Censorship and Art Museums?

[stlukesguild]

Viennese Museums are Done with Instagram

The museums in Vienna have finished censoring nudity on social media such as Instagram and TikTok and are therefore making a special switch to OnlyFans. Artworks with nude in them are now shown on that platform.

Vienna Tourist Office Starts OnlyFans Account

“We know there are times when people might want to share nude images that are artistic or creative in nature,” reads Instagram’s community guidelines, “but for a variety of reasons, we don’t allow nudity on Instagram”. The guidelines go on to explain that this includes “photos, videos and some digitally-created content that shows sexual intercourse, genitals and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks [and] some photos of female nipples.” This is clearly a problem for many photographers and digital artists who want to depict the human form. But what is particularly problematic is that the policies say that “nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK”, and yet nude works are continuously censored."

And so art museums have been driven to open accounts on platforms best-known for pornography and pinup photography in order to avoid censorship.

 

[E.J.H.]

"And so art museums have been driven to open accounts on platforms best-known for pornography and pinup photography in order to avoid censorship."
I think this is HILARIOUS.

 

[Artyczar]

Such bullshit. I have never understood this "nudity" thing in art. It's art. Well clutch my pearls, I see a painted nipple and a butt cheek. I can't see anything else otherwise. What is wrong with this world (or this country rather)? No one can make the differentiation between porn and nudity anymore, so now it's all lumped together on OnlyFans? Great. Have fun weeding through that just to find art and leave Instagram packed-full of vacation photos and people's dinner plates.

 

[laf.art]

Couldn't agree more Ayin.Total bloody pathetic nonesense.

 

[stlukesguild]

Instagram's rules on nudity are absolutely ridiculous... mostly because they don't follow their own stated rules. The site is full of young girls wearing next to nothing sticking their "naughty bits" right into the camera and it appears acceptable... while the most artful photograph can be deleted because of a nipple... and the same repeatedly happens to painters and sculptors. Rubens... pictured above... earned the dubious honor of being the artist deleted the most often on Instagram... even when these paintings were posted by Belgian museums.

 

[john]

I guess it's a slippery slope. Particularly with contemporary art the line between art and porn can be fuzzy. Although it seems shaving is big these days.

 

[laf.art]

Instagram's rules on nudity are absolutely ridiculous... mostly because they don't follow their own stated rules. The site is full of young girls wearing next to nothing sticking their "naughty bits" right into the camera and it appears acceptable... while the most artful photograph can be deleted because of a nipple... and the same repeatedly happens to painters and sculptors. Rubens... pictured above... earned the dubious honor of being the artist deleted the most often on Instagram... even when these paintings were posted by Belgian museums.

Yes it appears totally random, just depends on the day seemingly

 

[Desforges]

This is really weird.
That makes us fans of what?
Of t&a.

 

[P. Barrie]

Nothing new about censorship of nudity in art. Seems to some of us, there’s “a line” that should not be crossed, even in art. Egon Schiele actually spent time in jail over it. .

Nude art and censorship laid bare

An exploration of the historic ties between censorship and nude art.

www.cnn.com

One distinction with Social Media is that content being so vast, is not monitored by people but rather by AI that uses algorithims that search for images, text, etc., etc., probably cannot really decifer what constitutes art. Social Media administrators, due to the same old pressures of let us say “protecting the eyes of the innocent”, may feel, and are probably pressured into, that they need to input into the AI, categories and images to limit within those categories.

It does seem very silly considering the vast amounts of pornography easily available on the web.

 

[Desforges]

There is so much violence that we can look at. Horrifying displays of hatred accompanied by justification based on old rules and values.
I vote to see more nudity rather than blood and guns.

 

[Artyczar]

I vote to see it all.

 

[stlukesguild]

There is so much violence that we can look at. Horrifying displays of hatred accompanied by justification based on old rules and values.
I vote to see more nudity rather than blood and guns.

