Facebook bans Danish MP for posting nude images

Alternative Party leader Uffe Elbæk criticised the social media site following the decision

Uffe Elbæk is the leader of the Danish Green Party, the Alternative (Getty Images)

A Danish MP was banned from Facebook after posting two images on his page featuring female nudity.

Uffe Elbæk, a former Minister of Culture, uploaded a picture showing a female nude sculpture alongside a famous 1969 shot of Danish artist Lene Adler Petersen walking nude through the Copenhagen Stock Exchange.

He subsequently posted them to Twitter without incident.

Mr Elbæk, leader of the centre-left Alternative Party, told TV2: "I think they are fantastic photos because they are about nudity and power.

Following the ban being issued for breaching the site's rules on naked images, Mr Elbæk commented: "They [Facebook] can of course say that I can just refrain from using [the photos]. But Facebook has gotten so big that it is almost a monopoly."

The politician's ban from the social network proved to be only temporary, however.

Last month, Facebook overturned a decision to censor a famous 1972 photo of a naked Vietnamese girl escaping a napalm attack after a ground swell of protest in Norway.

Responding to the protests, Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg posted the historic image on Facebook stating: "Facebook is making a mistake when it censors these types of photos. It contributes to limiting the freedom of expression

"I support a healthy, open and free debate – online and elsewhere. But I say no to this type of censorship."

The social network explained its decisions in a statement: "An image of a naked child would normally be presumed to violate our Community Standards, and in some countries might even qualify as child pornography.

"In this case, we recognise the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time."