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.