Facebook Harassment: A Widespread Problem

It started on Saturday. I noticed I had been tagged by an anonymous user in a very revealing picture of a woman breastfeeding. It was odd but I tried not to think too much about it. I reported the post for bullying and harassment. I was trying not to take it personally but I was embarrassed because I had recently admitted here on my blog that I was lactating because of a hormone imbalance. I thought maybe someone was having a joke at my expense. Two hours later I was tagged in another photo/video of another woman breastfeeding. These were not modest pictures. You could practically see the woman’s nipples. It looked more pornographic than a mother trying to feed her child. I was upset especially as I got about 12 more tags. I have been teased about my large breasts ever since I started developing at age ten and this was mortifying. I kept reporting the tags as bullying and harassment but so far Facebook hasn’t done anything.

Then my boyfriend, who was doing research to help me, found a subreddit where a woman recently posted that she had also been tagged in graphic breastfeeding photos and she had no idea what to do. She said Facebook hadn’t done anything to help her yet.  In the comments were many other people who had experienced the same thing.

My boyfriend has a theory. Because Facebook has a no nudity/ no sexually explicit policy, we think photos of breastfeeding babies are a loophole for sexual harassment. Facebook, in the past, has deemed breastfeeding as something that is not sexual. This makes it possible for women to be harassed with borderline pornographic portrayals of women breastfeeding. 

So I’m not exactly sure what they are going to do. I’m still being tagged in these photos. Every time it happens I report it and move on. It’s refreshing to know I’m not alone although it sucks that other women are being harassed like this. Do you know anyone this has happened to? Is there anything I can do to stop it? My friends and parents have been so supportive because they know this is a sensitive topic for me and I do feel targeted. But I’m not going to be a victim to a random guy (or girl. Or bot) on the internet. I only hope Facebook does the right thing.