Dear Editor,
Facebook’s crackdown on breastfeeding mothers continues unabated, but today the community has unleashed a potent new way for moms to add their voice to the protest ‘mdash; one which makes use of the very images of breastfeeding that Facebook banned.
An enormous visual mosaic (which will eventually include 100,000 images) is under construction as a form of visual protest. The breastfeeding mosaic is built out of pictures submitted by people who support the cause. Images of women breastfeeding are heartily welcomed ‘mdash; particularly those images previously deleted by Facebook ‘mdash; but any type of picture can be contributed to support the effort.
While the visual mosaic is a core part of this protest effort, people who don’t want to submit an image are still strongly encouraged to add a comment or to sign the virtual petition.
When Facebook decreed that a mother nursing her child was an obscenity and began to delete these ‘offensive’ images from its Web site, it probably didn’t anticipate the stiff resistance that it has faced. Unfortunately, even in the face of impassioned protests, Facebook has remained stoic ‘mdash; and has refused to draw an official distinction between the image of a mom nursing and pornography.
The breastfeeding mosaic is being hosted at Pregnancy Health Guru, a site that is home to the largest library of pregnancy videos on the Web. In addition to hosting the mosaic, PHG will also allow people who upload images for the protest to create personal libraries of their images, which can be stored and shared ‘mdash; with no risk that they’ll be deleted. You can see the mosaic and add your pictures at http://pregnancy.healthguru.com/applications/petition/breastfeeding.