'Napalm girl' Kim Phuc was 'saddened' when Facebook banned iconic photo

CTV Kitchener: Kim Phuc in Kitchener Kim Phuc, the ‘Napalm Girl’ whose photo was seen around the world in 1972, is again making global headlines. Leena Latafat explains.

The woman who became known around the world as “napalm girl” after appearing in one of the most iconic photos of the Vietnam War, is speaking out after Facebook temporarily banned the image earlier this year.

“I was really saddened by the people who just looked at the nudity rather than focus on the powerful message (the photo) conveys,” Kim Phuc, now 53, told CTV Kitchener on Sunday. She visited the southern Ontario town to speak about her experiences at a local church.

The photo, taken on June 8, 1972 by Associated Press photojournalist Nick Ut, shows then-nine-year-old Phuc naked and screaming, fleeing an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places near the southern Vietnam district of Trang Bang with a group of other children.

“Suddenly, (there was) fire everywhere around me and my clothes were burned off by the fire,” said Phuc, who still bears the scars from the horrific attack. She remembers crying out, “Too hoot. Too hot,” as soldiers poured water over her burns.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning photo was seen around the world, quickly becoming one of the most iconic images of the Vietnam War and indeed of the 20th century.

More than four decades later, the photo made headlines again this summer after Facebook removed it from a Norwegian author’s page, saying it violated the social network’s rules on nudity.

The backlash escalated when Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg posted the photo on her own Facebook profile. The image was deleted from there too.

“What Facebook does by removing images of this kind, good as the intentions may be, is to edit our common history,” Solberg wrote at the time. “Today, pictures are such an important element in making an impression, that if you edit past events or people, you change history and you change reality.”

The social media giant initially stood by its decision, saying it was too complicated to create a distinction between allowing some photographs that featured child nudity but not others. After widespread revolt, however, Facebook reversed that decision in early September. Facebook said it recognized the “history and global importance” of the image and has since adjusted its policy on nudity to exclude images that are newsworthy or historically significant.

Phuc said she was initially embarrassed that she was naked in the photo, but later realized the widespread impact of the image and the importance of her encounter with Ut, who put down his camera to help her shortly after taking the picture.

“I’m so thankful that he not only took the picture, but he rushed me to the nearest hospital,” she said Sunday. “He saved my life.”

With files from CTV Kitchener and The Associated Press