Facebook Apologizes After Banning Mom Over Breastfeeding Photo

Facebook has a strict no-nudity policy when it comes to sharing photos on its servers. Never was that more obvious than when the social network removed a risque-looking photo of a woman’s elbow.

But mother and breastfeeding advocate Kristy Kemp thinks Facebook went too far when the company booted her from her own Breastfeeding/MamaTalk page for a photo uploaded by one of her 5,500 followers. In fact, she was actually able to squeeze an apology out of the social media giant over the misstep.

Here is the offending pic:

Facebook’s policy regarding nudity (shown below) clearly states that the company “aspire[s] to respect people’s right to share content of personal importance,” and even specifically mentions breastfeeding as falling under that category. But Kemp has now been locked out not once, but twice over innocent breastfeeding photos her followers have posted to the page.

Sacramento’s Fox 40 got a chance to sit down with Kemp:

Even though Kemp spent days trying to get a response from Facebook regarding both incidents, once Fox 40 got ahold of the story, they were able to get an answer in a matter of hours. According to CNet, the apology read, in part:

A member of our team accidentally removed something you posted on Facebook. This was mistake [sic], and we sincerely apologize for this error.

It seems unlikely this “mistake” would happen twice in a row; but regardless, Kemp’s access to her page has been restored and a small victory has been won against Facebook’s over-zealous banning procedures.