t.tex's hexes: A Facebook Art History Lesson Protest by Richard Meade

http://figuremodels.org/blog/2013/08/08/a-facebook-art-history-lesson-protest-by-richard-meade/

by Zoe Wiseman

Any of us who have profiles on Facebook have probably at one time or another been faced with a 3 day ban, 30 day ban or a total ban for showing our art to our friends. And it’s not just Facebook though their “moderating” system is rather juvenile. It’s a neighbor spying on neighbor type of system that doesn’t follow any standardized rules. While I am not a fan of using a corporation’s free page to showcase your personal artwork, it still stands to say that there are some really nasty people with really nasty agendas in all of our friend lists. Not to allow Facebook to get off the hook for it because they allow the same nasty people to post images of animal torture, racism, neo-nazi groups, violence and a lot of general hate filled crap. So it’s not like Facebook is rated G. And how is it Playboy can have a profile there and post images? Not that I don’t think Playboy shouldn’t have a profile there, they absolutely should, I’m just pointing out the double standards. No Statue of David is allowed (yes, Facebook censored that), but a girl in a g-string with hundred dollar bills tucked in is. And I’m not picking on Playboy – I like Playboy – Hugh Hefner stood up to censorship (and racism) and Victorian era thinking years ago and won. Good for him, and thank you, Hugh! It’d be nice if lots of other people would stop accepting censorship.

I really really have it out for photography/art sites who censor nudes. I find that more repulsive than Facebook. 500px.Redbubble. Ya know… go to hell. And that is light because I don’t believe in hell, but it’s a nice term to use for this scenario. Lame website owners who are scared to tell the prudes who have issues with it to go to hell and that they won’t be a part of censorship might as well be supreme prudes of all the prudes. And yes, a “safe-filter” for art is censorship. There’s no veil over the Statue of David. Get over it. This kind of mentality contributes to people reporting other photographer’s images everywhere on the internet. It contributes to the censorship of free expression. It contributes to shoving those who work in our field of photography into a corner that says, “That person is bad.”

Richard Meade is a friend of mine who got censored all the time. And he got censored for displaying paintings on his Facebook wall, he got censored when he joined a black and white photography group on Facebook for sharing one of his nudes.

© Richard Meade – model: Candace Nirvana – the text Richard wrote before he cancelled his account: Well, I’m pretty burned out, so I’m going to leave with just two or three more posts. – It’s been fun and I appreciate all the comments and support. – This is my work that was recently censored by FB, and the ironic part is that it was censored in a black and white photography forum. So someone that is in that group had to report it. There are many nudes that continue to be posted in that group. – Stay creative friends.

Yes, other photographers in that group flagged his work and reported him to Facebook. How is it that they came to think that this was OK to do in the first place? Because everyone just accepts it. And more importantly other photographers accept it. Shouldn’t we all stop just laying down? How about we stop posting our work on sites that contribute to this form of censorship? If you go to any photography website the nudes have the most views and likes and comments. Do you believe that they would garner so much traffic to their website if everyone who posted nudes there just stopped? I would bet someone a hundred bucks that their traffic would slow to a crawl. So they like to use us all to their advantage, even though we have to sit in the corner with a dunce cap on.

So without further commentary by me, I’d like to share Richard Meade’s protest before he closed his FaceBook account. Not only was it highly educational, but it also shed the light on just how far the censorship lunatics go. Most of the works shared have been censored on Facebook. Time to stop sharing your work and pay homage to a website that doesn’t censor.

I haven’t linked any of the artists. I’m hoping that you, dear reader, will take it upon yourself to research those you find interesting or that you haven’t heard of before. Please click on the thumbnails below and scroll through for an enlightening experience. You may even comment under the photos or on this posting to join the conversation.

Thank you for the art history lesson, Richard. You can visit Richard Meade @richardmeade here or on his personal website http://www.visualdata.net