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They called it a "virtual nurse-in."

Earlier this week, 11,000 mothers who use Facebook changed their profile pictures to photos of themselves breastfeeding children to protest against the social networking site's decency standards.

It's the latest blow in a continuing battle between Facebook and some of its users since it began removing photos that show breastfeeding.

The single-day protest, known as the Mothers International Lactation Campaign, was organized by Stephanie Muir, an Ottawa woman and mother of five who is one of more than 87,000 members of the group "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene"

The group is pushing Facebook to change its policies regarding breastfeeding pictures and its regulations surrounding how much of a woman's breast can appear in photos posted on the site.

"This societal attitude that women's breasts are lewd, sexually explicit or pornographic in their very nature serves only as a detriment to breastfeeding," Ms. Muir said.

In addition to the online nurse-in, a few dozen women also performed an in-person protest on Saturday at Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.

"The idea was to give some of our members an opportunity to be an armchair activist for a day and actually do something rather than just be a member of a group," said Ms. Muir, whose profile picture is an old photo of her nursing her now 17-year-old daughter.

This isn't the first time Facebook - which boasts 140 million users - has ignited a controversy after pulling breastfeeding photos.

In June, 2007, a San Diego woman named Kelli Roman complained that the company removed photos of her nursing her baby. After Facebook refused to change its policy, she started the protest group on the site that Ms. Muir and thousands of others joined.

Ms. Muir joined Facebook about 18 months ago, and now helps Ms. Roman maintain the group as an administrator.

Facebook, however, is standing by its position. Only photos that contain a "fully exposed breast" - which Facebook defines as a picture showing the nipple or areola - are removed, the company said in an e-mail.

Facebook said it takes no action against the "vast majority" of breastfeeding photos, as long as they do not contravene the site's terms of use.

"These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users, including the many children (over the age of 13) who use the site," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said. "The photos we act upon are almost exclusively brought to our attention by other users who complain."

But by removing these photos, Facebook is stigmatizing breastfeeding and demeaning women, according to Paul Rapoport, co-ordinator for the Topfree Equal Rights Association, a group dedicated to securing equal rights for women who wish to go topless.

Mr. Rapoport's group has set up an alternate site where women can post their breastfeeding photos, including ones that Facebook has removed.

"The assumption is that these few square centimetres of skin on a woman's body are ... obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit, bad, dangerous or harmful," he said. "That is so far out of line that one hardly knows where to begin."