If the goal of Buddhism is to send as many people to nirvana then controlling that narrative is important. Its not attachment to image, its basic practicality.

If the goal of Buddhism is to send as many people to nirvana then controlling that narrative is important. Its not attachment to image, its basic practicality. The image also reflects the message so these images are spreading dishonesty about Buddhism which goes against the core tenants of right-thought and right-action. In fact, Buddhist monks would have to try to remove these images as per Buddhism. Its wrong-action and wrong-thought to knowingly allow what's essentially blasphemy and defamation against Buddhism to spread. Not to mention in Theravada, and in other forms I imagine, these are very offensive images because it turns monks into sensory seekers, which is the opposite of equanimity. This is like, say, someone posting images on a church with Jesus being friendly with Satan and engaging in various sins. Of course organized religion is a political power-base as much as anything of note in socieety, so there's always going to be a protective element to it. Theravada is the defacto state religion (the king must always be Buddhist per their constitution and the country is 93% Buddhist), thus Theravada enjoys a great level of protection. There are strong laws against religious defamation there that we don't often have in the West. Lastly, you can use the "attached" excuse for anything. "Oh Buddhists dont like it when I punch them in the face? Guess they're too attached to feeling pain free!" Its a jerks argument that only empowers anti-merit.