Violating Community Standards

 It has been a while since I have posted here. Mostly, I try to just post my stuff on FB and get off as quickly as possible.

The last week, I have received two concerning notifications from Facebook, so I wanted to document them. Many have commented that FB is taking down numerous pages at this time.

Both were warnings about photos I had shared to The Girl God page about 3 years ago, so I am unsure why they were tagged now.

People continue to ask what I posted, so I will share that here.

This is the most recent notice:

I did not screen shot the first one, but remember that it was this photo from Sally Mann.

I will be more careful to document going forward. 

I have not looked personally for disturbing content on FB for quite some time, but many people continue to tell me that it is still readily found. 

Facebook is Blocking Kashmiri Activists, including long-time Human Rights Activist Mary Scully

Long-time Feminist and Human Rights Activist Mary Scully has now also been banned for 3 days. Mary's article about Kashmir was removed and she has been blocked from accessing her account for 3 days.

"Shamefully, Facebook is hand in glove with the Indian authorities and is blocking accounts of activists across the world who dare to speak out about common Kashmiri or the ongoing brutalities on civilians by the state machinery. In the garb of so called community standards, it doesn't give a damn about moral standards or human rights or war crimes." -Mudasir Firdosi

You can sign the petition to reinstate Mary's account here.

Read Mary's censored piece on her blog.

Facebook "Community Standards"

via Charlie Rae

via Charlie Rae

via Charlie Rae

Dear Black Folks - Solidarity with The Body is Not an Apology and Son of Baldwin pages after Facebook censorship

The Body is Not an Apology had this viral post removed from Facebook.

"Two days ago The Body Is Not an Apology shared the image below, affirming the safety and love of Black people. Two million people saw it. 185,000 people liked it and 25 thousand people shared it. Today it was removed from our page and removed from 25 THOUSAND people's pages. We want to know why telling Black people they deserve love and safety is a violation of ANYONE'S Community Standards. We will repost this image EVERY TIME Facebook takes it down until they explain what we are violating! Please help us get this image back. Share Widely and ask Mark Zuckerberg why!"

Son of Baldwin has also had similarly titled content removed from Facebook.

Per the page, "Facebook removed the "Dear Black Folk" post because many racists with hurt feelings apparently mass reported it.

They have also banned my personal account from posting for 30 days."

A fan of the page recreated the post here.

Apparently The Kinfolk Kollective, a page on Facebook for black activism, for radical black thought, was also recently taken down entirely from Facebook.  There is Change.org petition - please sign and share.

Nipple Bans

"Artist Micol Hebron is once again barred from Facebook for nipple images. I'm posting this, which she created a while ago, in solidarity. Lots of people think "free the nipple" ideas are trivial or all about sexualization, but bans like this are serious because they shut down multiple ways women object to status quo representations. Women's political and artistic speech is suppressed while objectifying imagery gets a pass and is promoted. Social media company policies, like many city statutes and public ordinances, privilege male-dominant heterosexuality, conflate women’s bodies with indecency and sex (considered a bad thing) and insist that those bodies (and sex) be held in reserve, distributed and consumed according to patriarchal rules.

Many people, seem confounded by expressions of female nudity that are not sexual — because, of course, isn’t male titillation the whole point of women’s nudity? The real question about female nudity isn’t why anyone would want to show or see women’s breasts if they’re not titillating. The real question is about who has the right to say what they’re for, where and when they can be seen and by whom. It is hardly alone, either, in hiding women's toplessness when news of protests or artistic commentary include pictures, etc. The concern on platforms like this one is that pornography will flood the site, a huge moderation expense. Facebook manages context and nuance when it comes to other areas of concern however, and has made positive changes to allow breastfeeding and post mastectomy images. As it is though "good women" whose photos can be seen are those who have suffered or are making their bodies useful for babies."

via Soraya Chemaly

The owner of the Bare Reality page is also banned for 30 days again for posting a photo of her book cover from Amazon.

Girl God Founder Trista Hendren banned from Facebook (again) for birth photo

This birth painting by Lucy Peirce was NOT banned by FB but was shared here so that people could share this post without being banned by Fb as well.

I was asked recently by the Online Hate Prevention Institute to issue my comments after another teen girl attempted suicide after extensive Facebook bullying.

