It's puritanism (they should allow both), but it's not sexism.
Just because one of the sexes is treated differently in some way doesn't make something necessarily sexism.
It's just that female nipples are considered sensual while men nipples aren't. That's because female nipples are indeed sensual (and play a special role in reproduction and human sexual selection) whereas male nipples not so much.
(Sure, some men like to have their nipples rubbed, kissed, etc, and some women enjoy them. But you can find some percentage of people who enjoy anything, including sexually aroused by armpits, so that's not really an argument. Statistically, males enjoy female breasts/nipples sexually far more than women enjoy male breasts/nipples, hence they were considered more sexually explicit).
In the end, though, is it arbitrary? Yes, but so is considering dicks and testicles and pussies "bad" and sensual, and I don't see many people complaining they can't show their dick/pussy on Facebook (whereas, they should probably complain about that too).
Rationally speaking, without the baggage of culture, there's nothing special about dicks and pussies other hands and faces and toes.
Within the baggage of culture, however, they're in a different class, a class that female nipples happen to be also considered to belong to but male nipples not. But it's not like both men and women don't have several body parts considered censor-worthy. Woman having one more is not based on sexism (if that was the case, only women would have "shameful" body parts to hide and men would be able to display their dicks and balls and asses around), it's based on what culture considers sensual.
It's not puritanism. They're trying to get younger and younger audiences hooked on facebook and instagram without their parents worrying too much about unknown forces corrupting their kids.
It's even worse when you consider how it's based in binary gender thinking. Are a transgender person's nipples allowed, or not? It ends up being such a mess. A gender-neutral standard would be better.
I have a friend who is transitioning f2m and recently had top surgery. They were extremely excited that being topless was no longer a crime. It helped put some things into perspective for me.
> Glad to see a website exercising critical thinking.
So "critical thinking" to you means rejecting the notion of gender being anything but binary and static, despite scientific evidence to the contrary? Interesting definition you've got there.
> Is it sexually suggestive?
Nope, no subjective opinions or controversial judgment calls there.
> that's a policy ignorant of reality.
It's a policy that doesn't allow neanderthals to deny others' reality, and IMO the fact that it makes those neanderthals uncomfortable is a bonus.
I would guess that the key factor is whether or not a body part is significantly erogenous. AFAIK, many more women than men find their nipples to be a source of sexual arousal.
EDIT: I hope people reading my post understand the difference between explaining vs. endorsing another party's reasoning.
I think it's more about the sexual morals of the countries where the majority of users are located.
That said, I think it's silly. They're a technology company that should be able to come up with a technical solution. Twitter handles nudity just fine.
More like the strange puritanism America can show when it comes to sex and relationships, nudity and minor curse words. Shows up in TV, eBay, Facebook and a selection of other ways. Violence on the other hand is usually permissible in near limitless quantity.
They do allow female nipples, if breastfeeding. I've seen numerous breastfeeding videos/photos get shared with nipple exposed or one of the two breasts completely exposed and report them just to see what will happen, they are always allowed to remain stating it does not violate the community standards.
Similarly they seem to allow people to post comments like "why don't you use your guns to kill yourself" and "I hope you f*cking die" which are actual comments I've had when commenting on posts where the second amendment is being attacked, report them, and get facebook telling me an hour or days later that they did not violate community standards. I even had some in my messenger inbox before and got the blah blah blah it's ok, you can block them if you want message.
You realize that if the post is removed, that "seeing what will happen" has a real consequence for the poster, right? If feel like that's even worse than reporting it because you actually believe it's objectionable.
You realize when I'm casually scrolling my facebook feed in public (like the break room at work, at a Church event, etc) and bare breasts pop up because someone felt the need to show strangers on the internet they breast feed it can have very real consequences including me losing my job, right?
One I reported was a woman doing duck lips, in a few second video lip, with one breast completely bare and the other mostly exposed with her child appearing to be wholly disinterested in feeding while she actively squeezed her breasts together with her inner upper arms and rotated back and forth to showcase them. Reported it, thousands of likes and even more comments, did not violate community standards and allowed to remain. Literally came up, shared by someone, while I was sitting at church waiting for a meeting to start. It was blatantly obvious she was just finding a way to show her breasts off, I feel no remorse for reporting her post, especially when her blatantly showing her breasts off ended up being 'fine' to Facebook.
This seems to suggest that the content moderation policy is rather arbitrary, which makes sense if you recall that Facebook uses underpaid contractors in struggling countries to do a lot of this work.
Just because one of the sexes is treated differently in some way doesn't make something necessarily sexism.
It's just that female nipples are considered sensual while men nipples aren't. That's because female nipples are indeed sensual (and play a special role in reproduction and human sexual selection) whereas male nipples not so much.
(Sure, some men like to have their nipples rubbed, kissed, etc, and some women enjoy them. But you can find some percentage of people who enjoy anything, including sexually aroused by armpits, so that's not really an argument. Statistically, males enjoy female breasts/nipples sexually far more than women enjoy male breasts/nipples, hence they were considered more sexually explicit).
In the end, though, is it arbitrary? Yes, but so is considering dicks and testicles and pussies "bad" and sensual, and I don't see many people complaining they can't show their dick/pussy on Facebook (whereas, they should probably complain about that too).
Rationally speaking, without the baggage of culture, there's nothing special about dicks and pussies other hands and faces and toes.
Within the baggage of culture, however, they're in a different class, a class that female nipples happen to be also considered to belong to but male nipples not. But it's not like both men and women don't have several body parts considered censor-worthy. Woman having one more is not based on sexism (if that was the case, only women would have "shameful" body parts to hide and men would be able to display their dicks and balls and asses around), it's based on what culture considers sensual.