I suspect a good deal of this is owed to the dominance of American culture on film, TV, and other media. We're a gun-obsessed Puritanical culture. Remember John Ashcroft covering up the bare breast on the figure of Justice? There was also a short discussion of Michelangelo's David traveling to the US before some dipshit diplomat stated that they'd need to cover the penis. It was decided that we'd need another couple of centuries before we were mature enough as a nation.

Then again... the Japanese are perhaps even more violent when it comes to their media.

I vote to see it all.

I agree. You can always turn away or change the channel... and if you are worried about the children... "What about the children?" seems to be the rallying call... then I would suggest we leave it up to the parents to monitor and control what their kids are watching/reading/listening to... although in many instances, it seems the children are more mature than the parents.

 

[E.J.H.]

The "what about the children" argument is especially amusing when it comes to nipples...

 

[classic]

It is very sad that big culture houses like museums depend on social media platforms to exhibit their treasures. It is also very sad that the human society depends on pressure groups that deny every human achievement, including art and science. So, we have to register to porn sites in order to have access to museum art ... Of course it is silly to use arguments on children, as violence and crime are present in huge quantities in the free television content. Hypocrisy is omnipresent in our culture.

 

[rodhlann]

This is so crazy to think about. Definitely an example of gross overcensorship on the part of big tech. These companies are now responsible for choosing what types of fine art are available to the general public, since their platforms (especially Instagram) are essentially the only popular public portals to art these days. Justifying this as "we won't show any nudity" is just further justifying the objectification of the human body and sexualization of being. Very sad stuff.

 

[stlukesguild]

I think it is reasonable for any private platform to have rules. The problems arise when the rules aren't clearly spelled out and followed fairly across the board. Some years back I participated on several forums that did not have the capability to directly load images from your computer to theirs. You needed to use an image storage platform and upload from there. A couple of the platforms I used were eventually infested with a number of Puritans who reported a good number of the images I had saved which resulted in their being deleted. This, of course, led to the links being broken and the same images disappearing from the forums where I had posted them. I'm not talking about pornography... or even artful nude photography. I had paintings by William Blake, Degas, Renoir, Rubens, and others tagged and deleted.

A lot of artists and art lovers wanting to post something akin to a blog on a platform capable of reaching a larger audience moved to Tumblr. Tumblr did have problems in that a lot of the posts clearly crossed the line into pornography... but on the positive side, you knew they weren't likely to delete Degas' bathers or one of Rubens' nudes any time soon.

Unfortunately, Apple intervened. They announced that they would delete any app with adult content from the app store. Their argument, as usual, was that they were doing this to protect the children. Tumblr... which had made a good deal of its income from the "adult content" posted decided to ban all nudity... artistic or otherwise. They decided it would be far easier to wipe it all out than to employ moderators to decide what was and what was not "artistic". The result was that the platform effectively committed suicide.

Facebook... and Instagram that is owned by Facebook is a case of pure hypocrisy. Facebook was originally begun as "Facemash" by Mark Zuckerberg. The site began as being akin to the site "Hot or Not" in which visitors were asked to rate and comment on photographs of women. Facemash used photos compiled from the online "face books" or online student directory from Harvard University and posted these asking for viewers to rate who was hotter. The site was rapidly shut down and Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged with breaching security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.

From this beginning, Zuckerberg developed Facebook into an online tool for studying art history (of all things!) and later it evolved into a student directory and social network for Harvard.

In spite of this rather creepy beginning, Facebook and Instagram have set themselves up as the arbiters of online decency. The terms of use for Facebook and Instagram state no nudity in photography (specifically butt cracks, sexual organs, and nipple... female only ) They state however that nudity is allowed in painting, sculpture, and other art forms. I guess photography can't be art. Unfortunately, things don't always work the way they should. The computer algorithms frequently flag and censor paintings and sculpture. The sites also respond to complaints made by social media warriors akin to those individuals who would often rat out their neighbors and family in the old Soviet Union and Maoist China. A good number of artists have found themselves repeatedly targeted for whatever reason by some individual reporting everything they post.

