Today we learned that Instagram's community standards moderation team is in fact run by the lecherous old men from the story of Susanna and the Elders.
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Today we learned that Instagram's community standards moderation team is in fact run by the lecherous old men from the story of Susanna and the Elders.
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A little context here. Each month on our Instagram we run a feature where we show paintings of a story popular in art history, and invite our followers to think about what the artists are trying to say about women. This month's story was Susanna and the Elders.
For those unfamiliar with the tale, Susanna and the Elders is a Bible story. Susanna is a woman who is minding her own business, taking a bath. Two lecherous elders watch her, and decide to blackmail her into sex.
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Susanna refuses, so the elders lie and accuse her of adultery. The penalty for this is death. Fortunately, Daniel intervenes and the elders are caught in their lie.
Anyway, it's not a "sexually explicit or suggestive" story. Unless you're one of the elders, who thinks a woman taking a bath is so sexy you want to destroy her life.
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Here's a closer look at these "sexually suggestive" paintings...
1. By Franz Stuck, 1913. Private collection.
2. By Artemisia Gentileschi, circa 1610. Courtesy of Schloss Weißenstein.
3. By Peter Paul Rubens, circa 1609-1610. Courtesy of Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. -
@vagina_museum For another take on the story, I think Thomas Hart Benton's rendition really captures the "just minding her own business" aspect