Discriminate more
Facebook has deleted a post by the Norwegian prime minister in an escalating row over the website’s decision to remove content featuring the Pulitzer-prize winning “napalm girl” photograph from the Vietnam war.
One doesn’t know whether to laugh or swear or question one’s grip on reality.
Erna Solberg, the Conservative prime minister, called on Facebook to “review its editing policy” after it deleted her post voicing support for a Norwegian newspaper that had fallen foul of the social media giant’s guidelines.
Solberg was one of a string of Norwegian politicians who shared the iconic image after Facebook deleted a post from Tom Egeland, a writer who had included the Nick Ut picture as one of seven photographs he said had “changed the history of warfare”.
But Facebook’s algorithm doesn’t take any crap from Scandinavian prime ministers.
In her intervention on Friday, the Norwegian prime minister wrote that the photograph, entitled The Terror of War and featuring the naked nine-year-old Kim Phúc running away from a napalm attack, had “shaped world history”.
Solberg added: “I appreciate the work Facebook and other media do to stop content and pictures showing abuse and violence … But Facebook is wrong when they censor such images.”
The Guardian asked her what she thought of Facebook’s deletion of her post. She said, probably sardonically, at least we have to give them credit for not discriminating. Yes it’s very egalitarian, but on the other hand not discriminating between child porn and the photo of Kim Phúc is not the right kind of non-discrimination.
Now I have to go post that photo on Facebook.
