Norway Accuses Facebook of Censorship Over Deleted Photo of ‘Napalm Girl’

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(wsj.com) OSLO— Facebook Inc. faced accusations of censorship from Norway’s largest newspaper and the nation’s prime minister on Friday following its decision to delete posts containing the Pulitzer-winning image of a girl fleeing napalm bombs during the Vietnam War.

Norwegian daily Aftenposten published a letter to the Facebook chief executive on its front page, lashing out at Mark Zuckerberg for “limiting freedom.”

Aftenposten editor in chief Espen Egil Hansen said he couldn’t accept that the social network had removed the Vietnam picture from the daily’s Facebook profile earlier this week.

“Listen, Mark, this is serious,” Mr. Hansen wrote. “First you create rules that don’t distinguish between child pornography and famous war photographs. Then you practice these rules without allowing space for good judgment.”

Facebook acknowledged facing a challenge. “While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it is difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others,” a Facebook official said in an emailed statement.

Aftenposten’s owner, the Schibsted Media Group, said it fully supported Aftenposten’s letter.

“My opinion is that it is correct to put pressure on Facebook so that they show more openness and create clearer and better guidelines,” said Schibsted chief executive Rolv Erik Ryssdal.

The dispute kept flaring up on Friday when Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg weighed in, also slamming the U.S. company in a Facebook post that contained the photo.

“Facebook gets it wrong when they censor such images,” she said. “I say no to this type of censorship.”

Hours later, however, Ms. Solberg’s post was removed from her account.

The Facebook official declined to comment on Ms. Solberg’s statement, saying only that its rules applied to everyone.

The prime minister urged Facebook to review its policy.