breastfeeding nutrition

Press Release

San Francisco, June 07, 2013: Nurse-in to be held at Facebook’s Annual Meeting of Stockholders at the Westin San Francisco Airport hotel in Millbrae, California;

Worldwide virtual protest to call on Facebook to leave breastfeeding photos alone and to allow educators to place breastfeeding ads.

– Daily image deletions and account suspensions continue.

– Facebook blocks event organizers from sharing breastfeeding photos, event information, and posters.

– Protests planned at Facebook’s stockholder meeting in front of the Westin San Francisco Airport and virtually around the globe.

The Facebook v. breastfeeding dispute rages on with Bay Area moms planning another major protest at Facebook’s Annual Meeting of Stockholders at the Westin hotel in Millbrae, California June 11th. The local nurse-in will be supported globally with thousands of influential mothers sharing their own breastfeeding photos for the virtual nurse-in. Tuesday’s nurse-in is a continuation of years of protesting the media giant’s relentless shaming of breastfeeding mothers and now denial of breastfeeding advertisements.

Last year, women, babies, and breastfeeding supporters at Facebook locations across the globe, including at Facebook’s Menlo Park Headquarters, protested Facebook’s removal of 257,000 supporters from the “Hey Facebook! Breastfeeding is Not Obscene” official petition group, which has been active since 2007, and the daily harassment and banishment of breastfeeding mothers. It is true that Facebook has a written policy which clearly states they support the sharing of breastfeeding images, yet, according to Emma Kwasnica, event lead from last year’s protest, they say they cannot control the actions of their employees who keep removing breastfeeding images and who block accounts of the users who post them – usually “in error.”

Earlier this week Facebook suspended normal account activity for 30 days for organizer Paala Secor for sharing the nurse-in event notice and posters on breastfeeding support pages after banning her for 60 days for sharing the news of another nurse-in. Countless “acceptable” breastfeeding photos have been deleted even though they do not break the no-nudity rules, like organizer Heather Farley’s tandem nursing photo deleted last week. Account bans leave mothers feeling denigrated and isolated from their virtual community, unable to share an integral part of their everyday lives and receive valuable mother-to-mother support. Jodine Chase, one of the event organizers from Canada, has been meticulously documenting the situation on her blog since January 2012. On it she shares images that have been deleted, screen snapshots showing the membership numbers in the official petition site before Facebook removed members, and more. Chase is personally serving a 30 day ban for sharing a photo of a child feeding the dolly, and was banned earlier this year for sharing a photo of a nursing mother.

In a statement to a member of Facebook’s public policy team today, Chase expressed her concerns:

“We know that Facebook welcomes breastfeeding photos. The problem is not so much the policy as it is the inability of Facebook to protect women who share breastfeeding photos that are acceptable according your policies. Recently some images were banned and someone from Facebook contacted the media and quoted an inaccurate, five-year-old Facebook policy in response to the deletions. Most recently Facebook has been rejecting advertisements with breastfeeding images. We think you need to take the extra step of assigning a team of staffers who can help deal with the problems the inadvertent deletions create for mothers and breastfeeding educators.”

Last year Facebook filed its IPO valuing the company at $104 billion, making it the largest U.S. company by market value. Facebook’s advertising revenue is estimated to grow to $5.6 billion this year, according to estimates from research firm EMarketer, and has already raked in $1.25 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2013 in ad sales. And yet, Facebook is harassing breastfeeding educators who want to place ads on the social network for breastfeeding consulting services, conferences for health educators, and educational videos, denying their ads. Breastfeeding ads, they claimed, will promote sexual exploitation, and will not be allowed, except for the ads placed in Italy by the formula giant, Nestlé, which feature breastfeeding babies.

Parents and supporters in the Bay-area and Silicon Valley are planning to show their unyielding commitment to the importance of breastfeeding’s place on the social network giant by attending a nurse-in at Facebook’s annual meeting of stockholders at the Westin Millbrae at 10:30 a.m., June 11th.

A virtual nurse-in is also planned worldwide on Facebook where mothers and supporters will be sharing nursing photos and the international breastfeeding symbol to show their support.

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For more information contact local organizers:

Samsarah Morgan

lsamsarahmorgan@gmail.com

510-393-7380

Heather Farley

hrfarley@gmail.com

801-310-1614

Jodine Chase

jchase@mediaworks.com

780-938-5208

Paala Secor

paalasecor@gmail.com

510-393-6612

Sarah Rockwell

sarahrockwell@gmail.com

352-284-6000

Facebook Protest details: http://jodinesworld.blogspot.com/2013/06/breastfeeding-moms-seek-social.html

Link to official petition site: http://www.facebook.com/groups/2517126532/

Nurse-in Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/371174449651436/

[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVHPDbYYhE8&feature=player_embedded[/tube]

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