Facebook promptly deleted it.
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning image by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut is at the center of a heated debate about freedom of speech in Norway after Facebook removed it from a Norwegian author’s page last month.
The photograph was removed from several accounts on Friday, including that of Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, on the grounds it violated Facebook’s restrictions on nudity. While Solberg’s prominence no doubt factors in, it’s certainly an interesting move on Facebook’s part, one that’s reminiscent of responses to other high-profile screw ups, including Mark Zuckerberg’s meeting with conservative leaders after Gizmodo reported the website’s trending news curators were suppressing conservative news.
“These are hard decisions and we don’t always get it right”, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, wrote in a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, obtained by Reuters. But late Friday it said it would allow sharing of the photo.
Solberg later reposted the image with a black box covering the girl from the thighs up. “I hope to see you soon – and am always available if you have further concerns”, she wrote.
The editor-in-chief of Aftenposten, Norway’s largest newspaper, on Friday issued an open letter slamming the social media platform for taking down the picture.
Hansen said he was “upset, disappointed – well, in fact even afraid – of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society”. “In this case, we recognise the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time”, it added. “Our solutions won’t always be flawless, but we will continue to try to improve our policies and the ways in which we apply them”.
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The world’s leading social network backtracked yesterday on a decision to censor the historic image because it had been flagged for violating standards regarding inappropriate posts.An active social media user, Solberg defied Facebook early yesterday by posting the photograph, helping to bring the weeks-long controversy to a head. “In addition, we reserve our rights to this powerful image”.
