Facebook Inc (FB): ‘No Nudity’ Policy Irks Cancer Survivors

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has been in the middle of a couple of controversies lately, with the most notable one being its perceived “condonement” of various forms of hate speech on its social network, most notably  posts and comments about rape and violence against women. The spate of hate speech on Facebook lately has swelled to a point that several women’s rights groups have launched petitions and asked for protests or boycotts of companies that advertise on the site until Facebook addressed the problem.

After a couple weeks of pushback, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) did relent and announced last week that it would review its terms of use policy to address hate speech in general and misogynistic speech in more specific detail. However, there is no word as to when that policy would be changed and when it would go into effect. But now there seems to be another anti-woman sentiment  rippling through and around the social network – and it has to do with the company’s “no nudity” policy.

A few thousand breast-cancer survivors and activists have signed a petition asking Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) to relax at least a part of its “no nudity” policy on the site in an effort to “help women.” The movement revolves around The Scar Project, a photography series by photographer David Jay, a project that has been going on since 2006 and has been on Facebook since 2008. Jay posts photos of various women’s mastectomy scars in an effort to inspire women in their fight against breast cancer. However, due to the Facebook nudity policy, several of Jay’s photos have been deleted from the network and his account has been suspended – just recently for a second time.

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) claims in its policies that it allows post-mastectomy photos provided the full breast is not showing – which translates to, no nipple. But Jay counters, “I tried to be very careful in the images I posted, but there’s no getting around the honesty in the images on The Scar Project,” he said. “I don’t think anyone moderately educated and emotionally evolved would find anything sexual, offensive, or pornographic about the images on The Scar Project.”

What does Facebook do about photos on its network?