In a move that would make a 16th-century Pope blush, Bluesky’s moderation algorithms slapped an "Adult Content" warning on a post we made on our brand new account. The offending image? Not pornography, but a red chalk study of a male torso by Michelangelo, promoting the Michelangelo and Men exhibition at the Teylers Museum.
We are living in 2025, yet our digital public squares are being policed with a prudishness that feels distinctly medieval.
The censorship of this post is more than just a funny algorithmic glitch; it is an act of profound cultural illiteracy. The image in question is a masterpiece of the High Renaissance—a study of human anatomy that has been revered for five centuries. To hide it behind a blur filter, labeled as "adult," equates the Teylers Museum’s world-class curation with illicit smut.
This digital Puritanism is disrespectful on every level. It disrespects the artist, whose life’s work was the celebration of the human form as divine. It disrespects the Teylers Museum, reducing their scholarly exhibition to something "unsensable." And it disrespects the user, treating grown adults as if they are too fragile to handle a sketched pectoral muscle without a trigger warning.
When Michelangelo unveiled The Last Judgment, the church hired "The Breeches Maker" to paint over the nudity. Today, we don't need to hire anyone; we have automated systems that apply digital fig leaves for us.
If our "advanced" tools cannot distinguish between a unsolicited nude and a priceless artifact of human heritage, we haven't progressed. We have simply automated the Dark Ages.
