Bri Cirel

NAME: Bri Cirel
PLATFORM & USERNAME: Insta – @bri.cirel
CENSORSHIP: Account Ban, Content Ban, Shadow Ban

What reason was given for your ban?

‘Going against one of the community guidelines.

Why do you think your post(s) was censored?

I paint nude figures and political art.

Were you able to appeal and what was the response?

Only a few times my posts were restored, but mostly when I appeal they rejected them.

What effect has your experience of censorship had on you?

Very negative, it made me feel  isolated and resulted in a loss of opportunities to network and sell my art. Before I was kicked off Facebook in 2016 and shadow-banned on Instagram in 2019, I could easily network and sell my own prints from my website. Now it feels like I’m screaming into the dark.

What’s one thing you want people to know about this topic?

It’s discrimination and very serious to have art and images by women and marginalized people unfairly and overly censored and policed. If social media were a physical space like a mall and security was kicking out women for what they are wearing and banning marginalized people, it would be clear discrimination.

Additional Story

This form of censorship is oppressive and discriminatory!
Historically women have been barred from participating in art and most professional practices, not allowed to look at bodies let alone paint them.
This power imbalance still persists today and dangerously leads to men having control of women’s bodies, and how they appear and are thought of.
Being shadow-banned and deleted from social media feels no different from how history barred women from participating in art, education, medicine, and things that help us connect to our humanity and personhood.

So much of my artwork is calling out this injustice and how academics hides the oppression of art history. That is why it is so ironic that my artwork about personhood gets banned for being pornography.