Facebook backs off from ‘napalm girl’ censorship
After initially defending its decision to remove the iconic Vietnam war photo featuring a naked girl, the company has decided to allow users to share it.
Facebook has decided to allow users to share an iconic Vietnam war photo featuring a naked girl after CEO Mark Zuckerberg was accused of abusing his power when the social media company censored the image.
Norway’s largest newspaper published a front-page open letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday (local time), slamming Facebook’s decision to censor the historic photograph of nine-year-old Kim Phuc running away from a napalm attack and calling on the CEO to live up to his role as ‘‘the world’s most powerful editor’’.
Facebook initially defended its decision to remove the image, saying, ‘‘While we recognise that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others.’’
Yesterday, following widespread criticisms from news organisations and media experts across the globe, Facebook reversed its decision, saying in a statement to the Guardian: ‘‘After hearing from our community, we looked again at how our Community Standards were applied in this case.
‘‘An image of a naked child would normally be presumed to violate our Community Standards, and in some countries might even qualify as child pornography. In this case, we recognise the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time.’’
The statement continued: ‘‘Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed.’’
Facebook also said it would
The picture of 9-year-old Kim Phuc running, crying and naked from napalm bombing, is in my eyes not about nudity. She’s naked because her clothes and her skin had been on fire. The motive is all about the horror of war and is an example of an iconic press photo that definitely changed American attitudes to the Vietnam war, and maybe contributed to making the United States pull out the following year. Who knows . . .‘‘ Tom Egeland
‘‘adjust our review mechanisms to permit sharing of the image going forward’’.
The company said it would be available for sharing ‘‘in the coming days’’ and that it is ‘‘always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe’’.
Espen Egil Hansen, editor-inchief and CEO of Aftenposten, had accused Zuckerberg of thoughtlessly ‘‘abusing your power’’ over the social media site that has become a key distributokr of news around the globe.
He wrote: ‘‘I am upset, disappointed – well, in fact even afraid – of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society.’’
The controversy stems from Facebook’s decision to delete a post by Norwegian writer Tom Egeland that featured The Terror of War, a Pulitzer prize-winning photograph by Nick Ut that showed children, including Phuc, fleeing an attack. Egeland’s post discussed ‘‘seven photographs that changed the history of warfare’’ – a group to which the ‘‘napalm girl’’ image certainly belongs.
Facebook yesterday further said it would be reaching out to publishers to discuss the debate.