Facebook is notorious for censoring women’s non-sexualized bodies in everyday use. If empowering images of women’s bodies can be meticulously pulled down in the name of “Community Standards”, there is no reason in the world that Facebook cannot better monitor the use of their site to bully children. Mark Zuckerberg wrote a rather public birth announcement for his daughter Max last year: 

“Max, we love you and feel a great responsibility to leave the world a better place for you and all children. We wish you a life filled with the same love, hope and joy you give us. We can’t wait to see what you bring to this world.” It is time for him to put his money where his mouth is. Our children’s lives depend on it.

Read my full statement and the story that led up to it here.

After posting my commentary, my scheduled posts stopped worked for several days on Facebook.  When I reported this to Facebook, they eventually fixed it, but then I was notified the next day that I had been banned for 3 days for the following birth post.

 “This was motherhood without mystification, maternity ‘without its make up on’, a movement that has alternatively been praised and criticised by the medical community, feminists and politicians for its insistence upon the primacy of the mother figure in a child’s life and of the child in the mother’s life” … it is “part and parcel of the feminist movement, and is based on the premise that if a woman is to be strong, she must take responsibility for her childbearing and child-rearing functions herself rather than remain dependent upon male authorities for guidance” -Nancy Rubin, The Mother Mirror

Photo via Positive Birth Movement

I am not sure why this suddenly violates Facebook's "community standards" as I have posted this same photo multiple times for well over a year, including here and here.

Facebook's ban is an annoying waste of my time; however they have made my point for me, again. I have said this many times, but females need another social network.

I have appealed Facebook's decision but have not heard back. Meanwhile, Facebook is filled with pages about incest and other disgusting pages.

Facebook censors cartoon critical of Israel via Mondoweiss

    

"The Palestine Information Center (PIC), an independent Palestinian news website and network had their Facebook page temporarily suspended for publishing a 2009 cartoon by Brazilian political cartoonist Carlos Latuff. The graphic shows a woman walking and carrying a wounded child in front of an Israeli flag with one of the blue banners of the flag covering her mouth. Latuff’s text issued a warning:  “SHHHHHHHHHH!!! Denouncing Israeli War Crimes Is Anti-Semitism“.

Rami Salaam, an administrator of PIC’s English Facebook page told Mondoweiss “Cartoons are usually targeted by Facebook more than anything else. Maybe because they appeal to people everywhere. Latuff’s cartoons are widely shared on our page and maybe that is why it was removed.”

PIC was not warned or notified prior to the removal of the cartoon. “It just disappeared” according to Salaam. He continued, “When we tried to login we got a message saying that that cartoon was removed because it violates Facebook polices and that our account that posted the cartoon is suspended for 3 days. – The reason for the deletion and suspension is fickle and meaningless because the cartoon is not graphic nor does it incite any kind of violence. The reason given is “We removed the post below because it doesn’t follow the Facebook Community Standards.” They also threatened to delete the whole page.”

Read the full post by Annie Robbins with screenshots at Mondoweiss

The Girl God Page blocked from posting on Facebook

The Girl God Page has blocked from posting to Facebook for 24 hours. All of the Admins have also been blocked from posting, liking, commenting or responding to messages on their personal and other pages.

Facebook said the picture from this blog post about the normalizing (female) bare breasts violates their "community standards".

"I walk bare-chested primarily because I enjoy feeling free. My strong secondary reason for walking bare-chested is to normalize female bare-chestedness, so that other women may feel the same way.

The only way to normalize anything is to do it with so much regularity and normality that people stop being afraid of it and start seeing it as conventional behavior. This is my motivation for posting photos and videos of my walks. I want people to see and hear for themselves the reactions (and more importantly the non-reactions) of the public as I walk by.

There exists this misconception that going bare-chested is some disruptive act of revolution and that traffic will stop and babies will cry. Perhaps it was at one time, and in some places may still be, but in many places that’s just not true any more." -Breasts Are Healthy blog

Meanwhile, there are a plethora of pages like "Big Bo0obs"on Facebook.

More Double Standards @Facebook

I'd really love to stop posting here, but it seems Facebook is at it again.

Facebook has removed a gorgeous picture of about a dozen women breastfeeding. I'm still trying to track down the photo, as even those who re-posted in solidarity seem to have had their posts removed as well.

It's something along the lines of this one, but it is not this one:

Erin White, Women in the Wild

Those who posted the photo were told that it violates Facebook's "community standards".

Another breastfeeding picture has also been removed.

