Even the New Yorker's getting too raunchy for puritanical Facebook administrators, Gawker has discovered. The Facebook page for the magazine's cartoons was temporarily blocked when the New Yorker posted a drawing of Adam and Eve sitting against an apple tree, with Eve remarking: "Well, it was original." Both are naked, because, obviously, it's the Garden of Eden. The cartoon was even redrawn by creator Mick Stevens to put clothes on Adam and Eve in a drive to dodge Facebook's crackdown, but "the gain in clothes caused too great a loss in humor," writes New Yorker cartoon editor Rob Mankoff in a blog post yesterday entitled Nipplegate.
Mankoff reproduced two ink spots in his blog, saying that's what got the cartoon blocked. They were only slightly larger spots than two other "non-offending" ink spots on Adam's chest, he points out. Facebook guidelines prohibit "naked 'private parts' including female nipple bulges and naked butt cracks." Update: Facebook issued a statement explaining it "mistakenly blocked a cartoon as part of our efforts to keep the site safe for all and quickly worked to rectify the mistake as soon as we were notified." It deals with such volume that such miscues occasionally happen, said the site, but "we have already taken steps to prevent this from happening in the future and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience." (More topless stories.)