The photo censored by Facebook.
Nick Ut / AP
Norway's largest newspaper has accused Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of abusing his power after the social networking site twice deleted the Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnam War photo "napalm girl".
The iconic image, which shows a naked nine-year-old Kim Phúc running away from a napalm attack after being severely burned, appeared on Facebook in a post about the terror of war by Norwegian writer Tom Egeland, the Guardian reported. Facebook deleted the post and Egeland was suspended from Facebook for sharing a photo that included "nudity."
Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten later published a story on Egeland's Facebook suspension using the same "napalm girl" photo and received a message telling it to "either remove or pixelize" the photo.
"Any photographs of people displaying fully nude genitalia or buttocks, or fully nude female breast, will be removed," the notice from Facebook said.
But before the newspaper could respond, Facebook deleted the article and image, editor-in-chief Espen Egil Hansen wrote in his open letter.
The open letter on the front page of Aftenposten.
Aftenposten / Via aftenposten.no
Listen, Mark, this is serious. First you create rules that don't distinguish between child pornography and famous war photographs. Then you practice these rules without allowing space for good judgement. Finally you even censor criticism against and a discussion about the decision – and you punish the person who dares to voice criticism.Dear Mark, you are the world's most powerful editor. Even for a major player like Aftenposten, Facebook is hard to avoid. In fact we don't really wish to avoid you, because you are offering us a great channel for distributing our content. We want to reach out with our journalism.
However, even though I am editor-in-chief of Norway's largest newspaper, I have to realize that you are restricting my room for exercising my editorial responsibility. This is what you and your subordinates are doing in this case.
I think you are abusing your power, and I find it hard to believe that you have thought it through thoroughly.
Read the full open letter here.
The open letter has spurred significant debate amongst Facebook's role in censoring the news. Even Norway's Prime MInister Erna Solberg weighed in on the debate.
In a Facebook post, accompanied by the picture, she wrote: "I appreciate the work of Facebook and other media to stop pictures and content showing abuse and violence. But Facebook gets it wrong when it censors pictures like these. It contributes to restricting the freedom of speech."
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