Social networks banned advertising of the Spanish play based on the work of Virginia Wolfe

Barcelona Teatre Raval has faced the inability to advertise the play based on the essay by Virginia Woolf “My Room” on Instagram and Facebook (owned by Meta, recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) because of the mention in the announcement of feminism. This is reported by The Guardian with reference to the statement of the theater.

As follows from the statement, social networks automatically blocked the ad. When the theatre demanded an explanation, the company explained that "any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform" is classified by the system as "social topics" and filtered out since the company banned any advertising on political, electoral and social topics in the EU back in October last year. To solve the problem, it was recommended to edit the text of the ad, removing the “keywords”. The theater considered the decision of the company an act of censorship.

The essay, published in 1929, is considered an important text of feminist literary criticism. It is based on a series of lectures that the British writer gave at two colleges at the University of Cambridge, the only ones at the time that accepted women. In the essay, Wolfe argues that intellectual freedom is directly dependent on material independence, and a woman needs money and personal space to express her creative potential.

Ekaterina Naumova