Fun and Games with Neoliberal Censorship

There was outrage over Facebook's censorship of a statue of Neptune in Italy because it's art, damn it   (pertly stamps her foot).

It's another naked man ancient sculptors liked to portray a lot so whether it's art or just one more in an endless genre is your call.

Ed:  at least he wasn't a general on a horse!

Um, Dagwood, I don't think Neptune had much use for horses.

That ostensibly is the offending graphic so you see the Facebook Brain Police were just being pricks about it since you'll see more gluteal goodness than that at any swimming pool.  (CNN:  Facebook banned Neptune statue photo for being 'explicitly sexual')

Sara Delgrossi and Lauren Said-Moorhouse are our Outraged Neoliberal Heroines of the Moment as they defend the woman who uploaded the graphic, Elisa Barberi.


The beauty part comes from Barberi:

"In the past, I have flagged inappropriate content to Facebook myself -- fake news, violence on animals... Things that really need to be censured, not art. I don't know what to think, it's ridiculous."

"I am guessing this hasn't landed on Zuckerberg's desk yet. There is nothing vulgar in a work of art," she added.

- CNN

Now it clarifies somewhat that it's bad when Facebook deems something vulgar but it's ok when Barberi does it.

Violence toward animals is part of our lives when we fucking eat them and vulgarity has nothing to do with it except as a subjective judgment.  For some it's dinner and for other's it's disgrace but there's no universal aesthetic guideline in that.  Barberi must have been flipping cartwheels after Lady Gaga's meat outfit.

Fake news may be anything from overt propaganda to satire and censoring it has never in history led to anything good.  A large part of the freedom America celebrates is the escape from arbitrary censorship and yet now it pops up all over the place.  People blow it off as benign in Facebook because, oh, it's for the kids, you know.

Then the same people go berserk over banning books in Texas.  Yeehaw.