It took over 20,000 signatures from an online petition requesting that Facebook refrain from censoring Facebook Mastectomy Photos, to get Facebook to respond. They have stated that the issue is with nudity, pictures that show naked breasts that are not in any way affected by surgery are a violation of Facebook’s terms. Their policies are of a similar standard to those applied to sites that have large numbers of young people, policies used by most forms of printed media and television. Facebook agrees that most of the photos that are published on their site are compliant with their terms and policies.
Sharing Facebook Mastectomy Photos are a means of supporting those that are faced with diagnosis and supports cancer awareness. Facebook agrees that having to go through the treatment or to live with the scars of cancer is a life changing experience and is more than happy to draw attention to this cause. Facebook further stated that they have previously allowed mastectomy photos and photos of women breastfeeding, including any type of scientific photos of the human body or for educational purposes. On occasion, photos are removed for reviewing by the Facebook review teams. The ban is mainly on pictures of nipples and genitalia.
Pictures have been removed on several occasions from the SCAR Project Facebook page. This project is calling for some room or leeway with regards to the pictures they post, as most of these are pictures people need to be able to view, as they have a real impact. The uproar and creation of the petition came about when The SCAR Project once again posted pictures of mastectomy photos which were previously banned, and they were again removed by Facebook. Much attention has been drawn to this project since Angelina Jolie revealed that she had undergone a double mastectomy because of her significantly high risk of breast cancer.