Facebook allows postings of ‘napalm girl’ photo after debate

Politicians of all stripes, journalists and regular Norwegians had backed Solberg’s decision to share the image.

“That’s very good, I’m a happy prime minister”, Ms Solberg told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight programme. “Otherwise we risk more censorship”, she said.

The image shows screaming children running from a burning Vietnamese village.

The Facebook furor began when the social network deleted the famous photo from Norwegian author Tom Egeland’s Facebook page, where it was part of a series of memorable wartime imagery. Solberg reposted the image, with the girl’s nudity hidden.

She also posted a version of the “Tank Man” image from the 1989 protests in China’s Tiananmen Square, with a black square covering a man standing in front of a row of army tanks. The company, based in Menlo Park, California, is trying to strike a balance between enabling free speech and limited material that is offensive or that could incite violence.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg joined in the protest on Friday. She had shared his post in which he had written that Ut’s photo was one of seven that had “changed the history of warfare”. Facebook promptly deleted it.

Traditional media also expressed concern about the moves by Facebook, which has become a key conduit of information for many people.

Facebook has responded, both by reinstating the photo and offering reasoning for why the deletion occurred in the first place. “But Facebook is wrong when they censor such images”.

Despite hosting news content, and despite the fact that one recent survey showed that 44 percent of USA adults get news from the site, the social network has refused to define itself as a media company or accept any of the responsibilities that might come with that, including employing editors to exercise news judgment and curate content.

“To all who said ‘there’s no point, ‘ yes there is a point”. “We really don’t know how these decisions are made so there’s not a lot of accountability either necessarily”.

Mr Hansen said he was “upset, disappointed – well, in fact even afraid – of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society”.

Dismay at Facebook’s actions also spread beyong Norway’s borders.

“I hope Facebook uses this opportunity to review its editing policy, and assumes the responsibility a large company managing a broad communication platform should take”.

Facebook had said the photo was censored because it violates its nudity policy, however this didn’t stop the tech giant from coming under heavy fire.

After receiving a phone call from the Saigon photo editor, Hal Buell, AP’s executive news photo editor at the time, said that he discussed it with his colleagues “for 10-15 minutes”.

“There is nothing about this picture that is prurient”, Buell said. “But there is nothing about this picture that is prurient”.

“The algorithm enforces a rule that we would all endorse: no pictures of nude children”, he wrote.

“She fully supports the documentary image taken by Nick Ut as a moment of truth that captures the horror of war and its effects on innocent victims”. “It captures the awful situation of innocents caught in the cross-fire of war”, he added.