An artist who painted a picture of Donald Trump with a micropenis has been repeatedly banned from Facebook for posting the image online. As Motherboard reports, Los Angeles-based artist Illma Gore posted the image to a feminist Facebook group on February 10th, and it quickly circulated across other social networks like Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. The version she posted to Facebook had a black bar over Trump's private parts (an uncensored version can be viewed here), but it was apparently offensive enough to run afoul of the social network's controversial policy on nude or pornographic images.
According to Motherboard, Gore has been banned intermittently for three-day periods after reposting the image, which she says she's doing to "rebuke censorship." (As of this writing, her artist page is accessible, with posts that were published yesterday.) Facebook has come under criticism for aggressively policing nudity on its platform in the past, with some arguing that the company acts quicker to censor works of art than it does anti-refugee hate speech. Gore tells Motherboard that she asked Facebook for an explanation as to why her account was once again blocked on Monday, though she has yet to receive a response.
Notably, the image has not been blocked from other social media sites, including the Facebook-owned Instagram. Gore also listed an uncensored version of the painting on EBay, where the auction reached at least $1,300, though at the time of this writing the page has been removed. Gore tells Motherboard that a member of Trump's campaign threatened legal action unless she removed the work, though she hasn't backed down, making a version of it available for download on her website.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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