Stories of artists outraged at having their work removed from social media platforms for nudity or political material due to vaguely stated “community standards” rules are legion. The boredom was already such that Instagram organized a roundtable of artists and museum managers in 2019 to discuss the problem, as reported in ART newsand hashtag campaigns like #FreeTheNipple took off.

Now, a group of artists and activists led by PEN America’s Artists at Risk Connection and the Don’t Delete Art Coalition are planning a day of protests outside major New York museums on Thursday, June 15. They will start at the Whitney Museum of American Art at 11 a.m., heading to the Parsons School of Design, the Magnum Foundation, the New Museum and the International Center of Photography Museum, before meeting at the headquarters of Meta, the parent company of Facebook. and Instagram.

“Digital spaces are one of the latest frontiers for artists to safely publish their work and reach large audiences, especially as repression and censorship increase around the world,” said Julie Trébault, director of Artists at Risk Connection, which published a Event calendar.

Don’t Delete Art was born out of a collaboration between artist-activists, art collectors and human rights organizations, and came together in March 2020 under the auspices of the National Coalition Against censorship. Its founding curators were PEN America’s Artists at Risk Connection, human rights organization Article 19, collectors IBEX, the International Arts Rights Advisors collective, international NGO Freemuse, and artists Savannah Spirit and Spencer Tunick. Arts writer Emma Shapiro would later join as editor, launching a newsletter with Spirit.

The list of artists who have been censored on social media and whose stories are highlighted on the DDA website includes well-known figures like Carolee Schneemann, Betty Tompkins and Tunick, as well as a host of lesser-known artists. .

The images range from classic nudes to more racy ones, but nudity and sexuality aren’t the only things that have gotten people banned. A window installation by Dread Scott consisting of the text “White people cannot be trusted with power” has been classified as hate speech by Instagram. The company later reversed the decision without comment.

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