Origine du monde censored, court: Facebook erred, but complaint dismissed

It is a controversial ruling from a civil court in Paris following the lawsuit that pitted Professor Frédéric Durand and the global giant Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network, against each other. The subject of the dispute was the celebrated painting L’origine du monde by Gustave Courbet, kept at the Musée d’Orsay: Professor Durand had posted it on Facebook in 2011, and had had his account closed without warning or explanation, since the work did not comply with the social network’s policies on nudity. Durand had then sued the U.S. company, believing that he had received damages from this action.

Durand’s claim was dismissed: the Paris court in fact found that, according to the documentation produced, there is no certain proof that Facebook closed the account for the nude photo, and it saw that Durand was able to open a new account on the same day as the deactivation of the one he was previously using, reasoning that the professor would not have suffered any harm from the social. The court, however, also recognized a mistake by Facebook, because the social allegedly exercised its action without reasonable notice and without giving reasons for deactivating the account. But in spite of this, Durand’s claim was dismissed, as was his claim for compensation of about 20,000 euros. Professor Durand’s lawyer, Stéphane Cottineau, however, announced that his client intends to appeal.

“We will continue to fight,” the lawyer told Agence France-Press, “because there are important principles to defend that have not been respected so far, starting with freedom of expression. It is not possible to treat great artists as pornographers, especially if we think that the work in question is a hymn to women.” Durand, on the other hand, said, “I had texts on my account that I wanted to retrieve, but Facebook would not reactivate it for me. From the moment they censored me, they haven’t responded to me.”

Origine du monde censored, court: Facebook erred, but complaint dismissed

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