As a lover of the Pre-Raphaelite School of art, I've always been amused that, in the midst of the Victorian Era, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was able to get by with all sorts of female nudity and near-nudity by cloaking it as ART, in particular art about classical subjects. A woman barely robed in some sheer gown portrayed as a contemporary would be considered smut, but put her on a marble bench overlooking the Mediterranean with a title that implied some mythological setting, and, well, that was ART.
I will not judge l'Origine du Monde on its artistic merits (at least not for purposes of this post), but I will say, (a) Facebook's rules on the matter are both rigid and goofy, but (b) the French court's rulings that it, rather than Facebook, has jurisdiction to decide on whether Facebook should censor the piece is just about as goofy. It is obviously Facebook's prerogative (and just as obviously French folks' prerogative to find an alternative social media system to hang out on that isn't so hung up about ART).
(h/t +Kee Hinckley)
19th century vagina sparks French lawsuit against Facebook
A 149-year-old vagina is at the center of a legal dispute involving France, Facebook, and online censorship. As AFP reports, a Paris high court this week ruled that it has jurisdiction to decide a…
