Last night I tried to log into Facebook and I couldn’t.

I thought maybe Facebook was down or maybe my internet was down. I mean what else could it be??

A few minutes later, on my phone, I was able to log in. A Facebook window popped-up stating someone had turned in an image that was posted under Shoebox PR and I was banned from Facebook for 24 hours. I believe it said “We have removed the following content you posted or were the admin of because it violates Facebook’s Community Standards.” (I am paraphrasing, because I didn’t think fast enough to take a screen shot)

Facebook did show an image of the work that they removed. Because It all happened so fast, I only remember that it was an amazing piece of art by the lovely, talented and well-known Los Angeles artist Simone Gad.

Through my Shoebox PR Facebook page, I had posted a couple of images of her work from two different exhibitions, One at BG Gallery in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station and another from the “PULSE of LA” Exhibition at LA Artcore in Little Tokyo.

I never in a million years thought I would be banned from Facebook. While I hear people complain about it all the time, I am a huge champion for it’s value as a community building tool. I have made so many friends, connections, art sales and am able to keep up with family more than ever before. I pride myself in being able to support artists, galleries and exhibitions and am pretty cognizant of what I post. I mean… it’s ART!!

In the deluge of pop-up windows on Facebook, there was a window that asked if any of the images they were displaying should also be removed. One of the images was a beautiful sculpture by Melanie Newcomb from Eric Minh Swenson’s “Nude” exhibition. Of course, I clicked no. Then a window popped up saying I was banned for 24 hours for review. Sigh!

I am not one to jump into a tirade over big brother, or yell at Facebook for it’s censorship, rather I try to think logically about the why. Besides the fact that my finger is twitching because I can’t hit ‘like’ on some stellar posts I am most interested in the idea that someone turned me in. I know, the internet has millions of trolls and sometimes there is no answer to the why. The conversation on censorship, conservatives and pornography has been touched on over and over again. Then, I remembered reading the article Jerry Saltz wrote in the Vulture where this same thing happened. I felt like Jerry Saltz! Ok ok not exactly the same thing… but you get the idea.

Hopefully I will be back in the Facebook saddle by this afternoon, when I am off to openings and am able to continue to support our wonderful art community.