Facebook (FB) has a huge free speech and expression problem with images. It censors any Art with full or partial nudity -- even in closed, private, and secret groups!  This censorship is biased; for example, it allows companies to post partial nudity (if they have adverts on FB!) such as Christian Andrews, Calvin Klein, and others who pay FB handsomely. FB even allows hate speech to continue; for example, Trump's and Palin's FB pages and white supremacists' pages continue without censorship, even though they violate FB's rules on hate speech and arbitrary terms over images.  In fact, FB employees and other groups have rightly complained, but Mark Zuckerberg has bent the rules for such sites: please see the WST, Saturday, October 22, 2016 and The Huff Post, "The Manly Pursuit of Desire: I Have Met Big Brother and His Name is Mark Zuckerberg," April 11, 2016 -- as two recent examples of FB's and Zuckerberg's hypocrisy).

Facebook states "We restrict the display of nudity. Some descriptions of sexual acts may also be removed. These restrictions on the display of both nudity and sexual activity also apply to digitally created content unless the content is posted for educational, humorous or satirical purposes."  And, the ironic thing is that Art educates and aids in people thinking, as well as expressing themselves and making political statements, whether they contain nudity or not. In fact, and tragically, images such as Michelangelo's "David" and Renaissance Art have been taken down -- along with of images from modern and contemporary art that anyone can see at any US museum or Art gallery.

Artists and educators are being banned or having their pages taken down for showing art that contains partial or full nudity -- such as many Renaissance and Neoclassical artworks, paintings by the realist Courbet, such as his "Origin of the World," Manet's "Olympia," and works by Picasso, Matisse, and Duchamp, as well as feminist artists such as Carolee Scheemann's "Interior Scroll" or Hannah Wilke's performances, and gay and lesbian artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Catherine Opie, and Tee Corinne, and even protest art by ACT-UP and Gran Fury.

We art historians, art critics, art educators, art collectors, museums, galleries, and artists must put an end to this, and demand Facebook follows its own rules, and even re-think them.  In the words of Facebook, "We restrict the display of nudity. Some descriptions of sexual acts may also be removed. These restrictions on the display of both nudity and sexual activity also apply to digitally created content unless the content is posted for EDUCATIONAL, humorous or satirical purposes." Facebook, please follow your own rules!  And, also expand your mind and tame your undemocratic tendencies.