The border between artworks and explicit contents is sometimes blurred because censorship on social platforms is also applied to art; for example, the painting "The Origin of the World" was censored on Facebook for nudity. The research aims to represent the most mentioned censored artists and artworks, whose popularity depends on their censorship on social media and not on their value.
Main Findings
Instagram and Facebook are the most mentioned social platforms in the first 100 results on Google Search. For instance, the censorship on Facebook of “The Origin of the World” by Gustave Courbet is mentioned 16 times.
Facebook has been mentioned more times for the censorship of non-contemporary artworks, among which the famous statuette of the “Venus of Willendorf”.
Instagram has been mentioned more times for the censorship of contemporary artworks and artists of all kinds (photographers, painters, illustrators, performers…) than the other social platforms.
Most of the censored images concern nudity, and the suspended or deleted accounts on social media belong to artists that use a more or less realistic representation of naked bodies, except for 3 artworks that do not concern nudity but have been censored anyway.
“Napalm girl”, also known as “ The Terror of war”, by Nick Ut has been censored for nudity on Facebook, but it is one of the most known historical photos that witness the cruelty of the Vietnam War.
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