"This beautiful photo, taken by Tara Ruby Photography, has been removed from both her page and this one already today. I'm reposting it again to show the world that you CAN be in the military and successful at breastfeeding. I believe this is a first, to have a group photo of military moms breastfeeding in uniform (they were given permission by the PAO and Garrison Commander at Ft Bliss)."


Yet this picture remains on FART is a four letter word after numerous complaints.

It's worth mentioning that the FART page has over 240,000 "likes" and this picture has had over 1,100 shares since it was posted on September 11th.

The Girl God and Feminsts Against Racism pages are silenced by Facebook along with #Goddess on Instagram because #WhitePeopleMustEndRacism #YesAllWhitePeople

Desiree Jordan posted an excellent the video where a young black woman was talking about white silence. She shared it with the header #yesallehitepeople & #whitepeoplemustendracism to the Feminists Against Racism page where Trista also admins. Trista cannot post, comment or like anything for 3 days. Desiree is blocked for 7 days.

There are other admins on both The Girl God page and the Feminists Against Racism page but neither woman can post, comment or like at this time without getting the following notice:

• You recently posted something that violates Facebook policies, so you're temporarily blocked from using this feature. For more information, visit the Help Center.
  
  To keep from getting blocked again, please make sure you've read and understand Facebook's Community Standards.
  The block will be active for 2 days and 10 hours more.
• If you think you're seeing this by mistake, please let us know.

Both women have let Facebook know that they believe this is a mistake.

Meanwhile, the hashtag #Goddess has been banned on Instagram.

A member of the Feminists Against Racism page posted the following comment, which has been true of Facebook for sometime:

"They block heart-centered things, yet a full on porn video just passed through my news feed & I couldn't get it banned...:( Thanks for keeping the posts going."

Max Dashu echoed this sentiment:
"And now Bairavee Balasubramaniam got flack for this beautiful post which was flagged as "violent." If FB is going to vet posts, they should hire some women who have some clue about what violence is about, and go after the female-despising porn instead of educational posts by and for women, or pictures of women in traditional dress whose nipples are showing."

Many thanks to all the Admins on The Girl God page who are keeping the page going!!

"Clementine Ford was banned by Facebook for posting some of the vile messages she had been receiving. Yet when she reported those same messages, they were deemed not to violate their community standards."

via mix 102.3

Miko Peled, the Israeli anti-apartheid activist, shut out by Facebook

This is a "call to arms" for Palestinian supporters & civil liberties advocates: Miko Peled, the Israeli anti-apartheid activist, was shut out by Facebook about two weeks ago because they claim his ID cannot be verified & he might be trolling. In a pig's eye! Peled is a prominent figure who plays a pivotal role in Palestinian solidarity & Facebook would know that if they looked at the number of his friends, the activity on his wall, or just googled his name. He believes they are politically censoring him & that can hardly be in dispute.

Last year Facebook pulled the same stunt with Hamde Abu Rahma, a Palestinian photojournalist in the West Bank. Hundreds of Facebook supporters of his work rallied & campaigned to have his account restored, which it was. When your account is shut down, you lose an accounting of your friends, your photos, the discussions & you have to start from scratch. Facebook informed Peled that to reinstate his account it has to be under a different name or if someone else does it on his behalf. Once again, all they have to do is google his name. But of course, they already know exactly who he is.

So do we, which is why we value his exemplary work & role; his support for Palestinian justice is tough-minded & uncompromising. We need to assemble our forces on social media & get Miko Peled's original Facebook account reinstated. Can those who lead the campaign for reinstating the account of Hamde please let us know the best way to proceed? Can everyone please share this post & information far & wide to solidarity activists in defense of Miko & of civil liberties on Facebook.

This is a post from Peled's website explaining the Facebook censure: http://mikopeled.com/2015/02/03/1085/

(Photo of Miko Peled. Thanks to Naila Smith for heading up this campaign.)

 

Via Mary Scully


Sign the petition here.

Voice of The Voiceless: The Untold Stories of Girls and Women of War

Africa Mi Tierra is *sole manager* of the FB page Voice of the Voiceless: The Untold Stories of Girls and Women of War. "For the last few days FB will not allow me to post any content on the page, saying I don't have permission to view my own page. I have reported it. But I do NOT think it is a FB glitch. I think it is intentional because of the subject matter. Can you help in any way, or have any ideas on what I can do. I would be most grateful. I will not be silenced. Women's lives depend on that. Thank you."

