FB censors ‘stone age pornography’

THE prehistoric “Venus of Willendorf” figurine, considered a masterpiece of the paleolithic era, has been censored by Facebook, drawing an indignant response Wednesday from the Natural History Museum in Vienna, where it is on display.

The tiny statuette of a voluptuous naked woman, which is some 30,000 years old, was discovered in the Austrian village of Willendorf in the early 20th century and is considered “the icon” of the museum, the facility’s director general Christian Koeberl said in a statement.

The 11-centimetre statue from the early stone age is “the most popular and best-known prehistoric representation of a woman worldwide”, he added.

The controversy began in December when Italian arts activist Laura Ghianda posted a picture of the artwork on the social networking site which went viral.

After it was censored she messaged that “this statue is not ‘dangerously pornographic’. The war on human culture and modern intellectualism will not be tolerated.”

The natural history museum voiced outrage, saying in its statement; “we think that an archeological object, especially such an iconic one, should not be banned from Facebook because of ‘nudity’, as no artwork should be.

“Let the Venus be naked! Since 29,500 years she shows herself as prehistoric fertility symbol without any clothes. Now Facebook censors it and upsets the community,” it said.

The museum said it had never directly experienced censorship by Facebook, despite its recent post on “Stone Age pornography”.

Facebook is regularly criticised over content which it bans or indeed content it allows to be published.