Facebook, the global social media platform with nearly 2 billion users—more than 25 percent of the global population—has refused to crack down on offensive hate speech, including deniers of the Holocaust. And just this week, Facebook said that a video by extreme right-wing radio host Alex Jones—in which Jones threatens to shoot Russia investigation Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and accuses Mueller of “raping kids in front of people”—did not violate its “community standards.”
But when it comes to 17th-century artistic masterpieces that depict nudity, specifically the works of Flemish genius Peter Paul Rubens, well, that’s where Facebook draws the line.
Rubens, who lived from 1577 to 1640 and is considered perhaps the greatest Flemish painter of all time, was known for paintings now considered classics depicting cherubic nude women with bodies that have since been described as “Rubenesque.”
But even a religious masterwork by Rubens, “The Descent From the Cross,” depicting Jesus, clad only in a loin cloth, being lowered by his discipled from his crucifixion—the painting seen at the top of this page—failed to make it through the Facebook censorship algorithm.
Facebook’s policies reportedly ban “sexually oriented content,” and that includes classic paintings depicting the nude human form.
So when Flanders, a region in Belgium where Flemish is the primary language, took out a series of advertisements on Facebook promoting the area’s history and culture, including images of several Rubens masterworks, Facebook put the kibosh on the ads.
The Flemish tourism board, which seemed just as amused as it was annoyed, as well as a group of Belgian art museums, wrote an open letter to Facebook in response to the ban.
“Breasts, buttocks and Peter Paul Rubens’ cherubs are all considered indecent. Not by us, but by you,” said the letter addressed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “Even though we secretly have to laugh about it, your cultural censorship is making life rather difficult for us.”
The letter went on to note that, “if Peter Paul Rubens had created a Facebook account in his lifetime, he would have had an extraordinary number of people following his fan page."
Indeed, in addition to his paintings withstanding the test of time to remain universally acclaimed masterpieces five centuries later, Rubens was also one of the most popular and commercially successful painters of his era, a greatly respected figure “not only in the arts but also as an active participant in the world of politics and diplomacy,” according to the Guggenheim Museum.
Facebook has reportedly agreed to discuss the Rubens ban with the Flemish tourism authorities, and has agreed to censor the nude paintings only in advertising, not in user-generated posts.
Image via Web Gallery of Art / Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
