Abbey Lee Kershaw and Our Mountain get censored by YouTube and Facebook

screen cap from 'iv horses' via dancing daughters records' vimeo

Abbey Lee Kershaw has been MIA on the world’s fashion runways for two seasons, having recently gone on modelling hiatus to shoot her first feature, Mad Max: Fury Road. And now it seems she can't even get a break on Facebook and YouTube, with some recent artistic efforts by Kershaw and her band apparently banned by the social media giants. 

On Tuesday, Kershaw’s band Our Mountain announced via Twitter that YouTube had “pulled down and suspended” the band’s new video “IV Horses”.

Then on Thursday, via the band’s Facebook page, it was claimed that Facebook had removed a still from the video with FB "accounts" also allegedly "frozen" over the incident. The Our Mountain page is still up-and-running, albeit with an amusingly doctored image of the four horsemen and –woman of the censor-pocalypse (below).

What's the problem?

The 'IV Horses' video – directed by David Swanson, with Brad Holland listed as DOP – depicts full frontal nudity, not to mention a few close-ups, of Kershaw and fellow band members (left to right) Michael Noonan, Matthew Hutchinson and Thomas Hammer.

The original still posted to Facebook still remains on the band's Tumblr, in addition to a screen cap of their homepage after the video was yanked by YouTube:

screen cap ourmountain.com via our mountain's tumblr

Noted the band on Facebook:

"Dear facebook, why did you pull our picture down and freeze our facebook accounts? Allow me to enlighten you, the image in question is the focus of human anatomy, the use of nudity contained in this piece, is film art not pornography nor any other provocative medium. The following images are honest reflections of the material and physical structure of human organisms. We are all of two types of human, male vs. female, these are our bodies. For anyone interested in seeing Our Mountain's new video "IV Horses", head to http://www.ourmountain.com/ Godspeed! - Our Mountain."

The video is still hosted on the far more arty Vimeo site, where it was originally uploaded two months ago and whose terms of service permit “non sexual nudity”.

With the community guidelines of YouTube, Facebook and indeed also the Facebook-owned Instagram now surely widely known, however – nudity is a no-no, with even breastfeeding mothers and breast cancer survivors sharing images of their mastectomy scars finding themselves censored  – frockwriter is finding it hard to believe this is not a publicity stunt. Especially with Twitter commentary from the band also including "Dear YouTube, thanks for making our website badass!".

Although one new theory for Kershaw's recent severing of ties with her Australian mother agency Chic Management has it that she plans to ditch modelling altogether to focus full-time on acting, at least the fashion business has always been far more accommodating of nudity.