‘Censored’ for nudes on social media, Vienna museums resort to OnlyFans
- After images of a naked paleolithic Venus and other art were deemed suggestive, the city’s tourist board turned to the platform known for explicit content
- The account has drawn several hundred subscribers since its launch last month
Fed up with social media sites censoring a naked paleolithic Venus and other works of art deemed suggestive, Viennese museums are showing them on the OnlyFans platform, known for hosting explicit content.
An inspired publicity coup on the part of Vienna’s tourist board, the OnlyFans account has won several hundred subscribers since its launch last month.
But the office’s director Norbert Kettner said the move was mostly meant to “start a debate about censorship in the arts and the role of algorithms and social networks in the arts”.
Kettner said the idea was born of museums’ frustrations at the “difficulties when they are promoting exhibitions” due to the strict criteria some social media platforms use when deciding what counts as pornographic.
A notorious example was Facebook’s censoring in 2018 of the prehistoric Venus of Willendorf figurine on display in Vienna’s Natural History Museum, considered a masterpiece of the paleolithic era.