Mike Stevens, a cartoonist with the New Yorker magazine, found himself the latest victim of Facebook’s War On Nipples when his cartoon depicting Adam and Eve caused the magazine’s Facebook page to be shut down.
This is the latest shot in Facebook’s War On Nipples. Two years ago a Sydney jeweller found her page shut down for using a naked doll as a model and breast feeding mothers waged a long campaign against the site taking down pictures of babies being fed.
If you live outside the US, it’s amusing to observe Americans’ bipolar attitude towards women’s breasts — on one hand they are celebrated though Pamela Anderson, breast enhancement and Hooters while the merest flash of nipple sends the nation into purient overdrive.
So Mark Zuckerberg’s ban on female nipples is understandable in that context as is the reaction to that ban by people who don’t see much wrong with breast feeding mums or harmless cartoons.
What we should remember though is Facebook have the right to run their site whatever way they like — if Mark Zuckerberg decides he doesn’t like plaid shirts or broccoli he’s within his rights to ban pictures those as well.
This is the risk if you’re basing marketing strategies around social media services. If you want to play on Facebook, you have to play by Facebook rules.
So take your nipples elsewhere.