Stephen Gough finally makes it home, after struggling with the judicial system for 7(!) years, and gets a welcome home hug from him mum, now how cool is that: http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/article4792539.ece Rich.

NAKed and acTIVe - Facebook Censorship

NAKed and acTIVe - Censorship

I was banned by Facebook, and content removed, accompanied by the threat of a permanently disabled account, because of the above two photos, apparently because I violated their TOS. This is simply not true, and I believe this is more likely to be a case of the morally hypocritical puritan minority imposing it's views on the rest of us yet again. It's not sufficient to lie down and accept the administrative choice in this case because FB says one thing and does another, all at the behest of somebody who decides to complain because they see something they disapprove of. This is censorship of the worst kind. Let's take a look at Facebook's actual TOS:

Facebook's very own Community Standards includes this text under the nudity section: "...we aspire to respect people’s right to share content of personal importance..." and here is the relevant section:

Nudity and Pornography
• Facebook has a strict policy against the sharing of pornographic content and any explicitly sexual content where a minor is involved. We also impose limitations on the display of nudity. We aspire to respect people’s right to share content of personal importance, whether those are photos of a sculpture like Michelangelo's David or family photos of a child breastfeeding.

In the two examples above, one is a hike in which I participated in the Bayerischzell region of Bavaria. This is documentary and surely of personal importance? The other image records a highly interesting Art installation by the photographer and artist Spencer Tunick, in the centre of the city, hosted by the opera house to celebrate the beginning of the Opera season in Munich. How much more related to personal importance and to modern Art is it possible to get, and still be regarded as pornography by Facebook admins?

More of the same type of Facebook lying, and abuse of their authority with regard breastfeeding images, to provide shamefully filtered content, (which they erroneously say they do not censor), can be seen here:

• HEY, FACEBOOK, BREASTFEEDING IS NOT OBSCENE! - page 6
• HEY, FACEBOOK, BREASTFEEDING IS NOT OBSCENE! - page 19

Please feel free to share links to this page as far and as wide as possible, with a view to letting Facebook realize they need to accommodate the harmless views of their users and to not impose a puritan minority view on the rest of us.

NAKed and acTIVe - Censorship

NAKed and acTIVe - Censorship

NAKed and acTIVe - Bluntautal

A summer hike in the Bluntautal in the rain, to brush away the snow and remind us of summer - NAKed and acTIVe - Bluntautal

Spencer Tunick Munich 23/24 June 2012

This was the day participants of the Spencer Tunick "Ring" installation in Munich, in June 2012, went to pick up their complementary photos for taking part. A small but very nice display with two huge photos and several smaller ones. A lovely event to have taken part in. Some feedback here:
Spencer Tunick Munich 23/24 June 2012

And some photos here: 

http://www.naktiv.net/files/tunick-the-ring-photo-pickup-event.tgz

Being naked and active, and naked hiking: request for contributions « Clothes are optional

The latest Naktiv project is a book on Naked Hiking. Richard Foley is the author of The World Naked Bike Ride and Active Nudists books, and is an ardent support of naked activities. This latest project will be based on articles and contributions from naked hikers around the world.

Being naked and active, and naked hiking: request for contributions « Clothes are optional

 Richard is very keen to get input from women hikers, as most submissions to date have been from men. This is partly to be expected of course, but he says it would be good to have a greater balance. While naked hiking is becoming more popular all around the world, it’s becoming more important to be able to point to printed material to demonstrate how many people are involved in this very natural activity. It’s also relevant to show how much fun naked hiking is, not just on an internet forum, but also in a physical form which can be shared over the coffee table.