5 mums were all banned from social media. This is why.

Forget secret government warehouses holding alien spaceships – we’ve got a much more plausible conspiracy theory.

Social media is trying to ban motherhood.

Recently we have been a little overwhelmed by the number of stories that feature a mum having content removed from social media for little-to-no reason – and we’re calling ‘secret plot devised by social media networks to make mums feel bad, for what reason we’re not yet sure’.

Don’t believe us? Here’s the evidence:

Exhibit A:

Heather Bays is a mum and a professional photographer so she takes thousands of photos of her family. She shares all her favourites on her Instagram account and they are truly beautiful.

But when she posted this photo she was banned:

Heather started a #SaveHeatherBays campaign, and eventually her Instagram account was reinstated. But it was only deleted in the first place because eight people – yes, EIGHT – reported the above photo as being offensive. Seriously. You can read more here.

Exhibit B:

The reason this baby’s photo was banned from Faceboook is heartbreaking. Young mum Heather Walker shared photos of her late baby son Grayson on Facebook recently – her son had only lived for eight hours – and was appalled when the website removed them. Grayson had a fatal condition called anencephaly, which left parts of his brain and skull missing.

She and her friends reposted the photos, which saw them banned from the social networking site for 24 hours. You can read more here.

Exhibit C:

This mum forgot that Facebook has no tolerance for nudity – of any kind. A mum from North Carolina in the US posted a picture of her 2-year-old daughter Willa having her swimming bottoms being pulled down by a friend. The mum said she thought the photo was funny and cheeky.

However, Jill White was banned for 24 hours for this photo, which Facebook said was ‘pornographic’. You can read more about the story here.

Exhibit D:

Here’s another ‘violation of community standards’. Blogger Courtney Adamo, posted this picture on her Instagram account — and then her account got closed down.

Courtney wrote on her blog:

“On Wednesday evening I posted the above photo of Marlow in her yellow rain boots and her ‘big girl undies’. I wrote about how, despite me trying to delay it, she had decided to be potty trained, and how she had kept her undies dry all day. I thought it was such a sweet photo of my baby girl and her gorgeous, round belly (and outie belly button). And I love that her pride is so evident in the photo – such a sweet and innocent shot of a successful day of potty-training. On Thursday morning the photo was gone from my feed and another Instagram email was in my inbox.”

Instagram informed her that the picture of Marlow “violated Instagram’s community standards about nudity”. You can read more here.

Exhibit E:

Even celebrities aren’t immune. Roxy Jacenko’s daughter Pixie Curtis had her Instagram account – with an 18,000+ fanbase – shut down recently. The controversial account was filled with pics of the adorable toddler taken and captioned by mum Roxy, but was shut down because Instagram said two-year-old Pixie was under-age (and would have to wait 11 years to have her own account).

The account has since been reinstated, but the situation did raise questions about parents managing social media accounts in their kids names.

Exhibit… Oh, look, you get the picture.

And the picture is: there are some standard pictures of motherhood that have been deemed to be inappropriate for social media. Breastfeeding, pot bellies, and unbearably stylish kids like Pixie Curtis among them.

Do you think the current community standards on these social media networks is too conservative? Or do you think the rules are in place for a reason: to protect children?

Is motherhood being banned from social media?