By: George Hankerill

Facebook is at it again, and this time it’s attacking fine art. For those of you not familiar with Gustave Courbet and his highly controversial Realist piece, The Origin of the World, he was the 19th-century Realist painter who made a splash across Paris by rejecting the rigid formalism that Paris and the West embodied—and not just within aestheticism. Courbet, alongside Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Henry David Thoreau (and perhaps Emma Goldman, if you wanted to go that far) was possibly one of the most controversial figures of his day. And while society has progressed to a point where seeing a woman’s vagina—which is what The Origin of the World depicts—is nothing out of the ordinary, it certainly was back in 1866. But while it was completely rejected by traditionalist and at times prudish mores, it has certainly garnished notoriety as well as recognition in today’s society, and is now in Paris’ Musee d’Orsay.

Facebook has reportedly deleted the accounts of three of its users who put up Courbet’s painting as their profile picture, and those users are fighting back. As of April 13th, three French ex-Facebook users have begun the extraneous process of a suing Facebook after their accounts were deleted for having the picture up as their profile picture. While it certainly is odd and concerning that these men had a big picture of a vagina as their profile picture, they’re arguing that the topic shouldn’t be overlooked for what it really is: censorship. One of the Frenchmen reportedly said, “Facebook wants to impose a form of Sharia law on the Internet by prohibiting the naked female body from being shown in the splendor of its natural beauty.” They are all arguing that Facebook is to blame for becoming Big Brother in banishing a piece of art work that, to many in the art community, is considered fine art.

But there are certain questions that need to be asked. First, is it censorship entirely? Facebook is a private corporation that reserves the right to make certain stipulations about what can and cannot be put on their website. Facebook certainly does not pretend to be a governmental institution that advertises free speech and the right to advertise yourself however you want and then, like hypocrites, recants it. No, they most saliently advertise themselves against pornography and nudity. This of course begs the question: Is The Origin of the World a piece of pornography? Despite what many of Courbet’s contemporary critics might say, no it is not. But it certainly walks a fine line. Without the message behind the painting, then Courbet would just be painting another vagina for erotic purposes, which is perhaps how Facebook’s administrators were looking at the situation. And while that does say something about how un-progressive Facebook really is, it certainly does not constitute the individual’s right to sue them over it.

What is bound to happen is that the French court will probably award Facebook victory over these lone Frenchmen due to the fact that Facebook is its own autonomous business. But in a country that forbids religious insignia and imagery in public places, censorship is bound to come up as a political topic. And perhaps rather than looking at the internet and one particular site’s censorship, France should take a good, fine-art look into its own policies.