Kim Kardashian’s nude shoot, still accessible on Instagram (Image Courtesy: Instagram)
If Instagram’s censorship model were to ever be put up for auction, it would fetch a higher price on account of antiquity value alone. The photo-sharing application has been making news across the world for some time now, thanks to a truly bizarre and arbitrary sex censorship, that may, and I repeat, MAY have found an audience in the 6th century, but not today. And no, we are not talking about ultra-conservatism. Just plain weird.
Recently, Instagram brought forth much outrage from the photographer community in Mumbai when it pulled down a picture clicked by city photojournalist Mandar Deodhar.
Titled ‘This Mumbai and That Mumbai’, Deodhar’s picture showed a lady bathing a young girl in the backdrop of the Nariman Point’s skyscrapers. His picture was picked up and posted by Everydaymumbai, a page that chronicles the city’s day-to-day life and has over 28,000 followers.Instagram pulled down the picture from the page stating, “We removed your post because it doesn’t follow our community guidelines”.
Mandar Deodhar’s picture on stark contrasts in Mumbai. (Image Courtesy – INK361)
“My picture simply depicted the contrast of rich and poor of the city,” Deodhar told Mumbai Mirror, adding that he was shocked that Instagram did not contact him before taking the photograph down.
Only a week before that, Instagram banned pictures of a period stain shown on a fully clothed girl, once again due to reasons of community guidelines.
On the other hand, many celebrities, including the likes of Miley Cyrus have gotten away with putting up very racy pictures. If Instagram’s intentions of censorship were primarily for the 11 percent of teenagers who use their application, then Miley Cyrus’s pictures ideally shouldn’t clear the censorship cut.
But then, haven’t I already told you about Instagram’s bizarre censorship rules? Here’s what Instagram doesn’t allow – female nipples, full frontal nudity, period stains, menstruation pictures (because teenagers must be shielded from them apparently).
On the other hand, they do allow racy pictures, partial back nudity, limited view of bottoms, male upper body nudity, male nipples and here’s the weird one – fake tits!
And that’s not all. The nonsense even extends to searchable hashtags on Instagram. So while #dildo and #chink are not banned, #foodorgasm, #sofuckingtired, #wet and #shower are banned.
The word #boob is banned, but user search still works for #faketits, #underboob and #boobz. On the other hand #sideboob and #boobies remain banned.
Miley Cyrus’s racy bikini selfie, still accessible on Instagram. (Image courtesy: Instagram)
Oh and yes, Instagram also has not banned the hashtag #gunsforsale. No kidding!
How does this ridiculous censorship system, that clearly seems to be borrowed from caveman times, ever protect children from seeing something they shouldn’t? Either this is sheer hypocrisy on the part of Instagram or plain stupidity.
Singer Rihanna’s account was mistakenly shut down after posting photos from a cover shoot for Lui magazine. By then, she was fed up of Instagram’s harassment, and Rihanna left the site altogether. Actor Scout Willis was banned from the site after posting a photo of a jacket she designed that depicted the torsos of two topless women.
On the other hand, Kim Kardashian’s famous nude photoshoot, revealing her big bottom, that nearly ‘broke the internet’ continues to be accessible on Instagram.
In this day and age, it is next to impossible for any social media application to survive after imposing such crude, black and white, yet arbitrary restrictions. Unless they quickly rectify the situation, pretty soon a larger number of people will follow in Rihanna’s wake.
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