Video Follow-up to Facebook Nurse-ins
December 27, 2008 by Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor
Filed under activism, breastfeeding
Today at the Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California, a relatively small group of dedicated lactivists showed up while nearly 2,000 people were there with them in spirit at the virtual nurse-in on Facebook itself. Jill Asher of the Silicon Valley Moms Blog headed over to Palo Alto to film the following video of the nurse-in. My favorites are the interview with the organizer’s mother-in-law, Sheri Farley, mother of eight breastfed children and grandmother to 19 breastfed grandchildren out of 20 total, and the interview with one of the fathers in attendance.
Local newspaper The Mercury News also reported on the event. Because today is a Saturday there was no comment from Facebook headquarters, but Andi of Mama Knows Breast found this previous statement quoted in the New York Times:
Breastfeeding is a natural and beautiful act and we’re very glad to know that it is so important to some mothers to share this experience with others on Facebook. We take no action on the vast majority of breastfeeding photos because they follow the site’s Terms of Use. Photos containing a fully exposed breast do violate those Terms and may be removed. These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users, including the many children (over the age of 13) who use the site. The photos we act upon are almost exclusively brought to our attention by other users who complain.
I changed my profile photo! Did you? I have yet to see any reports of breastfeeding pictures being removed by Facebook so far and the virtual nurse-in is nearly over.

















I changed my picture (twice, actually, once I found a better one), and I didn’t have any problem with mine or see anyone else having problems with theirs. Maybe Facebook finally got the idea, or maybe they just decided to wait until after it was official to remove the pictures.
Mine is still up, and I have gotten positive comments from friends, so that was nice… And I don’t think my picture is obscene in any way, so I’ll fight it if they act stupid!