30 Dec 08 Keeping Abreast Of Facebook

So the noise at Facebook today is all about breasts.

It’s hardly a new issue, and it’s on I’ve seen raised on various occasions both sides of the Atlantic.

Here’s my take on it.

1. Facebook can do as they like with their web site. If they decide they don’t want you to wear green in any photos, and they’ll instantly ban anyone that does, they can do that. They have the right to do whatever they wish. It might well not be good business sense, and the example I used was a somewhat (but purposely) silly one, but it’s their site.

On the other hand, if the reason that Facebook has removed the photos of breast-feeding mothers, and ordered them not to re-uploaded under threat of banishment, because some other users complained, then those complainers need to go and do something useful, or be the ones to leave Facebook, and Facebook needs to run its site how it wants to, and not under pressure from a few prudes.

If I were one of the mothers concerned, I wouldn’t be setting up another Facebook group to complain. No siree. I’d just quit Facebook, and email all my friends why, and give them a new address.

I have a Facebook account, but it’s very much a secondary thing. The reason I have a blog like this, is that I can post almost anything I like in here.

If I want to post photos of myself sitting naked up a tree with a rose up my butt, I’m free to do so. It’s OK, don’t worry, I don’t have any roses to hand right now.

Seriously, though, I am never ceased to be amazed by the obsession that people seem to have with body parts.

What I cannot ever understand is that is ok for many many people the world over (this isn’t peculiar to Americans, or the British for example) to watch sanatized gratuitous violence on the TV every night.

No one much bats an eyelid when 5 and 6 year olds run around playing at shooting each other.

No one bats an eyelid when kids have as role-models actors that play violent scenes in movies – killing everyone in sight but never getting more than covered in everyone else’s blood, and perhaps some shrapnel in the leg that makes it harder to run, and more likely that they will get killed (but never do).

Kids grow up thinking that violence is cool becuase it doesn’t really hurt. Of course, nothing is futher from the truth in the real world.

On the other hand, if someone dares utter a naughty word on network TV, as did Joe Scarborough on his morning show, or someone deliberately (or not) shows a nipple on  Prime Time, like Janet Jackson did, all hell breaks loose and the networks are fined huge amounts in many cases.

Now, I’m not suggesting that we have profanity and nudity all over the TV for family viewing, but why do we ignore the violence (even if it is acted), but make so must fuss about our own bodies?

Again, if a girl was on Facebook, provocatively showing her breasts in a sexual manner, I can understand, but they were feeding their babies. What the heck is wrong with that?

Oh and the ‘kids’ angle won’t work either. Heck, I’m sure some adults are grossed out, because THEIR parents made it out to be that way. If my kid asked I’d simply say that the lady was feeding her baby, just like mommy fed you when you were that size.

I truly feel that if you’re grossed out by the sight of a woman breast feeding you need to get a life. If you’re that bothered about it, that you also have to waste other people’s time by complaining about it, then you really need to get a life.

Heck, why did I spend time writing about this issue anyway? Perhaps I need to get a life too.

Tags: actors, banishment, bats, blog, body parts, breast feeding mothers, breasts, business sense, butt, facebook, get a life, good business, gratuitous violence, obsession, occasions, prudes, role models, roses, silly one, uploaded, violent scenes