Case Study
Facebook “race blind” content moderation drives away Black users
Facebook came under public fire , many Black users left the platform, and the company was...+ Read more
In February 2012, Facebook offices were the site of “nurse-ins” protesting the social giant’s practice of repeatedly taking down photographs of breastfeeding mothers. Although Facebook stated that its current practice was to allow such photos, in practice breastfeeding photos have been removed frequently for containing “nudity” and some mothers’ Facebook accounts have even been deactivated. As a result, critics chastised Facebook for not even “playing by their own rules” and told the social network to “stop being total boobs.” In response to continued negative press, Facebook explicitly changed its community guidelines in 2014 to allow photos of breastfeeding mothers.