Facebook decided to remove this cartoon by Paraguayan cartoonist Melquiades Melgarejo, "Melki", alluding to the cases of paedophile priests.
Melki said in an interview to 970 AM (Audio .mp3) that, after the censorship, cartoonist Nicodemus Espinoza also received the same "punishment" for re-uploading the cartoon, but says the reaction was positive as cartoonists in other countries uploaded the image to their personal accounts as a gesture of support.
"In the image you see a pa'i (bishop) who is 'armed', obviously you can't see his member or anything, but that's what the drawing suggests; and from the manger Mary and Joseph run out protecting Baby Jesus. In the crib you can see that the cow and the donkey are also hiding, because they are so afraid of the paedophile pa'i".
Melgarejo commented that it is a satirical image about paedophile priests, which more than a drawing, is a denunciation and regretted the fanaticism of those who are indignant and upset more by a virtual drawing than by the reality that is lived both in the country and around the world.
Facebook, the judge of moralising
Many have become accustomed to the editorial "surveillance" that is practised on this social network and it has become so normalised that the most widespread opinion is the popular one: "these are their rules and they fuck them as they please". In short, it has become somatised that if you don't like what you see, don't use Facebook.
Some blame the elimination of images on a bad system of user complaints and the automatisms that are applied when they accumulate, but it is more than well known that Facebook's interpretation of its rules when it comes to eliminating images is as ambiguous as it is twisted, in many cases contradicting its own rules, as can be seen in this case:
These restrictions on the display of nudity and sexual activity also apply to digital content, unless such content is posted for educational, humorous or satirical purposes.
Melquiades Marcial Melgarejo Valiente "Melki", is a well-known self-taught cartoonist born in Yby Yau, in the department of Concepción, in 1976.
He currently works for Diario HOY and La Nación, among other media, and has worked for Yahoo! Canada. He has lived in Montreal (Canada) since 2011.
Author interview (2014)
Related: Onlinecensorship.
Cases in other countries:
