Earlier this month, Facebook decided to ban breasts, err, photos of women breast-feeding. Indeed, images of a mini-person sucking from the breast of a lady were too much for the social network to deal with. So it took the obvious route, banning all breastfeeding images. Breastfeeding activist Emma Kwasnica, along with other mothers, took to the streets, protesting Facebook’s anti-breastfeeding stance. Naturally, Facebook has no problem displaying hypersexualized imagery of womens’ breasts.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen ads on Facebook with a lady’s breasts falling out of her tank top, so it’s doubly distressing to see Facebook take issue with breastfeeding photos,” says ReadWriteWeb’s Community Manager Robyn Tippins. It’s a woman feeding her baby, not child porn. Geesh!” In this situation, Facebook is the loser. The world’s largest social network is missing out on some of the most beautiful photos on the planet.
The Guardian recently responded to Facebook’s insensitive adolescent move by publishing a thoughtful comment piece on the subject. The British newspaper also called on its readers to send pictures of themselves breastfeeding.
In a double smackback to Facebook, this story quickly became one of the most-read articles on the site’s Facebook app. The Guardian then used its Tumblr account to create a gallery of breastfeeding photos from round the world.

Facebook fired back with a statement to The Guardian, from its Director of User Operations Sonia Flynn.
“They try to strike a balance which allows people to share the things that are important to them on Facebook, including their experiences of being a mother,” says Flynn, “but maintaining certain limitations around the display of nudity, due to the presence of minors on our site.”
Of all the users on the site, Facebook should be most concerned about showing positive images of breastfeeding, rather than pornographic-looking breasts to minors. After all, if kids don’t learn about this kind of stuff from their parents, the next most obvious place they’ll go is Facebook.
Image via The Guardian’s Tumblr account and Shutterstock.