Start Time: Saturday, August 1, 2009 at 12:00am
End Time: Friday, August 7, 2009 at 6:00pm
Location: Your Facebook Profile
Virtual Nurse-in: In honor of World Breastfeeding Week, the Mother's International Lactation Campaign (M.I.L.C.) asks all Facebook users to join once again in a peaceful demonstration to let Facebook know that breastfeeding is not obscene, and women should have the right to share images of it on Facebook. Participants simply post as their profile picture the image of a nursing mother and change their status line to: "Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene." A diverse and representative range of images for the event including personal photographs, historic works of art and international symbols may be used.
For more information, click here.
The Mother's International Lactation Campaign (M.I.L.C.) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the normalization, protection and promotion of breastfeeding.
In 2008 and 2009 via the Facebook group "Hey Facebook, Breastfeeding is not Obscene! (Official Petition to Facebook)", the organization hosted two virtual nurse-in events on the popular social networking site and one live nurse-in at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto.
According to its Facebook page, the M.I.L.C. believes that "support and promotion of breastfeeding on global social networking sites is an important step in the cultural normalization and protection of breastfeeding. Babies have a right to be breastfed, and women should be supported and encouraged to nurse their babies. When society sends the message that breastfeeding is private, awkward, offensive or socially inappropriate, breastfeeding initiation and duration rates are affected. Negatively."
Facebook has issued several public statements in response to the petition group, claiming to support breastfeeding but removing some images out of concern for the safety of the many young users of the site.
"Photos containing a fully exposed breast (as defined by showing the nipple or areola) do violate [Facebook's policy on obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit material] and may be removed," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said in a statement in response to an earlier nurse-in. "The photos we act upon are almost exclusively brought to our attention by other users who complain."
To see a small sampling of the photos which have been removed by Facebook, click here.
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