Facebook actually sorry for banning breastfeeding pic
Facebook and those mothers who wish to post breastfeeding pictures have had a long battle. In the case of one activist, she actually gets an apology for having breastfeeding pictures removed.
Facebook's relationship with breastfeeding mothers has some Oedipal tinges.
It seems that ever since the site became populated by people who weren't university students desperate to find a warm body, Facebook has shivered at the site of anything that resembled a naked breast.
Even when it was actually an elbow.
Though breastfeeding mothers have always railed against Facebook's anti-breast policies, the company has always claimed that it is a medium, and therefore abides by the same standards as other media.
This is odd, because at the launch of Facebook Home, Mark Zuckerberg insisted that Facebook was actually a "community."
Still, one breastfeeding activist -- that is, someone who would prefer it if Facebook would just butt out of personal breast pictures intended only for family and close friends -- has finally secured a small victory over Facebook's Breast Police.
As Fox 40 in Sacramento reports, Kristy Kemp was banned from Facebook twice, after the breast police espied her breasfteeding images.
Kemp runs a breastfeeding support group, Breastfeeding/MamaTalk, that enjoys a Facebook page. This might suggest that those who go there are interested in everything to do with breastfeeding.
She posts images there, because she says that she herself has been shamed in her attempts to breastfeed in public. The supposedly offensive images featured a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old being breastfed.
"It's not right. I'm trying to do good for mothers and I'm getting kicked off for posting pictures of the most beautiful act a mother can do her for kid. It's not right," she told Fox 40.
After being bemused for days at her treatment by Facebook, the company finally sent her an apology. It read, in part: "A member of our team accidentally removed something you posted on Facebook. This was mistake [sic], and we sincerely apologize for this error."
Some might stick out their chest and suggest this was arrant nonsense, as she was banned not once, but twice. Could both times have been accidental removals? I must ask Nate Silver.
Facebook's breast policy revolves around the areola. If it is visible, the image is verboten.
However, how often does the site really believe breastfeeding pictures are posted for any other purpose than a positive one?