Facebook removed breastfeeding picture

A Shropshire woman has hit out at Facebook after the social networking site removed a picture of her sister breastfeeding.

Marj Cook, from Bishop's Castle, started a discussion on her Facebook profile page after her sister's picture was removed from the site.

She said: "My sister posted a picture of her feeding her newborn baby and the picture was removed. They claimed she uploaded a photo that violated the terms of use."

Facebook has since apologised and said Ellie Cook's photo was removed in error.

Ms Cook said her sister posted the photo of her feeding her daughter Isis about a week ago, but it was taken down and she was sent a message saying it violated the terms of use, which were there to keep the site "a safe environment for users".

She said: "I launched a debate through my Facebook account and it had a huge response. I had at least 30 comments, it just got everyone talking."

Ms Cook said she was sceptical about the apology and suspected it had only been given because of publicity around the case.

A spokesman for Facebook said: "At Facebook we think breastfeeding is natural and beautiful . . . We take no action on the vast majority of breastfeeding photos because they follow the site's terms of use."

He added: "Of course, we make an occasional mistake - of which this is an example. When this happens and it's brought to our attention we work quickly to resolve the issue.

"We'd like to sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this mistake caused."