Facebook vs Naturism

MEDIA RELEASE: 30th October 2013
The New Zealand Naturist Federation uses Facebook extensively to promote the naturist lifestyle to a wide range of people - our aim being to “normalise nudity” and portray the many benefits it offers.

The social network has recently reversed a ban on a video allowing violence of the highest degree – the beheading of a woman in Mexico by a masked man – and yet our photos portraying nudity in a non-violent, non-sexual way remain banned.

The NZNF Communications Officer has received numerous bans of various lengths of time for posting images showing scenes at naturist clubs – used with permission – some with as little as a butt crack visible. And many other individuals such as breastfeeding mothers and breast cancer survivors have received similar bans with content blocked or removed.

A spokeswoman for the social network told BBC News “Facebook has long been a place where people turn to share their experiences, particularly when they’re connected to controversial events on the ground, such as human-rights abuses, acts of terrorism, and other violent events”.

The US firm have said that users should be free to watch and condemn the video in question. Surely with each user who comments or condemns the video, it is only generating a broader and wider reach of this despicable act – in effect glorifying it?

And surely this also directly contradicts Facebook’s own “Rights and Responsibilities” warning: "You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence."

How exactly are you to ‘condemn’ this video that couldn’t be viewed as a ‘hate speech’? And it is both ‘graphic’ and ‘gratuitous’ violence.

Facebook is a social community maintained and moderated by them but the people who contribute and belong to the community should dictate, like any other society, the rules that surround it.

The ‘community’ hasn’t said they don’t want images of nudity or that a butt crack is offensive, Facebook has. Naturism is a social community - we are the community of Facebook.  

The Federation urges Facebook to reconsider the inconsistent application of its policy with respect to what is deemed to be offensive and revise its practices so that normal nudity is acceptable, semi-pornographic (scantily clad) content that is currently widely displayed is discouraged, and extreme violence should be banned.

Under Development...

You might have been wondering why you haven't heard from us much so far this year? 

Well we haven't gone anywhere...we've just been working hard to bring you an awesome new website! 

Having previously just used websites without much thought I now have a much bigger understanding of the complexities that go on "behind the scenes". 

First and foremost is trying to determine what our visitors/users want to know and see now and also to imagine what they could need in the future. 

Once you see it I'm sure you will agree that it fits our scope of works - to have a fresh, modern, professional look and to be visitor engaging and user friendly. 

In the meantime, it is still business as usual at our current site where you will find: 

Our current site

• links to naturist clubs and locations around NZ
• you can subscribe to gonatural magazine
• information on the benefits of naturism
• about the NZNF 
• what's happening around the country
• details of the next Rally
• gonatural branded products

Also, visit our social media pages and "like" or "follow" us there:

Our Google+ profile

Our Pinterest page

Our Twitter profile

Our Facebook page

We're Social Creatures...!

We are social creatures. But being a social creature doesn't just mean having heaps of friends - it indicates having a reliance on others for many aspects of our lives. For example the food we eat being grown, packaged and distributed by others; the house we live in being built by a raft of tradesmen; and also the things that we're interested in drawing us to seek out others with similar interests. 

Social media connects us with the people around us who are interested in the same things that we are and also the organisations who can provide an avenue for those interests. 

Just as we might communicate with each other in different spoken languages, we each have different preferences of the social networks we engage with. Not everyone is a Facebook user and not everyone "tweets". 

"It's not what you know; It's not who you know; It's who knows you..." - Anonymous 

The NZNF is serious about getting as many people as possible to "know" us and to reach and engage with these people via their preferred media. Our goal is to connect to people in New Zealand and all over the world who are interested in the naturist lifestyle and to promote it extensively.

Currently we engage with people in 4 different avenues apart from this blog:

• Facebook 
• Twitter
• Pinterest 
• Google +

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is.” - Scott Cook, Co-founder of Intuit

So engage with us and share us with those interested in similar things. We will keep bringing you naturist news of interest via various social networks, because we are after-all...social creatures.