Nudes censored by social media? Museums on adult sites – Chronicle
by Roberto Giardina The masterpieces of Vienna’s museums have ended up on an online site for adults. It is the decision of the tourism body of the Austrian capital to escape the censorship of Instagram or TikTok that could forbid the putting on the network of obscene considerations. Censorship is decrypted by algorithms that do not distinguish between pornography and art, but it is hypocritical to accuse the computer, a machine, however programmed by the censors of the network. The works of art that tourists, perhaps accompanied by minor children, can visit without problems in museums, …
by Roberto Giardina
The masterpieces of Vienna’s museums have ended up on an online site for adults. It is the decision of the tourism body of the Austrian capital to escape the censorship of Instagram or TikTok that could forbid the putting on the network of obscene considerations. Censorship is decrypted by algorithms that do not distinguish between pornography and art, but it is hypocritical to accuse the computer, a machine, however programmed by the censors of the network.
The works of art that tourists, perhaps accompanied by minor children, can visit without problems in museums, can now only be seen online on the site “It is not our defeat” declares Helena Harthauer, the head of the tourism office , but denounces the obtuseness and lack of culture of the censors. The first to register on the site will receive a City Card, the free card to visit Vienna, and its collections.
In July, the TikTok network first suspended and then blocked the Albertina, because it had posted a photo of a naked breast by the Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki, judged to be pure pornography. In 2019, Instagram had censored a Paul Rubens nude. The Leopold Museum had to renounce putting on the net a series of masterpieces by the expressionist Egon Schiele. And Leopold has always seen as pornographic a video made on the painting Liebespaar, couple of lovers, by Koleman Moser. Albertina was unable to advertise the recent Modigliani exhibition because the paintings had been judged obscene. “We found it impossible to promote the attractions of our city – scorns Frau Helena Harthauer -, tourists do not come to Vienna to go only to the Prater, our attractions are the collections of art collections. How can we advertise ? “. It is hoped that the Austrian reaction will induce network managers to change their methods, but in Vienna Internet censorship is only one aspect. Pressures continue not only on Austrian museums, to remove obscene considerations from the paintings. In Berlin they asked the Gemälde Galerie secretly in the warehouses “Omnia vincit amor”, or the “Amor terrestre” painted by Caravaggio in 1602: a naked and triumphant young man. The artist portrayed his apprentice Cecco Boneri, who in turn became a talented painter, known as Cecco del Caravaggio. Boneri was the lover of his teacher, protesters denounced, and Caravaggio was a pedophile. The director of the Berlin museum answered hard-nosed: I don’t think about it at all. And the masterpiece remained in its place.
Could Canova’s Paolina Bonaparte be censored in Italy? In March 2008, however, in London, the posters advertising the Cranach exhibition, with the reproduction of his Eva, white and blonde, were removed from the underground. Would a painting from 1528 therefore upset the Londoners of the 21st century?
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