Maybe Facebook Would Let Photographer Spencer Tunick Post Naked Pics If He Worked for Sports Illustr

Maybe Facebook Would Let Photographer Spencer Tunick Post Naked Pics If He Worked for Sports Illustrated
By Anna Merlan Thu., Feb. 20 2014 at 7:00 AM




Photo by Spencer Tunick

"Dead Sea 3," 2011


...........Photographer Spencer Tunick's ongoing struggles with Facebook : Tunick takes non-sexual, not particularly explicit photos of nude people, typically large groups of them. Then Facebook takes some of those photos down, freezes his account, and occasionally threatens him with the deletion of his page . It's a vicious cycle, and not fun for anybody, particularly Spencer Tunick.

A spokesperson from Facebook told us at the time that with few exceptions, the company doesn't just pull photos down of their own volition. (Those exceptions, he said, involved extreme and graphic images involving things like child pornography.) First, someone has to flag the photo as objectionable; if a content monitor employed by Facebook agrees, the photo comes down. And Chris Park, a representative from the company, told Tunick that if he had any questions about whether a specific photo might violate Facebook's nudity guidelines, he could email said photo to Park, and he'd let him know where it stood.

Tunick was slightly uncomfortable with that plan, telling us he was ambivalent about the idea that "someone in an office in the middle of wherever - Nebraska, San Francisco - that one person decides what's OK or not when it comes to the body in art." But he was game to give it a try. On Valentine's Day, Tunick sent over six photos, which Park told him he'd forwarded to the company's "policy folks." Four days later, Tunick got his answer.



.............a quick look at a few of the photos Tunick sent over. One of them is at the top of this post, part of a series Tunick shot at the Dead Sea. Here are 2 others:



All photos by Spencer Tunick. Images courtesy of the artist.
"Desert Spirits," 2013


"San Miguel de Allende 2 (El Charco de Ingenio Botanical Gardens)," 2011


You can see where this is going. Park wrote back to Tunick and told him that every single one of the photos would be unacceptable for the Facebook-viewing public: "I'm told the images below would violate our community standards on displays of nudity," he wrote, in an email Tunick shared with the Voice. "Pixelation may make a difference. Let me know if you need anything else."

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But in a wonderful coincidence, this month is also when Sports Illustrated releases its annual Swimsuit Issue. This year is the 50th anniversary! Fun! Naturally, the Facebook page for the swimsuit issue (yep, it has its own page), is celebrating in a manner befitting the modesty police at Facebook HQ. Tunick says he was particularly taken with this image:

more here:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2014/02/spencer_tunick_nude_photographer_facebook_sports_illustrated_swimsuit_edition.php#more