Facebook account suspended over nude Courbet painting as profile picture

[onehandle]

Source: The Telegraph

The father-of-three used an image of an explicit 19th century oil by Gustave Coubet called The Origin of the World on the social networking site.

But he claims he missed messages and 'social contact' from his 800 Facebook friends when the page was taken down on the eve of his birthday on February 27.

He is now demanding the site 'compensate him in an substantial manner' for barring his access.

The unnamed man's lawyer Stephane Cottineau said repeated emails to the California based company demanding the page be reinstated had also gone unanswered.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8448274/Facebook-account-suspended-over-nude-Courbet-painting-as-profile-picture.html

---

I was really tempted to post the painting itself, which is a 19th century classic, but suspect that DU might censor it as well.

On edit, Hunter provided me with the link I should have thought of, Duh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_the_World

Additionally, if you are ever in Paris and only have time to go to one museum, make it the Musée d'Orsay.

[Drale]

1. If you read the disclaimer from facebook

they have a strict policy about nudity, whether its a photo or a "classic" painting.

[DRoseDARs]

21. Section 3. Safety, Line 7. reads as follows:

http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf
Date of Last Revision: October 4, 2010.

"You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence."

/story

This guy has no case against Facebook. They should show mercy and reinstate his account IF he removes the image that was clearly in violation of the terms he agreed to even if he didn't read them, you know like everyone else does skimming them if even that much attention is paid. He should have known better in the first place that "BUT IT'S ARRRRRRT!!!!11!!" doesn't excuse you from a very clear cut rule.

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

22. I know nothing of Facebook, but in reading your post...

and having heard that Santorum has announced his presidential exploratory committee...

I wonder if he can even have a Facebook account as his name means a frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter.



It was a passing thought...

What do you think?


:evilgrin:

[ProfessionalLeftist]

27. People post plenty of pornographic crap there and FB does nothing about that

...but they balk at this?

Perhaps they should be a bit more consistent in enforcing their policies - one way or another.

[Freddie Stubbs]

29. Administrators are only aware of it when someone alerts them

There is no way for them to police every single image.

[JackRiddler]

47. Good citizens should be on the alert for thought crime. Inform the FB authorities!

[Freddie Stubbs]

56. It's only a crime when the government punishes you for it

If people want a social networking site where they can post pictures of naked people, they should create one.

[JackRiddler]

66. Ah, here comes Mr. Dictionary. Thanks for setting me straight.

A Turing machine could come up with a better argument than that.

Because that's got to be the most literal-minded triviality I've heard today. You can start the League Against Metaphor.

(Ironically, it's also literally untrue: it's often a crime even if the government doesn't punish you for it. As the banksters and invaders of small countries show, among other examples.)

[Devil_Fish]

72. They have, it's www.4chan.org NT

[wickerwoman]

42. My friend had her account suspended

for using a picture of a naked man from a recent photo exhibit in her profile. She changed the picture and they reinstated her. No big whoop.

[Xithras]

64. Umm, FB suspends thousands of accounts a day for stuff like this.

My youngest sister had her first Facebook account nuked for posting a photo of herself on Spring Break. She was wearing a thong, but the angle made it look like she was nude. You couldn't even see the exciting bits, but giving the "illusion" of nudity was apparently enough to set off their censors.

She didn't even argue it, and just registered a new account.

[nebenaube]

2. oh that's pretty fuzzy! n/t

[dipsydoodle]

26. Looks like GWB to me

Just another ****.

[Poll_Blind]

3. I looked up the picture- still don't quite get what I'm looking at, there.

This isn't one of those pictures that requires you to cross your eyes is it?

:shrug:

PB

[greiner3]

6. "requires you to cross your eyes is it?"

You do that and you'll go blind.

[Poll_Blind]

7. Well, whatever it was- when I crossed my eyes I saw TWO of them!

And somehow that seemed like a better deal...

:rofl:

PB

[hunter]

4. Wikipedia has it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_the_World

[Blue_Tires]

39. WANT

:evilgrin:

[JackRiddler]

48. You can have it for $35-60 million on the current market. Well, if it were for sale.

[JVS]

51. Can someone make an avatar out of it for use here at DU?

[swishyfeet]

5. Somehow I don't recall that

...during my visit to d'Orsay.

I believe that would have been memorable. :o

[annabanana]

8. This one?

[Arrowhead2k1]

10. No, see post #4.

It's a woman's lower torso spread eagle.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[PassingFair]

31. My favorite medium!

[Arrowhead2k1]

9. Seriously, it's too much.

Especially as a profile picture for everyone to see. Without context, the artwork appears to be nothing more than smut which is against Facebook rules I assume.

