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Facebook to Ban Breastfeeding Advocacy Group for "Obscenity"

Gill Joseph | 09.02.2010 08:46 | Gender | Repression | Technology | World

Facebook is yet again courting controversy, this time by threatening the imminent removal of a group of almost 250,000 breastfeeding advocates - on the charge that their breastfeeding photos are sexual.

Lactivist group faces termination from Facebook after embarrassing the social networking site in high profile media awareness campaign last year.

The group of almost 250,000 members faces threats of removal, after a media blitz that chastised the social networking site. The campaign garnered international attention from media outlets in over 25 languages around the world, featuring on Fox News and the Dr. Phil show among others. Members believe the current threat is directly related to the embarrassment caused to Facebook’s bosses.

Administrators of the group "Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene! (Official petition to Facebook)" were told by the social networking site that the group was in violation of copyright infringement policies. When pressed for details by the women, Facebook responded by changing the accusation to one that the group was posting nudity or sexually explicit material and sending harassing messages to members.

"We have no idea what they're talking about and they won't explain the charges," said Gillian Joseph, an admin of the group living in Edinburgh, Scotland. "We checked our pages but can't see any copyright infringements, and we've certainly sent no harrassing messages. Now they're saying it's because we're uploading obscene photos.".

Ms. Joseph says she believes the harrassment is due to the social networking site being embarrassed that such a large number of people are against their policies of branding breastfeeding photos as "sexually explicit content".

The support and advocacy group boasts over 247,000 members from all over the world, and wishes to normalize the sight of breastfeeding mothers and children. It currently contains over 4,500 discussion threads on parenting topics, and over 5,700 photos, though some of these have already been removed by Facebook.

"To shut the group down would not only end valuable support, but give a message to the world that breastfeeding babies are somehow obscene. It's just absurd,” said Debra Balcaen, a Winnipeg resident and also admin of the group.

"It is unfortunate and hypocritical that Facebook's administration has targeted this breastfeeding advocacy group for alleged violations when at the same time they happily endorse sexually explicit material from third party applications and paid advertisements."

END

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

Initial emails from Facebook were sent 2/2/10 to the administrators of the group. All responses were handled by Gill Joseph, and the full email exchange can be provided upon request.

During previous campaigns, articles about the group have featured in The Washington Post and on CNN (US), in The Guardian and The Times (UK), and in the Globe and Mail and the Ottawa Citizen in Canada.

The group has administrators in Canada, USA, UK and Australia who can be contacted on request, but main contacts for the media are:

Gill Joseph email:  kamagrian@blueyonder.co.uk
phone: +44 7800 987 844

Stephanie Muir email:  babieslovemilk@yahoo.ca
phone: +1 613 761 9109

Please note that email may be a better first contact choice, as both women are mothers of young children.

Gill Joseph
- e-mail: kamagrian@blueyonder.co.uk

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

arnt we forgeting?

09.02.2010 09:44

""It is unfortunate and hypocritical that Facebook's administration has targeted this breastfeeding advocacy group for alleged violations when at the same time they happily endorse sexually explicit material from third party applications and paid advertisements."

Facebook is a privately owned website, not a public service. If you set up your own blog then you have every right to ban/censor comments etc. Facebook was set up by an individual who has the right to do what they want with it. If you dont like it, setup a website of your own.

Soul \Defence


Zip

09.02.2010 09:59

Who was the individual who set up Facebook?

We cannot judge what sort of a bigot it is without seeing the pictures and some of us are so paranoid about the information gathering power of Facebook we will not join it. It seems that judgement is right and all you are doing on Facebook is making a sick pervert rich.

Para


Facbook founder Mark Zuckerberg's personal photos

09.02.2010 12:42

 http://gossip.elliottback.com/mark-zuckerbergs-facebook-photos-hacked/

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, and his personal photos has been leaked several time due to the shit security and privacy settings of Facebook.

Personally, I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole, and I tend to agree with the first commenter: if you dance with the devil, you take the consequences.

anon


So what?

09.02.2010 16:07

Facebook is a private company, they can do as they damn well please with their own servers. Just like Indy admin etc can remove posts they dont agree with from the newswire (happens on a daily basis).

Individual


If you want freedom of speech

09.02.2010 17:52

Set up and pay for your own website. Farcebook is not the way to go, for a world of reasons.

Farcebook


Facebook are not policemen

10.02.2010 03:46

"We have no idea what they're talking about and they won't explain the charges," said Gillian Joseph

They are not "charges" they are allegations. It might well be a private site on a private server but Facebook can not make "charges". If Facebook do make "charges" then they should do the decent, law abiding, sensible thing and prefer criminal charges.

They could take the group to court under the Obscene Publications Act. Their problem being that Act has a very specific definition of Obscenity. Or maybe Facebook (which markets itself as the personal blog of Mister Zuckerberg - which is excellent branding but terribly inaccurate) simply have problems with real life. If there is a criminal act (Obscenity) at stake, then Facebook should hand over their evidence to the DPP. They have no evidence and cannot substantiate their scurrilous allegations that bring the good names of the Organisers of the Group into disrepute.

When making allegations and acting upon them in the unreasonable way that they have done, Facebook should really consider who they are insulting. Americans might not like lible and slander tourism but they have created the perfect situation whereby decent people have genuine evidence of a crime rather than a prissy corporation not wanting to be seen to be associated with tits. Sorry, breasts. Sorry, sorry, mammary glands. Sorry, sorry, sorry, gender specific (and so on)

Facebucked off


This is nothing to do with criminal or even civil law

10.02.2010 09:26

Facebook can shut down your blog just because they don't like the look of your face if they want. Nothing to do with legality or not. Basically, you get what you pay for. They could shut down the whole site tomorrow if they felt like it and delete all your data.

Possibly you could argue they are a de facto monopoly and as such should be held to higher regulations that prevent censorship, etc. But that's a long shot.

Facebook are sneaky privacy-invading scumbags, but the best thing to do about it is just avoid them. I guess the problem is that their effective monopoly status means that a large part of your potential audience is only on there.

anon