Content Moderation Case Study: Facebook Removes A Picture Of A Famous Danish Mermaid Statue (2016)
from the the-nudity-issue dept
Summary: For over a century, Edvard Eriksen’s bronze statue of The Little Mermaid becoming human has been installed on a rock along the water in Copenhagen, Denmark. The statue was designed to represent the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, and has become a tourist attraction and landmark.
In 2016, Danish politician Mette Gjerskov used Facebook to post a link to her own blog post on the TV2 website, which included an image of the statue. Facebook automatically displayed the image with the link, leading the company to then take down the link. The explanation provided by Facebook was that the image had "too much bare skin or sexual undertones."
Gjerskov highlighted the absurdity of the situation, calling it “ridiculous” that the image caused Facebook’s moderators to block the link. Many people appeared to agree, and as the story began to get more attention, Facebook quickly backtracked and admitted the removal was in error. It restored the link.
Many of the news reports on the story concluded with Facebook’s reversal, but the image actually did not return to Facebook. Due to copyright law in Denmark, the statue is still considered to be covered by copyright (until 2029, 70 years after Eriksen’s death), and his estate has been fairly aggressive in demanding licensing and royalty payments. Because of that, TV2, which hosted Gjerskov’s blog, chose to remove the image that caused the takedown in the first place -- not to appease Facebook’s moderation, but to avoid a copyright issue from the Erikson estate, even though a copyright on the statue itself is different from copyright on images of the statue.
Decisions to be made by Facebook:
-
How do you write rules regarding nudity that take into account art or cultural landmarks?
-
Is taking down a link due to images that are automatically embedded via the OpenGraph feature the best solution? Would it make sense to simply remove that image while leaving the link, or have a different image show?
-
The line between artistic works that depict nudity and works that violate a nudity policy or include “sexual overtones” is often a very subjective judgment call. How can companies craft rules that are enforced consistently across a diverse set of moderators, often with different cultural backgrounds and experiences?
-
A strict policy against nudity is likely to capture many artistic situations. Is that a reasonable trade-off for websites that seek to be family friendly?
-
How can copyright intersect with other types of challenges regarding content moderation?
Originally posted to the Trust & Safety Foundation website
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: content moderation, copyright, denmark, evard eriksen, mette gjerskov, the little mermaid
Companies: facebook
#/media/File:Copenhagen_-_the_little_mermaid_statue_-_2013.jpg){kind=link}
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Artistic Nudity versus pornography.
I realize Content Moderation at Scale is Impossible™, and that's why there are these moderation snafus listed. However, I just find it interesting that Nintendo has the fully nude renaissance masterpieces (as well as their fun counterfeits) in their Animal Crossing: New Horizons game and Nintendo, as you know, is a family-friendly company, so I think they could clearly see that The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and David by Michelangelo are nude in an artistic fashion and not in a pornographic one.
That being said, if David were fucking Botticelli's Venus doggystyle, then we'd know what's up. Considering rule 34, it's probably on the internet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
hehe
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: hehe
Shut up, Beavis.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Waiting for it.
Ever hear how the Statues in the Vatican lost all their dicks?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Waiting for it.
If I remember correctly, it was some pope during 1600th century that started it.
On a related note, there's an art museum in Copenhagen (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek) that has an exhibit of noses that broke off from statues.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Waiting for it.
And another museum dedicated to Advertising that makes you sick. it's called the Ad Nauseum
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Waiting for it.
i am really interested in this 1600th century thing. is there any more detail about that bit? ;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Waiting for it.
I'm wondering if it's anything like 17 Corinthians in Constantine.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Waiting for it.
Was hoping it was more like Duck Dodgers, but interested regardless of outcome.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You'd think "it's a statue" would be a dead giveaway...apparently not.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
To be fair to Facebook
Tits are tits.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Flem Comics
(Sorry it's a link to the Internet Archive, but the images aren't working on Keenspace for this comic. Or Keenspot, or whatever they're calling it now.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]