livejournal vs the breastfeeding mothers

[baratron]

So, there is apparently a bit of a war going on because livejournal has deemed a woman's default usericon as "inappropriate". The icon apparently showed her breastfeeding her child. It's now been removed, so I don't know what it looked like.

All of the arguments I've seen about this so far have tended to go on about "the 50 states" and "the First Amendment". But Livejournal is an international community, with many users from Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. So I don't care about First Amendment "rights", because I don't really understand what they are. Instead, I want to point out the mistake in livejournal's current reasoning.

This is what the livejournal FAQ looks like at the moment. Notice it's been updated as of 2006-05-20.

What are the content restrictions for userpics?
Your default userpic is viewable throughout the LiveJournal site, and unlike individual journal entries, it cannot be hidden or protected. It is potentially available to anyone on the Internet who randomly browses the site. Therefore, we require that your default userpic not contain anything too explicit. In particular, icons which contain nudity or graphic violence tend to be inappropriate for default userpics. Strong language on an otherwise appropriate userpic generally does not make the userpic unsuitable for a default userpic.

Non-default userpics can contain images which are more graphic in nature, and the Abuse Team generally will not intervene if a user is posting with a graphic non-default userpic. If you are receiving comments with a graphic non-default userpic, you may wish to delete the comments; similarly, if graphic non-default userpics are being used on community entries, you should speak to the community maintainer(s).

Note that anyone can see all of your userpics at http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=baratron. If you have questions about the acceptability of your userpics or you would like to report an inappropriate default userpic, please contact the Abuse Team. You may also be interested in the standards of indecency for journals.

Last Updated:
May 20th, 2006 (rahaeli)

Note the specific wording of the FAQ. In particular, icons which contain nudity or graphic violence tend to be inappropriate for default userpics. Speaking as a European, I have to say, OMG WTF? Breastfeeding is nudity now? When did that happen?

Whenever I run up against rules that involve "but everyone knows what x means"-type logic, I get made uncomfortable. If I can't understand a rule, I might break it by accident. Saying something like "well, everyone knows what nudity means" doesn't actually make sense to me, because what nudity means in my country is not the same as what it means in other countries. For example, topless sunbathing is de rigeur on beaches in the South of France - and I mean that it's not just usual, it's expected. You'll be looked at strangely if you wear a bikini top, and possibly hear a muttered comment of "ah, les anglais". Scandinavians happily strip off in mixed-gender saunas with strangers. So what does nudity mean from an international perspective? In some countries, women are expected to cover their heads, in others both men and women are expected to dress modestly and cover shoulders. How can livejournal ban "nudity" without first defining it?

I feel that if livejournal is to say icons which contain "nudity" are inappropriate for default userpics, they need to define which parts of the body count as "nude". I am presuming that naked heads and hands are allowed, simply because no one's ever complained about those. What about naked arms? Backs? Legs? Bottoms? (I'm guessing not bottoms.) If I took a picture of my naked legs, that would be nudity, wouldn't it? Especially if all of me was naked at the time, but I cropped the image to only show my legs. So is that ok? If it is ok, why is that ok, but my naked breast isn't? How about naked babies? Are they allowed? Is the issue about the breastfeeding mother nothing to do with her breast, and actually to do with her baby?

You might think I'm being deliberately stupid for the sake of making a point, but I'm not. People need to understand rules in order to obey them. This is particularly true for livejournal users who have disabilities such as autistic spectrum conditions, for whom things which are "obvious" to "everyone else" do not make sense. I have several autistic friends on my lj friends list, plus many other friends with other disabilities who love the internet as an accessible means of communication. Livejournal is a tool for keeping people in communication with each other, and rules must be understandable to all livejournal users - including those who have disabilities.

I believe that, rather than simply saying that nudity is not allowed, livejournal must define the parts of the body that must be covered in default userpics, and also specify explicitly whether this restriction applies only to photographs, or also to icons of paintings, cartoons, or screenshots from video games. If it is indeed the nipple that makes the breast indecent, then that argument must apply to men as well. (I'm reminded of the Aerosmith album "Get a Grip", which has, as the CD illustration, the nipples of the five band members.) And it must be consistent.

I would post this to livejournal Customer Service if I could find a direct link - Contact Info seems to send you round in circles to direct everything through lj support, which really doesn't seem like the right place for this. It needs to be sent to the policy makers, not the enforcers. Update.

Comments

[phaedrasdream.livejournal.com]

According to the email they sent to me, nudity includes a visible nipple or areola. I'm thinking I need to take pictures of my "nude" husband trying to "breastfeed" our child ;-)

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I think you're making very valid points here, but what I really was dying to mention is that I'm actually totally nude in my userpic :-).

[boxofdelights]

Whenever I run up against rules that involve "but everyone knows what x means"-type logic, I get made uncomfortable.

Me too.

You might think I'm being deliberately stupid for the sake of making a point, but I'm not. People need to understand rules in order to obey them.

Yeah.

If it is indeed the nipple that makes the breast indecent, then that argument must apply to men as well. (I'm reminded of the Aerosmith album "Get a Grip", which has, as the CD illustration, the nipples of the five band members.) And it must be consistent.

Yeah!

[redbird]

First Amendment rights are relevant here only if it turns out that LiveJournal has made the policies it has in order to comply with U.S. law; if they have, it then matters whether the law is constitutional.

Try support@livejournal.com. They may punt it to the public support board, but probably not; in fact, if you went through the board, it would probably wind up in support@

I also suspect they'll be more likely to answer a question of the form "what body parts must be concealed, and does this apply to drawings as well as photographs?" than to one that says that their answer to that is ipso facto wrong.

