More Facebook censorship of artwork: appeal from Académie des Beaux-Arts

Facebook’s censorship of nudity in artworks continues to claim victims, and for that reason theAcadémie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, a historic French institution, has decided to move in person and put its face to it with a complaint that is causing discussion in France. The members of the academy, meeting in plenary session last Wednesday, decided to issue a note to highlight a situation that is making the work of popularizing art on social media increasingly difficult.

"From Gustave Courbet’sOrigine du monde to Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, from Pieter Paul Rubens ’s Deposition to Lucien Clergue’s photographs to the four-thousand-year-old Venus of Willendorf, the examples of censorship on social networks are countless and significantly hinder, every day a little bit more, the promotion of art on these indispensable media,“ the Académie writes in a note. ”Indeed, the main social media platforms have introduced in their terms of use that ’their distribution policy does not allow nudity or suggested nudity’ without, however, the biases of their algorithms differentiating between works of art and selfies or other personal nude shots placed in front of everyone’s view."

“This grotesque situation,” the institute goes on to explain, “demands a legitimate reaction from the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which is issuing a call to ask the question about the freedom of dissemination of information and the means to be put in place to protect it.”

Facebook censorship, over the years, has claimed illustrious victims: not only those mentioned by the Académie (to the point of the absurdity of censoring a prehistoric statue, the Venus of Willendorf, a circumstance that led the museums of Vienna to provocatively open an account on Only Fans, or a painting located inside a church, Rubens’ Deposition, triggering a sympathetic reaction from the Flanders tourist board), but also many other subjects (including our magazine: we got it for a work attributed to Michelangelo), with the most serious case involving Florence Biennale, which had its account deleted without possibility of appeal for having posted a work by Spanish artist Gloria Marco Munuera in which a naked breast was seen. In Italy recently came the #StopBanningArt initiative, a gallery of images censored over the years by Facebook. In short, the voices of those protesting against the censorship imposed on art are multiplying. In the hope that something may change.

More Facebook censorship of artwork: appeal from Académie des Beaux-Arts

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.