Musee d'Orsay
The French High Court agreed on Thursday to handle a lawsuit filed by a French schoolteacher, Frederic Durand-Baissas, who posted a photo of the painting “L’Origine du Monde” by Gustave Courbet to his friends on Facebook. However, Facebook removed the image because it features close-ups of female genitals and closed his account. It is a famous 1866 painting that is on display at France’s Musee d’Orsay. As a result of Facebook’s action, the teacher filed a lawsuit in France against Facebook, which the country’s high court just agreed to hear, reports Washington Post. (IN PHOTO) Crews hang Pierre-Auguste Renoir's painting "Dance in the City" between Renoir's "Dance at Bougival" (L painting) and "Dance in the Country" (R painting) at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), in Boston, Massachusetts May 17, 2012. Beginning May 18, the MFA's "Dance at Bougival" will be on view with two other Renoir paintings lent by the Muse d'Orsay in Paris, "Dance in the City" and "Dance in the Country" - the first time in 25 years that the three Renoir paintings will be hung together at the MFA. Reuters

The French High Court agreed on Thursday to handle a lawsuit filed by a French schoolteacher, Frederic Durand-Baissas, who posted a photo of the painting “L’Origine du Monde” by Gustave Courbet to his friends on Facebook. However, Facebook removed the image because it features close-ups of female genitals and closed his account.

It is a famous 1866 painting that is on display at France’s Musee d’Orsay. As a result of Facebook’s action, the teacher filed a lawsuit in France against Facebook, which the country’s high court just agreed to hear, reports Washington Post.

The teacher said that he sued Facebook “for reasons of censorship and free speech.” He explains, “I felt like they were indirectly treating me like a pornographer whereas this is a French painting hanging in a museum. It annoys me to be censored,” quoted BFM TV.

He is not the first victim of Facebook censorship. Last week, it suspended Jerry Saltz, a New York art critic, for alleged “offensiveness” of a few medieval paintings, while in the past, Facebook has also censored pieces from the New York Academy of Art and the centre Pompidou.

Washington Post calls Facebook’s dilemma as a Grandma Problem because of the billions of FB followers, it has to find a middle-ground for the majority liberal young members of the social media sites and the increasing number of seniors who have also joined FB, bringing with them their conservative values.

As of 2012, Facebook’s no nudity policy covers showing of private parts, sexual activity and nude cartoons, but art nudity is permitted.

In January, at a hearing in France, Facebook argued that the terms of membership stipulates lawsuits only in the US, and the French teacher should not expect protection of French rights since FB is a free service in which Durand-Baissas signed on his own free will, reports Telegraph.

The Paris High Court would hear the Durand-Baissas’s lawsuit over the Courbet painting in May. The lawyer of the teacher said the jurisdiction battle of the lawsuit is in itself a powerful precedent since it would be tried in French, not American soil.

To contact the writer, email: v.hernandez@ibtimes.com.au

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