A 23-year-old Provo mom has stirred up a fuss over whether photos of her breast-feeding her 9-month-old daughter should have been pulled off of Facebook.

On one side are Heather Farley and the "lactivists" who say the social-network site is being unfair to nursing mothers. On the other are people, including some mothers, who say there's a time and a place for everything, and a popular Web site isn't the place for photos of a woman with a child at her breast -- especially when she's making no attempt at modesty.

This all began Nov. 6, when Facebook yanked the picture and sent Farley an e-mail explaining she had violated its terms of use policy because "photos containing nudity, drug use, or other obscene content are not allowed."

On Saturday, Farley led a group of about 30 in a three-hour protest in front of Facebook's Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters. The group marched, chanted, and breast-fed their children. In addition, more than 75,000 people have joined an online group called "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!"

Of course breast-feeding is healthy and proper. Experts for years have said that it has numerous long-term benefits. Not only is breast milk the best food for babies, the experience helps with bonding.

As some mothers have pointed out, however, is is possible to nurse discreetly. You don't have to expose the entire upper quadrant of your body. A well-placed blanket is all that's needed. No one is saying a woman can't nurse, even modestly in public. The issue is whether Facebook was right to ban the picture.

It's important to make fine distinctions. Supporters of Farley have leapt to the conclusion that those who object are saying the photos are "obscene" or "pornographic." But that's not the case. The Facebook policy cited above refers to nudity or obscene content.

The distinction hardly matters in any case because the photo in question actually was neither. More skin is exposed every day in department store underwear ads and on cosmetics packaging in the grocery store.

The question really involves whether some pictures are too intimate or provocative for publication on a social networking site. You can see the photo for yourself online -- publicbreast.notlong.com .

Facebook has said that it doesn't interfere with most photos of women breast-feeding, but does take down those that show a fully exposed breast.

Lactivists might counter that that's the problem. There's nothing more natural than a mother nursing her baby, they say. What kind of sicko pervert would find that racy? One of their protest slogans ran: "If you plan on sexualizing my breasts, you'd better be stuffing dollar bills into my waistband!"

That's a funny line, but protestors seem to ignore basic human psychology. Breasts may have a sexual aspect for many. The lactivists seem to wish it were otherwise. But no fair and reasonable response is possible without admitting that the functional aspects are only part of the question.

Context matters too. A photo in a book for pregnant women, for instance, presents a different context than something on a networking site popular with teens.

Isn't the Internet the home of the uninhibited? Maybe, but some would say that's part of the problem here. Facebook too has rights. It wants a site that the vast majority of people feel comfortable with. To do that, it must set some standards consistent with that kind of online community. And the standard can be arbitrary. These things often boil down to a judgment call.

Many parents welcome the standards. There's a lot of junk out there in cyberspace and parents struggle mightily to keep their kids from it, even while accepting the Web as an essential social tool for kids today.

It's true that photos of nursing moms aren't anyone's big worry. But making that line harder to draw makes it harder to keep truly inappropriate material off the site and away from kids. So why hassle Facebook about this?

On the flip side are those who find Facebook's standards prudish. For those who bristle at Facebook's rules are welcome to migrate to sites with looser rules. That's what freedom is all about -- not forcing one standard on everyone, but allowing different venues to hold to their own values and perspectives.

Breast-feeding is a healthy practice, and should be encouraged. At the same time, it's a personal moment. If a Web site finds some of those photos too intimate or troubling for many of the people who use it, why shouldn't it take action?