Censored Nudity

This photo of the painting was deemed to be inappropriate 

Last week when I posted my new painting something strange happened. I posted it to my facebook page as usual and set up a couple of dollars worth of ads so the post would reach more than a handful of people. But then, for the first time ever, facebook did not approve my advertisement on the basis of implied nudity. Which is crazy since they have run so many other ads with much more graphic nudity than this one! 

The Facebook approved image

SO I made another post using a different image of the painting to see what would happen.... almost immediately my image and post was approved for advertisements. How can the same painting be denied and approved in the same day?
Nudity and censorship has been a big topic on the internet. People have varying ideas of how much and what types of nudity are appropriate for social media sites. Nudity in fine art is normally treated differently than nudity in photographs and sites like facebook have differentiated between them. However the language they use to moderate these ads is so loose and up to interpretation that it seems to depend on who is approving the post. 
The first message they sent me said that my image was not approved because it contains "excessive amounts of skin or suggestive content. Facebook does not allow images that depict people in explicit or suggestive positions, or images that show nudity or cleavage." Which is not quite accurate since nudity in art like the statue of David is considered to be appropriate. Since this is a painting I would argue that there are not excessive amounts of skin and her pose is not sexual. 

I sent a message back inquiring about it because I seriously thought it was a mistake and they would approve the post in a few days. The second message I received said that it would not be approved because "the image being used in the ad implies nudity." By the time I received this message my ads on the other uncensored photo had just finished running and had reached over 500 people.
Personally I have no issue with non sexual nudity. Under our clothes everyone is naked. It is our natural state and I find it strange that we are so afraid of it. 

This image was also rejected even though it has run as an ad in the past!

I will be posting this blog to facebook using one of my older nude paintings just to see if it is approved. Facebook has unknowingly turned this into a game for me and I am interested to see how it goes. I will update this post with any new developments!


My first attempt at running advertisements with this image failed so I chose a partially clothed image to test the nudity line. A bra and a skirt seems to be enough!
I will be getting creative with censoring my posts in the near future!