Hey facebook! Enough with the witch trials!

I think that would be a protest I would throw 100% support to. Before the leaky boob got the boot the first time, then a second time over a "mistake" .. (cough cough B.S cough..cough!). There had been many protests on facebook to reinstate pages, privileges, personal usage,pictures..etc.

There are many pages telling facebook that breastfeeding is not obscene.. before and after The Leaky Boob incident.. here are my 2 cents on that...

Remember the Salem Witch trials? Pretty much if you lived then, if you royally pissed someone off they would get to yell WIIITTTCHHHH!!!!!! and then you'd go to trial where you were GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT! <---The sad reality is that this is how some countries judicial system still works.

Witchcraft in this case is ------> Nudity, obscenity, the profane!

Ok now that we established that.. let's flash forward...and back ..and forward again.. (trust me! this will get interesting)

I don't want to bore you with legalities and you are not going to bother reading if this bores you .. so in the interest of keeping you reading I will do a light research..DUN! DUN! DUN! good old wikipedia! (Insert clapping and cheering) .

Now the reason I did this, was because while typing about the obscene.. this came to mind from my good old Government class...(over 10 yrs ago!)

(1)Former Justice Potter Stewart of the Supreme Court of the United States, in attempting to classify what material constituted exactly "what is obscene", famously wrote"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced…but I know it when I see it…"

Now.. I didn't remember about Potter or even the whole quote.. I actually googled "I know it when I see it guy" How scholarly of me right? and then that came up which is what I was looking for.

and then the term obscenity, which is a good enough reason to "flag down" someone's page/photo according to facebook policy.

"An obscenity (in Latin obspenus, meaning "foul, repulsive, detestable") is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious. The term is also applied to an object that incorporates such a statement or displays such an act.

In a legal context, the term obscenity is most often used to describe expressions (words, images, actions) of an explicitly sexual nature. The word can be used to indicate a strong moral repugnance, in expressions such as "obscene profits", "the obscenity of war", etc. It is often replaced by the word salaciousness" (1)

According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary, that which is obscene (i.e.: an obscenity) is quite simply defined as repulsive, or disgusting to the senses.(1)


EUREKA!!!!
with all of that said you can deduce, that by posting breastfeeding pictures, and that is not even the big picture! (there are other people being "bullied" by facebook for different reasons).. that according to some.. You are being obscene!!

If you go by the Merriam-Webster definition, someone could well see breastfeeding pictures as repulsive and/or disgusting to the senses! Sad but true!

Now flash back again...... Think of Facebook as Salem.

YOU royally Pissed someone off and they YELLED WITCH!!

The way their system works, you get flagged you are guilty until proven innocent, in my opinion THAT is what has to change, the way they handle such situations.

Facebook is not 100% the problem, they are happy collecting their money.. heck I bet Mark Zuckerberg was probably breastfed! haha! , the people that populate it are! Just like in real life!

They know it when they see it and it was obscene! and Facebook just rolled with it.. and eventually deemed it unfounded and fixed it.. but of course this will get handled according to the community uproar you cause!!! . No uproar???? you're a witch... maybe if your dead corpse floats you weren't. *shrugs.

So my call is to write to facebook let them know the way they uphold policies needs to change!

Facebook is just mimicking what goes on in the world outside the world wide web..
If the world were facebook ..that person that gave you a dirty look for nursing in public would have flagged you down, the male with her would have flagged you down as well while ogling at the low cut top blond walking by..

The person that told you that they were offended by you breastfeeding not only would have flagged you down they would have gotten their buddies and made a group against you!

And people like us? we think it's natural, beautiful, necessary! so as sad as the truth is.... we need to burst out of the bubble..

Nurse in public!! protest on facebook but go out and NIP as well! protests help but if you haven't nursed in public do so!! You don't have to whip'em out you can do it discreetly!!! Here 's a great video by The Leaky boob on how to do so! and if you see someone breastfeeding in public give them a nod and a smile! that is facebook's equivalent of the "like" button, and if you wanna go further tell them how great they're doing, hand them a thank you for breastfeeding card that would be the equivalent of making a leaky boob page!

THIS... is how we will make a bigger difference! By normalizing breastfeeding in anytime, anywhere! for our babies.. and the future ones!! <3>

*(1) taken from wikipedia.com -Obscenity

DUDE! where's my leaky b@@b?...

What a shock it was today to get a text from my friend Christy telling me that our beloved page, "The Leaky b@@b" had been deleted from facebook.

Back in August another breastfeeding related page shared a cute blog post called "oh My Gosh..I'm a LACTIVIST!" the post made me smile and made me realize that I too was a lactivist.. someone who with DD#1 I had previously misunderstood. I now was one, and I was delighted to realize it.. I read other posts by her and immediately "liked" the page for the blog on facebook.

What was different about the page is that people actively participated, Jessica the author of the blog interacted with it's followers on a daily basis, engaging in conversations, giving advice, making us laugh, supporting us. The page was not hostile, was not preachy, we all had a sense of camaraderie whether we breastfed, used to, planned to or couldn't. The page was really for support. I quickly felt at home and made many friends, it became my haven, my sanity not just for breastfeeding but for many of motherhood's challenges.

And with that text came shock! It was gone! but....
not for long! Bring back the leaky boob was created and 12 hours into its creation the page had 4000 followers, the leakies moved quickly and TLB spport was created for support and questions which is what the leaky boob was about.

Why was the leaky boob removed? Breastfeeding pictures... sweet pictures of cherubic faces being nurtured and showing no more skin than you would see in a bikini, which by the way you can find lots off on Sports illustrated swimsuit on facebook. Does that seem fair to you?

Facebook is punishing the wrong people while catering to others.. we need pages like the leaky boob!

what can you do?

if you are in the Palo Alto area there will be a nurse-in at facebook's headquarters Friday January 7th 2011 at 12:30pm

1601 S. California Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94304



write to your local news...

write to the Today show myself and others have done this if they get enough emails it might work.. if you want me to make a letter you can copy and paste let me know..

Tell Marc Zuckerberg how you feel on this discussion (be nice!).

change your profile picture

BUT most important.. stick together, please stop by and spread the word about TLB support because the most important thing is that leakies that need support, advice, encouragement and answers receive it!

They can take away the page but they can't take away our spirit of helping!