A group of irritated women calling themselves “lactivists” are after some justice after images of breastfeeding women were removed and some members banned for posting “obscene” content. If that sounds archaic, wait till you read the article.
Facebook says “exposed breasts” are banned by its rules. (Despite itself running an ad with a topless model advertising a dating agency.) That’s maybe not Facebook’s best shot at remedial public relations. According to the
Sydney Morning Herald, the issue has annoyed at least 7000 of its members. The lactivists say it’s discriminatory, and overall the law in most Western countries would agree.
Facebook is a social network. It’s a pretty no-frills thing, just providing a venue and some basic facilities for local networking. This could be construed as banning a mothers’ support group, in some ways. Facebook could well have undermined the confidence of a lot of members, particularly female members. They've transformed themselves from the Bright Young Things of the internet to the stodgy faceless ogres of the Twilight Zone, in one statement. They've also shown themselves totally out of step on some basic feminist issues. Maybe they don't read the news.
Ironically, they also missed a very important practical point, in the course of annoying their members. My only reservation about women breast feeding in public, online or anywhere else, is that there could be security risks for women. Who, or what, is sniffing around the site? Facebook makes a major selling point of its ability to put people in contact with others in their area. Anyone else see any possible ramifications to that? Myspace isn’t famous for its safety, why would Facebook be any different?
Even so, the women are almost certainly 110% right in their contention that they don’t have to put up with Facebook’s interpretation of their motherhood, or their boobs, or gratuitous insults derived therefrom. Facebook has shot itself in the foot. It’s providing no more or less than a social function, at roughly the price of electricity plus wages. They’re more caterers than service providers. Their response has been very flatfooted, even for a company which has probably drafted every word of their terms of service with an electron microscope. They could have replied using a rational argument, not an arbitrary evasion.
Facebook is definitely asking for trouble, however, if it is trying to be a market leader on the net, without the sense to join some very obvious dots about its own operation. I notice fetuses aren’t banned on Facebook. See
cgull's article on a recent Facebook posting. Presumably babies aren't "obscene", just mothers.
Maybe it’s time Facebook grew up, too.