"This Is An Open Message That FACEBOOK Will No Longer Allow Me To Post Any Content To My Own Page That I Manage Below. IT HAS BEEN REPORTED AND THEY ARE VIOLATING MY CIVIL LIBERTIES, MOST LIKELY DUE TO THE SUBJECT MATTER OF MY PAGE !!! FB BE WARNED THAT I HAVE AN ATTORNEY ON ONE LINE, AND THE ACLU ON THE OTHER !!! THIS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED !!!!

THEY SAY I DON'T HAVE PERMISSION TO MY OWN PAGE !!!!"

Please support Africa by 'liking' her page, Voice of The Voiceless: The Untold Stories of Girls and Women of War, and sharing posts.

Facebook Has an Incest Problem - Trigger warning

This extraordinarily creepy post is still up despite many complaints to Facebook.

Facebook responded:

We reviewed your report of Kinky Geeks of Chicago's photo

Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed the photo you reported for containing nudity and found it doesn't violate our Community Standards.

There is not a good way to report posts like this.  When I tried to report it myself, I listed my grievance as "This is pornography", which Facebook describes as "includes nudity, sexual arousal, sexual acts, individuals soliciting sex."  After I was told the post did not violate their community standards,  I then tried to report it as "something else"  I chose "bodily harm" of which Facebook includes "graphic injury, bodily harm or  animal abuse or torture. (Not abuse or torture of women or girls - abuse or torture of animals). I can't think of anything that does more bodily harm than incest. Incest is it's own horrendous form of torture. When another woman wrote to the page itself, asking them to take the picture down, she was given this reply: "There is nothing wrong or hurtful about it. Sometimes a grown woman needs the comfort from a man that a father figure would give. this says nothing about age and appropriate boundaries are met. There is no pedophilia here. There is no abuse. There is nothing pornographic either. All it talks about is comfort, love, and security. For the record, a "little" is an adult of consenting age that pretends to be younger. We do not promote abuse to women or children. This is between consenting adults. If you can give a real and valid reason for it's removal I would be glad to remove it. Until then go get a good hug and feel the love...." I have posted about Incest  promoting pages on Facebook before.   Many pages have since been removed, but there are others still up including, but by no means limited to: Family Incest Lovers - which actually says, "Just for fun" Incest Stories - which promises to report your Facebook account as fake if you report them Incest Roleplay Incesto-30 Incesto-real Incest Sister as well as multiple private incest-promoting groups. Perhaps Facebook should read Mia Fontaine's chilling Atlantic piece, America has an incest problem. It seems that Facebook has an incest problem, too.

'Origin of the World': Photographer Ana Alvarez-Errecalde has been Censored Again

"Last Wednesday Libe li shared one of my photographs of the project "Cesárea Beyond the Wound". It was the Photograph that made reference to the "Origin of the World" of Coubert. Several people shared their entry. Today is the photograph is no longer, and my writing has also a disappeared.
Whoever has my heart is so poor, to advocate the censorship that please me away from your friends list." - Ana Alvarez-Errecalde, translated from the original comment in Spanish

More details from Ana:

"Some people shared the photo and I even re-posted it with a statement along the following lines:

Coubert´s painting stated that the "Origin of the World" was desire and his painting was considered pornographic at the time. With my photo I like to bring attention that even if "the origin" could be understood as desire, nowadays it is not just a sexual desire but also a desire to control, a desire to have power over women and their vital cycles, an economic and biopolitical statement reflected in the always raising amounts of cesarean interventions performed daily and the common disrespectful experience that women encounter while giving birth.

 

My post disappeared without warning. All the shares of my friends' posts (with or without a new introductory text) were gone."

 

Gustave Couber, 1874-77
 

"I am fed up with the paternalistic restrictions imposed against women who do not accept to comply. I have seen a Facebook page called "putitas" (little whores) that was offering young girls for male viewer´s enjoyment. There are zillions of pages like these one (+175,900 likes and FB doesn´t care?)

 

https://www.facebook.com/somosadolescenteslol

https://www.facebook.com/PutasBuenotas

https://www.facebook.com/putitas.esmeraldenas?fref=ts
 

Any image of women exposing themselves to denounce violence (being obstetric violence, restrictions of freedom - like breastfeeding in public or making public a private moment) or for  the sake of their own enjoyment is punished. I know social media mirrors society but maybe if we bring upon positive changes in the virtual world we can enjoy a bit more freedom and respect in the real one." -Ana Alvarez-Errecalde

You can see Ana's groundbreaking work on her website. Facebook removed her photography page over a year ago and will not reinstate it.

Removed: Award-winning artist Aleah Chapin's Facebook Page

Aleah Chapin has a new exhibition at the Flowers Gallery in London Photo: Antonio Parente 2014

The Facebook fan page for artist Aleah Chapin was shut down several days ago for violating Facebook's community standards. The page had more than 8,000 'likes' and was growing in popularity with her recent London exhibit.

Facebook's community standards read:

Facebook has a strict policy against the sharing of pornographic content and any explicitly sexual content where a minor is involved. We also impose limitations on the display of nudity. We aspire to respect people’s right to share content of personal importance, whether those are photos of a sculpture like Michelangelo's David or family photos of a child breastfeeding.

Chapin's work has been all over Facebook in recent weeks. A blurb from a recent Telegraph article explains her work, which is certainly comparable to The David in my mind.

"Chapin’s work has also shone a light on the subject of body image.

“Most women have issues and I’m not immune to that,” says Chapin. “We’re told that our bodies are supposed to be a ‘certain height, certain size, certain weight’. But the pictures we see are completely unrealistic; they’re very Photoshopped.

“We all know it when we look at them in magazines and yet, we still compare ourselves.

“That’s why we need images that show all sorts of bodies – so we can accept every size and shape.”

This attitude is why her work resonates. We may not recognise the individuals depicted in paint, but we recognise them as people"

You can read more about work in this Telegraph article: What Painting Portraits of Naked Women has Taught Me


Update: 2:25PM PST The page is back up.  It was reportedly taken down in "error". Please show the page your support!

By removing photos of childbirth, Facebook is censoring powerful female images

"Birth is a fundamental feminist issue right now - women’s bodies should not be sanitised. Facebook should let us see it as it is."

Great article in The Guardian today by Milli Hill of Positive Birth Movement.

Bare Reality Page Owner Targeted Again

"My personal account has been blocked again - for seven days. This time it's because I shared a photograph from 'Bare Reality' of a 101 year old woman who has had a mastectomy. Yet photographs of mastectomies are supposed to be permitted by ...Facebook. This is another instance of Facebook applying it's own rules inconsistently - it smacks of sexism and this time age discrimination as well. A photograph of a younger woman with a mastectomy is still up. Is an old woman's remaining breast unacceptable?

I'm not sure why anyone who finds photographs of breasts and mastectomies offensive is visiting this page. Secondly, why are they so offended by an image of that incredible woman's body?

I think the same person keeps reporting me because I detect the same officious tone in the 'different' anonymous accounts used on Facebook and Twitter. Interestingly, Facebook requires me to send them government-issued ID to prove my identity, while the people who report hide behind 'fake' identities. Officious reporter - get a life please?"

Please support the Bare Reality page.

Former Facebook Employee Launches Women.Com, The Internet’s First Women-Only Social Network by Carolyn Cox

Recent events have shown that the Internet is a safe and inclusive space for all women (JK, LOL, AHOO-HOO-HAH-HAH). Thankfully, former Facebook employee Susan Johnson has launched Women.com, a question-driven social media site that may make that dream as close to a reality as possible—and considering her aspirations for the platform, I couldn’t be more excited.

Women.com is still in an invite-only beta stage (you can request to join via Twitter. I’m hoping to check out the party soon), and, much like Yahoo Answers, is a forum where users can pose questions and then upvote results. However, unlike the anonymous respondents on Yahoo, a Women.Com account links back to the user’s Facebook. This way members have some accountability even when accessing a more private platform than Facebook to pose tricky questions. (Slate’s article on Women.com lists a sample question as “Friend’s husband is cheating. Do I say something?” Not necessarily a question you want on your wall, unless the answer is definitely “yes.”)

Read more here.

Article about Book Destigmatizing Breasts Filtered Out for Showing… Breasts By Soraya Chemaly

The piece below was published in The Guardian today by Ruth Lewy. Facebook is barring shares using the Guardian links. They are reviewing the problem, but until then I’m posting this here for Laura, the creator of the project, as an alternative link so that it can be shared.

These interviews are edited excerpts from Laura Dodsworth’s project Bare Reality. She is fundraising for a book of the project; visit kickstarter.com and search for Bare Reality.

Read more here.