Now I'm wondering about California law, given that Six Apart is located there. In New York State and Ontario, women are allowed to go bare-chested precisely because of the "must apply to men as well" argument: when the courts ruled that requiring women to cover our nipples was only acceptable if it applied to men, the relevant legislatures decided not to go there. (NY's ruling was based on the state constitution, so (a) it doesn't affect any other state, and (b) there was no basis for appeal to federal courts. I think Ontario's is based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but you might want to consult a Canadian if you care.)

[The above is the closest I have to a nude userpic.]

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Interesting - in lieu of finding a better location, I eventually posted it on the main LJ Support a few minutes ago, but it's been marked as private. I'm not sure whether they have software to automatically filter out certain words, or if some poor soul is sitting there sifting through all the complaints pouring in :/

It occurs to that, with respect to the FAQ writers, who I understand have a difficult job, this whole argument/flamewar/bad feeling (whatever you want to call it) has been caused by the lack of clarity in the FAQs. As the FAQ leaves "nudity" undefined, it means that people who don't see breastfeeding as nudity have got upset by the idea that livejournal believes that breastfeeding is unacceptable.

I remember when J. was involved with lj abuse that she said something about the livejournal rules sometimes being deliberately vague, to allow flexibility. But it seems that having this rule open for different interpretations is what's caused the ill-feeling. Once someone has already become upset and angry, it becomes difficult to make a rational point to them. And it seems harder still if the rule is open for interpretation.

Amused at sinboy's userpic - of course, being black & white, arty, and covering most of the potentially-obscene parts, it is presumably okay. But we shouldn't have to guess.

[jenett]

Part of the problem with the FAQ is that the *laws* are pretty darn unspecific in a number of ways. It's obviously been a while since I was doing this regularly, but type of content counts - stuff intended to be nudity for obvious nudity, showing bits normally covered by a swimsuit in the US, is likely to cause issues.

(Yes, this is parochial and stupid to boot, but that's the way US law works, and since htat's where the servers are, that's what wins.)

Given the size of the site, and *especially* given a bunch of the current stupidity about online content that MySpace is triggering in the media, there's also some particular caution going around right now.

Also, remember, there's nothing against having a nude userpic and just selecting it every time - the trick is that marking it as default means it turns up in site searches, and on your userinfo page (which means people may see it without realising they're going to be seeing nudity. For people, read 'people panic about 'young impressionable teens' seeing it', which again, is stupid and parochial, but tied up with the US's idiocies about sex and nudity in general, and the protect-children-at-all-cost stuff.

As far as the support post: I'm betting it's hard working support volunteers, bouncing everything to the relevant category. Throwing it to the public board is always fine: there's always someone around checking to move stuff quickly elsewhere if needed.

[redbird]

Also, the only person I know offhand who has a nude default userpic is sinboy: http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/373172/287591

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

The US's First Amendment is, as has been commented, a restriction on what the US government (and, by extension through the 14th, the state governments) can legislate. It does not, in general, restrict what a private organization chooses to do. Further, there is a very large quantity of judicial precedent and such on the subject of what it actually means for lawmaking in cases where freedom of expression conflicts with other rights (not all of which I necessarily personally agree with — especially as far as “obscenity” goes — but such is life).

Also: falsely attributing the First Amendment in that way is, at least in some circles, associated with spammers and other net-abusers seeking to defend their actions. So, it dismays me to see a not unreasonable opinion (that LJ should permit the pic) have supporters who descend to that level; but, as someone famous said, ideas don't get to choose who believes in them, or something like that.

(Drat. I can't recall who said that, or enough of the wording to extract it from Google.)

But anyway. I agree that LJ's clarifying the definition, one way or the other, would be a good idea.

(I think this is the most nude userpic I have — my forearms are bared!)

[evilref.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of Janet Jackson's legendary "wardrobe malfunction". I could never understand why so many people objected to their children seeing a breast uncovered, when uncovered breasts are for most children among the most important things they see in early life.

Unfortunately, prudery isn't always logical, and asking for logic may turn out to be a disappointing exercise.

But keep it up anyway.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Every explanation I ever read said, "Americans are very conservative about sex."

Which always confuses the hell out of me, because none of the reports I read mentioned incidents of public sex, but then reading the news usually confuses me.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

But will noone think of the children? Young, impressionable children, and even infants might be exposed to these revolting images of breastfeeding!

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I think "no visible nipple or areola" is a perfectly reasonable dividing line, especially in view of jenett's explanation, and I say this as a passionate supporter of breastfeeding. I'd be quite happy to see the same rule applied to men, too.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have nothing against this rule either, but I do believe it needs to be explicitly stated rather than assumed. It should be publicly available for all to read on the website, not something you have to find out through email - or worse, by breaking the rule and being "told off".

While I'm not an expert on psychology, my observation is that if an adult is told off for doing something that they didn't know they weren't supposed to be doing, they tend to react negatively. The last time most adults have had to deal with apparently nonsensical rules was when they were small children and still learning how the world works. So a lot of otherwise sensible and mature adults will regress to infant behaviour if they're told off for breaking a rule they didn't know existed. Then you get the typically infantile whining and tantrums and "throwing the toys out of the pram" type things going on, and it becomes impossible to have a rational discussion with the offender. It seems to me that it's much more sensible to inform people of the rules in advance. Then, if someone does break the rule, you can come down on them like a ton of bricks and justifiably so.

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

Brest feeding's not nudity, she's wearing a small child.