The Little Mermaid statue shows “too much bare skin or sexual undertones” to be shown on Facebook, Mette Gjerskov, a Socialdemokraterne politician, found out when she tried to post to the social network a link to her blog that featured a photo of the famous Danish statue.

Didn’t see that coming
“Didn’t see that coming, that our national treasure is categorised in line with child pornography and that kind of abomination,” Gjerskov wrote on Twitter after receiving the notification from Facebook that her post had been rejected.

According to Facebook, users are not allowed to post “images of people in positions showing or suggesting sex or images of nakedness and cleavage. Not even if it has artistic or educational purposes”.

Gjerskov told Ekstra Bladet that she could see the humour in the incident but suggested that a change from Facebook may be in order.

“I can slap myself on the thigh with laughter at how ridiculously the world works, but if people don’t see it as a big joke they should get in touch with Facebook,” she said.

According to Jyllands-Posten, this is not the first time Facebook censorship has excluded Danish cultural creations thought to be inoffensive within the country’s borders. For example, the painting ‘Kvinde foran et spejl’ (woman in front of a mirror) by the Danish golden age painter CW Eckersberg was rejected when a Danish tourist organisation wanted to use it in marketing material.

Jyllands-Posten was unable to get a comment from Facebook about the Little Mermaid exclusion.