Nood calls on Google, Meta and TikTok to address sexism and sexual labelling

American female-founded bra brand Nood, known for its adhesive bras, nipple covers and boob tape, is spearheading a new campaign to shed light on what it calls the adverse impact of ad and meta content policies enforced by Google, Facebook and TikTok.

Nood states that in the past year, its business has been adversely affected and its growth and reach restricted as its products are categorised as sexual in nature, indecent or inappropriate, which has resulted in censorship, shadow bans, and removal of their adverts.

It adds that Google has classified Nood’s content as sexual, as its images show the “lower or outer curve of the female breast,” which the brand uses to demonstrate its nipple covers and breast tap, meaning it falls under what Google calls “partial nudity”. Nood says this has hindered its ability to effectively promote its products to women and raises concerns regarding the automatic sexualisation of the female body.

Nood has also been banned on TikTok’s landing page and ads, due to artwork featuring breasts, which has led to broader restrictions on any products associated with this part of the female anatomy, while Meta’s Facebook and Instagram ad takedown process has resulted in “substantial financial losses and hindered growth,” despite a year-long struggle to obtain adequate support.

Nood states social media platforms unfairly censor the female body and its products

Astrid Montalta, chief executive and founder of Nood said in a statement: “As female founders, we already have the odds stacked against us. Less than 3 percent of venture capital funding goes to female-founded companies, and less than 10 percent of female-founded businesses are able to grow revenue over 100,000 US dollars.

“Facebook, Google, and TikTok all claim to support the empowerment of women; however, by automatically sexualising a woman’s body, they discriminate against and penalize female founders who create products for women, only compounding an already dire statistic for success.”

Nood adds that it needs to be able to show its products on women’s bodies and is calling on social media platforms to introduce “a human backstop” to view the content in context rather than the automatic sexualisation of the female body.

Instagram’s community guidelines state it doesn’t allow nudity on its platform, this includes photos and videos of female nipples and breasts alongside content that shows sexual intercourse, genitals and close-ups of fully nude buttocks. A policy that doesn’t separate nudity from sexuality and adversely impacts brands such as Nood.

To put this into context, an image with Nood’s nipple covers shown on a woman was censored, while the same product captured on a male body was approved.

Nood added on Instagram: “We’re sexualised using everyday products designed to help women. The thing is we set out to show unedited and beautiful content showing how to use our styling products – because educating our beautiful customers on empowering yourselves through style is our mission!

“We need to be able to show our products on women’s bodies, in all shapes, sizes and skin tones. But this becomes very difficult when you’ve got some Handmaids Tail character for a bot giving you warnings all the time.”