Ultimately, you have to figure that everything posted online is impermanent and you are at the mercy of the site owners. I can't begin to even guess how many posts I lost over on Wet Canvas.

In no way would I want the government controlling what is or is not allowed on social media... but at the same time, I have to question the monopolies that Facebook and Instagram have become and their impact on how artists can access an audience.

 

[Artyczar]

Facebook... and Instagram that is owned by Facebook is a case of pure hypocrisy. Facebook was originally begun as "Facemash" by Mark Zuckerberg. The site began as being akin to the site "Hot or Not" in which visitors were asked to rate and comment on photographs of women. Facemash used photos compiled from the online "face books" or online student directory from Harvard University and posted these asking for viewers to rate who was hotter. The site was rapidly shut down and Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged with breaching security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.

Yes, now you remind me of the Facemash beginnings. Almost forgot about that! It's fucking ironic, isn't it? Glad I'm not a member anymore, but I am still on Insta (which is owned by Facebook, I know), and I don't like it there either. I wish there was another way to be connected to my larger art community, then I would leave it too, but I don't foresee it changing anytime soon.

 

[P. Barrie]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is probably everywhere online. Facebook especially
A couple of interesting articles. Keep in mind these are viewpoints

Meta/Facebook AI: What Businesses Need to Know

Meta (formerly known as Facebook) has gone all-in on AI. This isn't always a good thing. The company has moved AI forward, but also created major problems.

www.marketingaiinstitute.com

Facebook AI Creates Its Own Language In Creepy Preview Of Our Potential Future

In a glimpse at what the beginning of the technological singularity might look like, researchers at Facebook shut down an artificial intelligence platform after the bots went off script and developed a unique language that humans could not understand.

www.forbes.com

 

[stlukesguild]

I'm still on Facebook. I have a lot of family and friends who post regularly there... as well as groups of fellow teachers. Most of what I read there comes from various media feeds and groups including especially art groups. Instagram has been a great source for images from photographers, painters, sculptors, etc... Neither comes near the quality of the various forums on Art, Music, and Literature that I used to frequent. Perhaps my favorite of all time was an old MSN Group that was wholly unmoderated. It was a Literature site frequented by many Ph.D. students. Although you could cuss someone up and down it quickly became clear that this was recognized as a weakness on your part. Instead, the site turned into something akin to the film Ridicule set in the 18th century at the decadent court of Versailles, where social status or your rise and fall was based on one's ability to mete out witty insults and avoid ridicule oneself. Many of the members were majors in creative writing and posted under creative pseudonyms with invented personalities, biographies, etc... I was fascinated with this in part as I was at the time discovering similar invented "selves" in the works of J.L. Borges and Pernando Pessoa.

 

[joe1It]

1)Si può creare un Instagram che non censuri l’arte ?

2) un app che trasforma uno smartphone per periodo impostato con time o con fasce orarie in un telefono come quelli di 15 o 20 anni fa.

3) dei motori di ricerca, dei browser o filtri .
2 cose diverse,una che mi permette di navigare ovunque cancellandomi,non Mostrandomi qualsiasi immagine video contenuto ‘artistico’fatto da intelligenza artificiale,non mi interessa vederle ma pure su Instagram le vedi e non lo specificano cosa é,vedi profili con migliaia di follower magari fatti da intelligenza artificiale,a volte anche persone magari attirate da notizia finta o immagine che crede vera.
2 ,qualcosa facile da usare e funzionante che nega consenso ad intelligenza artificiale di usare arte o roba per cui autore non da esplici consenso ad ai e che non puoi forzarla.

censura dell’arte é assurda,ipocrita e dannosa.
anche intelligenza artificiale.

sto parlando anche di censura all’intelligenza artificiale ma perché quella non è arte quindi non a censurare l’arte.