Facebook Can’t Tell the Difference Between Art and Porn

Jerry Saltz, New York magazine’s art critic, has become a darling of social media users for his witty, playfully lascivious posts—a snow sculpture of a scene of fellatio; a detail of a 2,000-year-old Pompeii fresco in which a woman is mounting a man; an embroidery painting of an iPhone tuned to an Instagram post that shows a woman masturbating—but less so of social media companies. Last Wednesday, Saltz received a notice from Facebook informing him that access to his account had been suspended. He was not given an exact explanation, he told a reporter at the New York Times, but he assumed the move was in response to his provocative postings. This was not the first time that Facebook had pushed back against Saltz’s brand of ribaldry, all debauchery and double entendre—nor was it the first time that Facebook had moved to censor what (at least some of) its users call art.

As of New Year’s Eve, Facebook had 1.39 billion monthly active users: a hefty portion of all the earth’s people. For a private company of such scale, predicated on personal, often intimate, sharing, how to regulate what people see? Art, Saltz has written, is about “extraordinary openness,” letting freak flags fly. He’s certainly given ample thought to pornography and nudity in today’s culture. (Saltz is Lena Dunham’s godfather, for crying out loud.) But the issue isn’t free speech and the freedom to bare all; it’s Facebook. How can Facebook allow, even foster, art, expression, and culture, and still serve as responsible mediator?