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I’ve endured a longstanding love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with Instagram. I enjoyed being able to show my work to the world and received positive feedback from valued followers and I have truly treasured this, as helped me keep shooting when I questioned my purpose. I grew to hate, however, IG’s overt commercial agenda which was all too conveniently coupled with the puritanical and patriarchal ideology of right winged politics. This was most exemplified by female nipples having to be censored, whilst uncensored male nipples were permissible.
I refused to censor my work. My uncensored images would get deleted and then I’d repost them, superimposed on the image removal post. This way the female nipple identifying bot couldn’t identified the still uncensored nipples. Notwithstanding this strategy, my account was ultimately suspended. I’ve have pleaded my case to IG, but have never heard anything back. Below is a snapshot of my battle with IG.
Original IG Post: A picture can tell a thousand words, but this just conveys one - Censorship. #IGpromotesinequality
Milk it!
Original IG Post: My white well educated brothers at IG also made a rule that says I can’t post the chest of woman, pretransition transman or presumably post transition transwoman. It’s an odd little rule. I know my IG brothers do this to hide a commercial agenda behind an outdated patriarchal argument about protecting someone from something. But really, all they do is reinforce the sexualization of a form that is associated with the feminine. As a society, when will we call out this patriarchal “protection” for what it really is, financial gain derived from the oppression and control of the feminine.
Self Censorship