The venerable New Yorker is the latest casualty in Facebook's senseless war on boobs. The Facebook page for the New Yorker's cartoon department was temporarily disabled after they posted the cartoon above featuring a topless lady, according to a blog post by New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff.

After the ban, the cartoon was even redrawn by its author, Mick Stevens, to feature a clothed couple, though "the gain in clothes caused too great a loss in humor," Mankoff writes.

Mankoff believes Facebook temporarily axed the New Yorker's cartoon page because the cartoon broke content guidelines that prohibit "naked 'private parts' including female nipple bulges and naked butt cracks." (We obtained and published Facebook's detailed content guidelines earlier this year.) This would make sense. The social network mercilessly hunts down and censors pictures of bare breasts like Iranian computer scientists going after Stuxnet, even when they appear in the innocuous context of breastfeeding.

However, Facebook has voiced acceptance of artistic representations of breasts. Last year an art school got banned for posting a nude sketch. After a public outcry Facebook admitted they made a mistake and said they had an "unwritten policy that allows drawings or sculptures of nudes." So why did The New Yorker's cartoon department get heat for posting a minimalist cartoon featuring breasts? Who knows. Maybe one of the poorly-paid Third World moderators who help police Facebook just didn't get it.

[Cartoon via The New Yorker]