Teo

NAME: Teo
CENSORSHIP: Shadow & content ban

What reason was given for your ban?

That it was against the Community Guidelines – which was NOT. I appealed the decision and they completely ignored my appeals and never got back to me (saying that due to Covid they are understaffed. They’ve been using the same excuse since the beginning of 2020)

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

I myself censored any nudity in an external app before posting and the content was still hot taken down with no recourse.

Were you able to appeal and what was the response?

Yes, I did. As I stated above, they never reviewed it and said that due to Covid19 they are unable to review some appeals.

What effect has your experience of censorship had on you?

Loss of income, loss of visibility and thus loss of brand collaboration opportunities. I live in fear every day of losing all the contacts, messages, content and friends I made on this platform over the last 4 years. Sometimes I have nightmares about it. All my carefully written description texts (I write very personal captions detailing experiences and thoughts) and all the imagery I poured myself into creating – I’m a model and a photographer myself.

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

So many things I want to discuss. The double standards between male and female content creators, the discrimination of female bodies and sexual educators, and the silencing of small creatives and small business owners that cannot afford to pay Instagram for ads. The banning of words. The vagueness of their own guidelines and how randomly they’re being enforced. The fact that content that by their own rules should be allowed gets taken down with no explanation. The bias against BIPOC / trans / fat bodies. Everything is infuriating.Especially the powerlessness and the fact that they aren’t required to even give their users an answer.