The joys and pangs of childbirth visuals on Facebook
The joys and pangs of childbirth visuals on Facebook
From time to time those critical of social media have rebelled against the 'filthy content' and 'obscene pictures' shared on Facebook but is rare for the social media giant to block or remove someone without prior information and warning to the concerned person. But this happened and it has led to a lot of criticism for FB.
Moutrie who has documented over 300 childbirth scenes quietly and unobtrusively in her camera in Colorado has always been the soft target of the social media quality checkers. But, this time Facebook has done something that has never been expected; it removed the 'Birth Becomes Her' video that amassed over 100 million views over a period of seven months from the social media platform without any information and warning to the photographer.
Angry fans of the photographer have re-posted the video and one of the fans commented, “That was beautiful! So much love!!!! I can't believe that was banned! What is wrong with this world!???!?”. And another fan commented “Beautiful! I feel so blessed to see this and be apart of so many people’s special moments every day at work”
Besides, one of the clients of Moutrie, whose video was also removed, shared a snap from the video and captioned “Our beautiful birth video, which has been seen by literally over 10 million people. It’s been liked and commented on and shared numerous times -nearly all positive. Yet,yesterday after nearly 8 months. Facebook removed it and banned Monet who uploaded it. Facebook is saying it’s pornographic, and against standards. This is not acceptable. This is not ok. It did not violate your community standards, #facebook -the video needs to come back!”
The ace photographer vented her anger and dissatisfaction on a public platform(blog post) where she wrote, “The video was removed for violating community standards. And I was effectively banned from Facebook because of it,"
She also wrote that as per the social media community standards, they remove photographs of people displaying genitals. And also restricts images of female breasts if they include the nipple, but our intent is to allow images that are shared for medical or health purposes."
Reminding the social media giant that its users are more than 'usernames' and 'passwords', she said, “We are living and breathing human beings, with real bodies, that were ALL born from real women," she said.
She also suggested Facebook keep a tab on the body shamming content that depicts the woman and girls in a bad light and makes them feel inferior rather than banning contents like hers which focuses on life, birth, and family.