[ReggieVeggie]

18. so, ancient art has to label itself as such?

this world has gone to hell

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Le Taz Hot]

28. The human body is smut?

Really? A woman's vagina is a body part. A woman's arm is a body part. Parts is parts and whatever additional labels one chooses to attach to said parts is up to the interpreter.

[TroglodyteScholar]

30. "Parts is parts"

Thanks for using one of my favorite phrases (in any context!)

It's understandable for children to have difficulty dealing with our "special parts," but for grown-ass men and women to demonstrate fear and disgust at these parts...well, it's a sure sign that a lot of us never matured emotionally.

That said, this guy's actions were clearly against FB's rules, and he has no legal "right" to access FB in the first pl ace, so I'd say he's pissing in the wind.

[Arrowhead2k1]

33. You're going to insult me now because I have different sensibilities?

Get over yourself.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world considers a naked spread eagle vagina to be rather obscene and reserved for private situations. Not a public facebook profile picture.

They're more than just "parts", and everyone knows it.

[JackRiddler]

44. It's not facebook, it's Facebook -- a corporation, like McDonald's. It's not public, it's private.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wickerwoman]

43. Parts is parts,

but selecting certain parts (reproductive) and obscuring other parts (faces) is objectification.

And your profile pic can be seen by all the friends of your friends. I'd rather not take flack from born-again Aunt Millicent because I'm "friends" with Vaginaman if it's all the same to everyone involved.

Posting sexually explicit stuff in your profile pic is just rude and gauche.

[Le Taz Hot]

57. One person's "sexually explicit stuff"

is another person's art. :shrug: I stand by my original statement re interpretation. I actually joined FB for about 2 weeks. I'll be kind here and say it wasn't my thing but, iirc, you can block or hide posts and/or pictures, can you not?

[wickerwoman]

68. You can unfriend people,

delete their stuff from your wall, or ignore posts by them, but I don't think you can hide their profile pic from your other friends.

Anyway, I'm fine with people posting pictures of naked people on their own page. Whatever floats your boat in your own space. But something in your profile pic is seen by friends and family of your friends whom you don't even know. It's like crashing your friend's Thanksgiving dinner naked. Art is art, but my 92 year old grandmother doesn't need to see your idea of art, if you see what I mean.

I had a friend use a picture of a naked homeless man as her profile pic. Clearly, yes, it's art. But I still considered unfriending her because it's not art that my mom and all my extended family need to see every time they come to check my latest vacation snaps.

[Rage for Order]

58. Are you seriously trying to equate an arm to a vagina?

If we were in the same grocery store and I touched your arm to get your attention it would hardly merit a second thought. If, on the other hand, I touched your vagina in the grocery store I'm certain your reaction would not be, "Oh well, parts is parts."

[Rage for Order]

12. Way over the line for Facebook

That it takes talent to paint a furry vagina well does not change the fact that it's a gratuitous display of a furry vagina

[notesdev]

16. Yep, it's just pre-photograpy porn

well done but just porn nevertheless

[JVS]

53. We could use photoshop to give her a bikini wax.

[hedgehog]

13. Ah, yes, I think I saw that in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris last summer......

You're walking along, going in and out of little rooms looking at Impressionist paintings, you go around the corner and ZOWIE! RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES! We stayed around a little while just to watch other people walk into the walls!

Oh, now, this is a hoot - I looked at the Wiki article to find out what the painting was all about, and there is a very serious academic discussion of who the model was, because (ahem) the carpet apparently doesn't match the drapes!

[hedgehog]

14. You know, I never realized that there was a boobie showing, too.

[onehandle]

15. There are a lot of boobies in that converted train station.

And I have a lot of photos of the art there, but I didn't take a photo that one, for some reason.

[JVS]

54. wikipedia talk pages can be so much fun.

ETA: I don't know why people are so obsessed with this idea that pubic hair should match the color of that on the head.

[Travis_0004]

17. What a cry baby

First off, their site, their rules. He 'claims' he didn't get the message to take it down, so then he hires a lawyer. Even if there were no messages, facebook can do whatever they want. I hate when people feel the need to get lawyers involved over trivial things.

[customerserviceguy]

19. Well, it's definitely French

and not Brazillian...

[AlbertCat]

20. in Paris and only have time to go to one museum, make it the Musée d'Orsay.

