Los Angeles, Sep 9 (EFE).- Facebook announced Friday a reversal of the decision to remove from its platform a famous 1972 photograph of a young Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack.
“Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed,” the company said in a statement.
“It will take some time to adjust these systems but the photo should be available for sharing in the coming days,” the statement added.
Taken by Nick Ut, “The Napalm Girl” shows 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running naked after being hit by a napalm bomb.
Because nudity is against Facebook rules, the social media site banned several users for posting it on their accounts.
The controversy began on Monday, when Facebook froze Norwegian writer Tom Egeland’s account for posting the photo.
In protest, several other people attempted to post the picture, and were all subsequently suspended as well, prompting Norway’s government to speak out.
“Facebook is making a serious mistake in censoring pictures like this,” Prime Minister Erna Solberg wrote Friday on her Facebook account. “This is an image that has contributed to universal history, the image of a terrified girl fleeing from war.”
Administrators at the social media site deleted the prime minister’s comments.
Norwegian daily Aftenposten’s editor-in-chief, Espen Egil Hansen, wrote an open letter to Facebook founder Mark
Zuckerberg saying the newspaper would not delete the image from its page.
“First you create rules that don’t distinguish between child pornography and famous war photographs. Then you practice these rules without allowing space for good judgment. Finally you even censor criticism against and a discussion about the decision – and you punish the person who dares to voice criticism,” he wrote.