Last July, we created our first Instagram account and worked hard to build up an audience there. When we’d gotten up to something like 3,000 followers, Insta deleted our account, claiming we’d violated their community guidelines, presumably by posting photos that included nudity (even though we tried hard to censor everything they insist on censoring).
So we started over again with a new Insta account and built that one up to something like 1,400 followers, and we were even more careful about censoring our photos. And last night? Last night Insta deleted that account too.
It’s really galling, when plenty of Insta accounts feature at least as much nudity as ours does, and they’re not getting deleted. There seems to be something about our account — which seeks to educate women about their legal rights, rather than just display women’s bodies for male viewers’ pleasure — that gets Insta all hot under the collar.
Well, we’re trying again. Our new Insta is @topless.pulp, and we ask that if you care about what we do, or enjoy seeing our posts, or are a body-positive woman and would like to come to one of our events sometime, you please follow us there.
We’ll keep fighting the fight, and we thank you for joining us in it.
This is a travesty. We need to find a site free of censorship.
It’s absolutely maddening and, of, course, makes zero sense. This is the dark underbelly of social media. They are unaccountable and couldn’t care less who they hurt. Occasionally a very strong backlash makes them retreat, but we can’t count on them having any sense of doing what’s right, or undoing what they screwed up on. Complete lack of accountability – they’ll never have to sit across the table in front of you and justify their BS. Keep up the good fight. We all know it’s worth it in the long run.
It’s disheartening that here in the 21st century we still have so much discrimination against nudity, be it female or male. It’s a sad statement about judgement and acceptance.
Social media is like that, many folks I follow on YouTube get dinged for unspecified violations of unwritten rules. I don’t do Insta for that very reason, random deletions for mysterious unspecified violations. I know you want to increase your exposure (cheeky remark), but maybe some platforms are just not worth the trouble?
Pretty sure you’d get banned from FB/Instagram for posting a photo of…. Just about any piece by Michaelangelo for one. You’re probably getting ratted out by random people who stumble across it (one of my FB “friends” literally called the FBI on me because of posting…. something, nobody seems to know or want to admit exactly what, not even the polite gentlemen in crisp government issued suits who came to have a chat over tea and crumpets one morning. Not the Men in Black I’d expected frankly but a whole lot nicer)
I’d probably just make it a private account and approve your followers because it’ll just keep happening; nothing’s more threatening to a lot of people than women with opinions and who aren’t afraid to express that.
Surprising considering the overtly sexualised content that is available on IG