Is Facebook censoring image of Santa and baby Jesus? Fact Check

Rumours online claim that Facebook has covered up an image depiction of Santa kneeling before the baby Jesus because it is either violent or too graphic.

These claims started back in 2018 (when we originally authored this article) when Facebook covered up an image of Santa Claus kneeling next to a depiction of baby Jesus that was posted by user Jennifer Crawford back in 2015 but covered up in 2018 with a notice claiming the image may depict violence or sensitive content. Users had to click an “Uncover” option to see the image.

This was soon picked up by various blogs and websites including Lifesite News (below) who claimed this was a demonstration that the social networking site was actively censoring religious views and images.

“Facebook has covered over a posting of a picture of Santa Claus kneeling before the Baby Jesus, warning viewers that the photo “may show violent or graphic content.”

However, these claims are reliant on a misinterpretation of how Facebook’s (largely) automatic moderation filters operate. Facebook utilise a number of automated programs and software to identify and flag potentially troubling images. Such automated processes include the volume of reports generated from other social network users about a specific piece of content. This is so potentially dangerous or sensitive images – including child pornography – can be flagged and censored without having to wait until a human moderator sees it. While this has its advantages (censoring images quicker) it can also mean innocent images are detected as sensitive.

This is what likely happened to the Santa Claus image, since the message covering the photo was removed by Facebook only a few days later. The same thing happened to another instance of the same photo, also originally posted in 2015 by Brian Bagley but this time was flagged by Facebook in December 2020. Again the cover on the photo was subsequently removed by Facebook after a handful of days.

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Why this particular image of Santa and Jesus has been flagged twice (once in 2018 and once in 2020) is somewhat of a mystery. We do know that posts of a religious or political theme do often get reported by other Facebook users more frequently than other types of posts, whether those reports are justified or not. However many other instances of this same Santa Claus photo exist on Facebook, so it’s unlikely that the social network is targeting this particular photo.

Less likely still is that Facebook is censoring religious or Christian imagery as a whole, since countless examples exist on the social networking site.