London: Facebook has blocked photograph of a 16th-century statue of Neptune posted by an Italian art historian, claiming it as “sexually explicit”, but the social media giant later apologised saying the censorship was a mistake. Elisa Barbari had chosen the statue in the Italian city of Bologna, which shows Neptune naked and holding a trident, to illustrate her Facebook page “Stories, curiosities and views of Bologna.”
But she was asked to remove the photograph as it fell foul of Facebook’s privacy policies, the Daily Telegraph reported. “The use of the image was not approved because it violates Facebook’s guidelines on advertising. It presents an image with content that is explicitly sexual and which shows to an excessive degree the body, concentrating unnecessarily on body parts,” Facebook said in a statement. “The use of images or video of nude bodies or plunging necklines is not allowed, even if the use is for artistic or educational reasons,” it said.
The artist responded to the statement on her Facebook page saying: “I wanted to promote my page but it seems that for Facebook the statue is a sexually explicit image that shows off too much flesh. Really, Neptune? This is crazy!,” she said. However, a Facebook spokesperson later said in a statement that the censorship was a mistake. “This image does not violate our ad policies. We apologise for the error”.
