Facebook apologizes for the censorship of the "Venus of Willendorf
The online network Facebook has apologized for censoring an image of the Paleolithic statuette «Venus of Willendorf.» «We apologize for the mistake,» a Facebook spokeswoman said on Thursday.
Although nude images are prohibited on the portal according to advertising regulations, there is "an exception for statuettes". Therefore, the entry with the photo of the statuette should have been allowed. "We let the advertiser know that we would allow the entry."
Facebook had previously censored the image of the "Venus of Willendorf" as "dangerously pornographic". The eleven centimeter small figure shows a voluptuous naked woman. It was discovered in the early 20th century in the Austrian village of Willendorf and is considered the most important object in the Natural History Museum (NHM) in Vienna, where the approximately 30,000-year-old figure is on display. According to the head of the museum Christian Köberl, it is the best known prehistoric representation of a woman in the world.
The controversy began in December when Italian art activist Laura Ghianda shared a photo of the artwork on her Facebook page. After it was censored, she criticized the "war against human culture.
Facebook repeatedly encounters incomprehension with cases of censorship. The French judiciary is currently dealing with the blocking of the Facebook account of a man who had published a photo of a work by Gustave Courbet. The picture "L'Origine du monde" shows a realistically painted vagina. (SDA)
