Facebook deletes Norwegian PM’s post as ‘napalm girl’ row escalates by Alice Ross and Julia Carrie Wong.
From the post:
Facebook has deleted a post by the Norwegian prime minister in an escalating row over the website’s decision to remove content featuring the Pulitzer-prize winning “napalm girl” photograph from the Vietnam war.
Erna Solberg, the Conservative prime minister, called on Facebook to “review its editing policy” after it deleted her post voicing support for a Norwegian newspaper that had fallen foul of the social media giant’s guidelines.
Solberg was one of a string of Norwegian politicians who shared the iconic image after Facebook deleted a post from Tom Egeland, a writer who had included the Nick Ut picture as one of seven photographs he said had “changed the history of warfare”.
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I remember when I first saw that image during the Vietnam War. As if the suffering of the young girl wasn’t enough, the photo captures the seeming indifference of the soldiers in the background.
This photo certainly changes approach of the U.S. military to press coverage of wars. From TV cameras recording live footage of battles and the wounded in Vietnam, present day coverage is highly sanitized and “safe” for any viewing audience.
There are the obligatory shots of the aftermath of “terrorist” bombings but where is the live reporting on allied bombing of hospitals, weddings, schools and the like? Where are the shrieking wounded and death rattles?
Too much of that and American voters might get the idea that war has real consequences, for real people. Well, war always does but it the profit consequences that concern military leadership and their future employers. Can’t have military spending without a war and a supposed enemy.
Zuckerberg should not shield us and especially not children from the nasty side of war.
Sanitized and “safe” reporting of wars is a recipe for the continuation of the same.
Read more about the photo and the photographer who took it: Nick Ut’s Napalm Girl Helped End the Vietnam War. Today in L.A., He’s Still Shooting
You can’t really tell from the photo but the girl’s skin (Kim Phuc) was melting off in strips. That’s the reality of war that needs to be brought home to everyone who supports war to achieve abstract policy goals and objectives.