By Lucy Caulkett-
Norway’s prime minister challenge on Facebook’s restrictions on nude photos is flawed. A posting of an iconic 1972 image of a naked, screaming girl running from a napalm attack in Vietnam, was deleted by the popular world wide network, The Telegraph reported.
The Pulitzer image by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut is at the centre of a heated debate about freedom of speech in Norway after Facebook removed it from a Norwegian author’s page last month.
Many Norway citizens have posted the photo on the social media network in protest, and Prime Minister Erna Solberg joined them on Friday. Facebook removed her post within hours, said Sigbjorn Aanes, one of Ms Solberg’s aides.
“What they do by removing images of this kind, whatever (the) good intentions, is to edit our common history,” Ms Solberg told the Norwegian news agency NTB.
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Facebook, in a statement from its London headquarters in London, rightfully stated that “it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others”.
Kim Phuc, the girl in the image, is pictured naked and crying as the napalm melts away layers of her skin.
Other members of the Norwegian government followed Ms Solberg’s lead and posted the photo on their Facebook pages. Education minister Torbjorn Roe Isaksen, said it was “an iconic photo, part of our history”.
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Other iconic photos of historic events, such as the man standing in front of a tank in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, with black boxes covering the protagonists.
“While I was on a plane from Oslo to Trondheim, Facebook deleted a post from my Facebook page,” she wrote.
“Today, pictures are such an important element in making an impression, that if you edit past events or people, you change history and you change reality.”
The row over the pictures became more heated after Norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten, published the photo on its front page on Friday and also wrote an open letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in which chief editor Espen Egil Hansen accused the social media giant of abusing its power.
Mr Hansen expressed he was: “upset, disappointed – well, in fact even afraid – of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society.”
“We try to find the right balance between enabling people to express themselves while maintaining a safe and respectful experience for our global community,” Facebook’s statement said.
“Our solutions won’t always be perfect, but we will continue to try to improve our policies and the ways in which we apply them.”
Paul Colford, AP vice president and director of media relations, said: “The Associated Press is proud of Nick Ut’s photo and recognises its historical impact. In addition, we reserve our rights to this powerful image.
Errm, you are wrong! Facebook are totally in their right to delete the picture, and set the right moral standards for their site. The picture of a naked 9 year old on facebook cannot be justified at all, and can serve to feed the lewd perversions of Pedophiles
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