Censorship dispute: Facebook relents

This was announced by the online network on Friday. The photo is an importanthistorical document and is therefore likely to be shared on Facebook again. Theguidelines would now be adjusted, so that the image in the coming dayscould be uploaded again, a Facebook spokesperson explained in an emailto the AFP news agency.The photo was among others from the Facebook profiles of the NorwegianPrime Minister Erna Solberg and Norway's largest newspaper Aftenpostenbeen removed - allegedly because of too much nudity.The famous picture shows the Vietnamese woman Kim Phuc, who during the Vietnam waras a nine year old naked and screaming in pain from a US Napalm attackfled - she had torn off her burning clothes . ThePhotographer Nick Ut was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the photograph.

The newspaper Aftenposten accused Facebook of censorship after the famous photofrom the Vietnam War deleted from the page of the sheet at the online networkwas.The picture violated the rules on nudity, Facebook justified the step. On Friday, Norway's largest newspaper published an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in which Aftenposten editor-in-chief Espen Egil Hansen opposes the measure. "I think you are abusing your power, and I find it hard to believe that you have thought this through thoroughly," the journalist wrote. He said he was "angry, disappointed" and concerned that "the most important medium in the world is restricting freedom instead of trying to expand it, and that occasionally that happens in an authoritarian way." Facebook said in a response Friday that it was difficult to draw a distinction when it came to photographs of nude children, allowing publication in one case and not in another. "We're trying to find the right balance between allowing people to express themselves and providing a safe and respectful environment for our global community. Our solutions won't always be perfect, but we'll try to improve our rules and the way we apply them."

Protest also from Prime Minister

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg also published the Vietnam picture on her Facebook page on Friday in solidarity. She "appreciates the work of Facebook and other media" to stop the spread of inappropriate content, Solberg wrote in response. "But Facebook is taking the wrong path when it posts photos like this " In doing so, Facebook is putting the brakes on freedom of expression. Shortly thereafter, the image had disappeared from Solberg's Facebook page. Who removed the photo was initially unclear. The request to the newspaper to remove the image had come in the form of an email from Facebook's Hamburg office on Wednesday morning, the Aftenposten editor-in-chief explained. "Less than 24 hours after the email was sent, and before I had time to respond, you yourself stepped in and removed the article and image from Aftenposten's Facebook page," Egil Hansen wrote. In the article on the Facebook page, the newspaper had reported on Norwegian author Tom Egeland, whom the social network had blocked a few weeks ago after he posted seven famous war photos - including the one with the naked girl - on his Facebook page. Because of the publication, the newspaper now suffered the same fate.

Censorship feared

It's not the first time Facebook has removed photos or images of artwork because they violated the online network's policies on depicting nudity or violence. As online networks become a central source of news for more and more people, there is great concern in the media industry, among others, that information will reach them only filtered, whether by software algorithms or Facebook employees tasked with enforcing the rules. "It is not acceptable that we have to follow moral guidelines from Silicon Valley," tweeted Mathias Müller von Blumencron, editor-in-chief of digital media at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He spoke of a "fall from grace by Facebook." (SDA)