Why was Instagram forced to change its policy on nudity?

Team Udayavani, Oct 27, 2020, 12:20 PM IST

Instagram plans to update its policy on nudity after it was accused of censoring a plus-size model.

In August, the social media platform was accused of “racial bias” after it removed a photo of black model and activist Nyome Nicholas-Williams in which she was holding her breasts.

A wave of content creators then confirmed the platform was repeatedly discriminating against black people, plus-size users and other marginalised communities, by deleting their photos or failing to promote them in the same way it did for its white users.

The pictures were back up after Instagram restored them after global outrage and allegations of censorship. The hashtag #iwanttoseenyome had trended and gone viral.

After Nicholas-Williams campaign Instagram had planned to review its policy on nudity. Instagram’s new policy on nudity will also allow nude people hugging each other and also cupping their breasts.

A spokesperson for Instagram told The Guardian it had made a mistake when it deleted the photos. “As we looked into this more closely, we realized it was an instance where our policy on breast squeezing wasn’t being correctly applied. Hearing Nyome’s feedback helped us understand where this policy was falling short, and how we could refine it.”

Nicholas-Williams welcomed the announcement. “Hopefully this policy change will bring an end to the censorship of fat black bodies,” she wrote in an Instagram post celebrating the victory.

 

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WE FUCKING DID IT!! @ginamartin @alex_cameron and I…we changed an Instagram policy! Look what happens when three women set out to change the world! We have put our heart and souls into this campaign and to see it come to fruition is insane! The observer newspaper (which is out today) has covered the campaign from the beginning and have written another article which highlights the hard work Gina, Alex and I have done (although it states they launched the campaign) this is in fact not the case as Gina, Alex and myself strategised for three months to ensure a change would happen. Hang tight for the full details of the policy change, as I will be detailing more information soon. We worked very hard on this and managed to get Instagram and @mosseri attention and there’s still a lot of work to be done, as black plus sized women continue to be censored in many ways; and white women STILL tried to hijack and make it their campaign. There is of course a huge racial imbalance in the algorithm that still exists as white bodies are promoted and don’t have to worry about censorship of their posts but black bodies still have to justify presence on the platform, this has also been brought to Instagrams attention! But when we put our minds to it… we can achieve literally ANYTHING!! I’d like to thank the 16 amazing humans that put their names to our open letter and that helped us push our campaign forward! The Instagram policy changes on the 28th, it outlines the difference between ‘breast holding’ or ‘cupping’ which is a celebration of body and ‘breast grabbing’ which is deemed to be pornographic, these images are censored to protect underage users but this policy change should allow them to better differentiate self expression/ art from pornographic content. Hopefully this policy change will bring an end to the censorship of fat black bodies. The last three have been absolutely wild to say the least but we move and move things we did! ???

A post shared by Nyome Nicholas – Williams (@curvynyome) on Oct 25, 2020 at 5:00am PDT