Because there's NOTHING to see in the Louvre. :eyes:

[Hardrada]

24. Don't they have a Maxwell Parrish exhibit now?

[freshwest]

65. Regarding Maxwell Parrish...

'Loved his paintings of scenery, woods, water, sky, they were mostly dreams capes, or impressions of those moments when the light was just perfect and you saw more into your surroundings than usual. Not that he wasn't commercial in his work, too.

The nudes he tossed in didn't catch my eye, it seemed they were for perspective along with the architecture. I later found some of his thoughts online, and they were interesting. 'Had some posters of his work with those strong colors, when they were heavily promoted.

[Hardrada]

67. His nudes were controversial for those days. I should check to

see if there is a biography of him somewhere to get his insights. Yes, I like his work.

[freshwest]

70. Nudity hasn't been as controversial as some might think. Suggestive nudity, yes.

We even had nudes come into my public high school art class for us to draw in the sixties and that was in the South. It's only with certain cultural segments that it's all 'bad' as they consider it all about titillation. The stuff done for that purpose is boring, too. Guess it all depends on what one grows up with.

[onehandle]

32. I wasn't pleased with the Louvre. I found it poorly organized and lacking in art.

You can see more of the kind of cultural artifacts that they have at the Louvre in the British Museum and the New York Museum of Natural History.

The Mona Lisa? Uh, it's small and surrounded by a lot of people who 'feel' they need to see it.

Musée d'Orsay is all about art.

The Louvre has a Mall.

[JackRiddler]

55. The Louvre doesn't have enough art for you?

What are you, one human or a full university department?

[left on green only]

25. As well they should have........

everybody shaves now. This is 2011 fordogsakes.

[hedgehog]

34. Another reason to love DU - when I saw the painting, I had no idea

what it was since it's so out of context with some of his other work.






I forgot the name of the painting, so it was only now that I was able to look it up on Wiki and get the back story.

[freshwest]

45. Hum, crucifixion in the background, more modern figures conducting some business or other...

Good perspective, a bit radical for those days, perhaps.

[JackRiddler]

49. I find that the graphic depiction of a crucifixion is a lot worse than a mere nude.

Why don't I get to impose my likes and dislikes on everyone else as though they were objective law, damn it?

[freshwest]

50. Because we are all equal and you would be overstepping your boundaries?

IDK.

:hi:

:rofl:

[JackRiddler]

52. Because I think of the nails and it makes my palms hurt.

Wave back atcha!

[freshwest]

61. LOL! Sorry, I was responding to this part of your post:

"Why don't I get to impose my likes and dislikes on everyone else as though they were objective law, damn it?"

Although I guess my egalitarian notion would apply to people being done to death as well...

Thanks for the wave!

[proud2BlibKansan]

35. That's a pretty graphic nude

I know I wouldn't be posting it on my Facebook page.

[Kerrytravelers]

36. While I am, personally, not offended, I can understand FB's decision.

Is it pornography? I don't think so, but it is nudity, and they have a policy against nudity. When maintaining such a large organization, it is better to maintain a general rule than to give a "this is ok, but this isn't" list, as it will be endless in "but what about this?" questions.

Maybe he could have provided a link to the picture instead? :shrug:

[tabasco]

37. What an asshole

to sue over some stupid shit like that.

[freshwest]

62. No doubt broke the rules in order to find cause to sue. May he be found frivolous in court and life.

[pinniped]

38. Man, barring his access is worth like $20 billion dollars.

The unnamed idiot's name should be published for all to see.

[JackRiddler]

41. This is what happens when everyone lets a single corporation replace the free Internet.

[Blue_Tires]

46. Luckily for him I know a hundred social networking sites

where he'll feel at home with that image...

[snooper2]

59. Hey! Who took the porn down off this thread!

:rofl:

[DerBeppo]

60. Misread that headline as "Colbert" nt.

[LibertyLover]

63. Well, it's not exactly a full split beaver like you'd see in

Penthouse (some of which could double as illustrations in an ob-gyn text), but honestly, even with it being by Courbet and having a master's in art history, I don't think it's a particularly fabulous work of art. YMMV of course.

[brendan120678]

69. The point of view in that painting...

looks very familiar to me.

I mean...uh...

[ChairmanAgnostic]

71. OK, but which of the 3 was posted from your link?

[onehandle]

73. I posted the artwork in question down the thread.

And it was deleted.

It's art and the photo I posted was of someone looking at the art in the context of a museum.