If women breastfeeding in public offends you, don’t watch. What offends me is that people’s personal, and frankly ridiculous, views about the natural human body can be enforced through illiberal censorship and worse than that these can be enforced on such a healthy, natural and important activity as breastfeeding.
The number of women in the UK who solely breastfeed their child at 6 months is below 1% despite The World Health Organisation recommendations, and with attitudes like those displayed by Facebook’s censors, this will not improve.
So, Beautiful Breastfeeding are asking you to help by telling Facebook how ridiculous and prejudiced they are being. Write your own blog post, share the blogs of others and contact Facebook. The links below will help you to do that.
Mark Zuckerberg’s official FB profile where you can send him a private message (he is the founder and chief executive at FB):
http://www.facebook.com/zuck
Chris Cox’s FB profile where you can send him a private message (he is the vice president of product at FB):
http://www.facebook.com/chris.cox
Facebook’s official FB HQ page where you can comment:
http://www.facebook.com/facebookhq?sk=wall&filter=2
R
