Ah, Instagram. The social media platform that everyone knows, loves and uses. From personal use to business, shopping to cyberstalking, Instagram provides us with the photographic marketing tool that we love, and at the tips of our fingers. As a matter of fact, today, there are more than 800 million people who are active on Instagram each month, and more than 8 million Instagram business accounts (about 71 percent of U.S. businesses have Instagram accounts), which means if you are looking for either a person or a brand, there is a good chance you will find them on Instagram. But what about the companies and brands that you can’t find? For example, companies and persons selling goods geared towards sexual health and sexual pleasure. Did these organizations decide to avoid a social media presence, or does Instagram have greater forces at work censoring sex?
Unfortunately, it’s the latter. Our society has an alarming educational deficit when it comes to sex. Where there is a lack of education, you can almost always expect decisions (including community guidelines) to be based in fear. While this is tragic, it makes sense. The U.S. has a complicated moral relationship with sex, everywhere from our modes of archaic censorship to our model for shame-based, abstinence-only public sex education.
Have you ever wondered who sets the standards and guidelines for social media platforms? The owners do! Instagram allows a young demographic of users onto the platform. According to Investopedia, its target demographic is teenagers, although the most active users are between the ages of 18-29. Consumers as young as 13 can create an account. Considering most every American has been trained to “protect” children from learning about sex from a pleasure-based model, it follows a very strict set of restrictions.
On the very first page of Instagram’s community guidelines, it states “don’t spam people or post nudity,” followed by a longer explanation of: “We know that there are times when people might want to share nude images that are artistic or creative in nature, but for a variety of reasons, we don’t allow nudity on Instagram. This includes photos, videos, and some digitally-created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks. It also includes some photos of female nipples,” but then oddly enough goes on to state “photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed. Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, too.” Hmm. According to the guidelines, Instagram can be subjective, to say the least.
Over the last year, Instagram has quietly implemented a process referred to as shadow banning, which is a tactic used to discourage users from sharing content which opposes its guidelines. It can occur when a photo has broken one of Instagram's community guidelines, for example, using a broken or banned hashtag, or even by using a software that violates the terms of service. If you think this may have happened to you, you can check by using a shadowban analyzer, or by searching your photo with the hashtags you have used through another users account. Luckily, it seems as though shadow banning is not permanent, and can be reversed as soon as you fix the red flags in your content.
So now let’s talk about why sex-related content tends to get shut down on Instagram. We know that “sex sells,” but thanks to its community guidelines, not on Instagram. And, if we zoom out, the problem is a lot bigger than Instagram.
Last year two bills, FOSTA (the Fight Online Sex Trafficking) and SESTA (the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) were passed by the House and Senate with the goal of reducing the amount of sex trafficking that occurs online. And while this censorship was introduced to monitor and disband online prostitution, it also contributes to the limited existence of sexual content online. According to StopSesta.org, “since Congress passed SESTA/FOSTA, owners of popular online platforms have responded by censoring completely lawful activity from their sites. Other sites hosting lawful activity have shut down entirely,” and its induction causes online platforms to “risk severe civil and criminal penalties for the activities of their users or restrict their users speech, silencing a lot of marginalized voices in the process.” In fact, just last month sex educator, love coach and Instagram user @lorraejo had her account deactivated due to the new bills, and believes that “anyone that is talking openly and honestly about sex is at risk.”
Until our nation begins implementing sexual education to give people a framework from which to teach, fear will continue to dominate the bills that are passed, and as a result, censorship will continue to dominate media and communication. This means companies which are sex-positive in nature will continue to face discrimination in the media and on social media platforms. Instead of fighting the guidelines (whether it be on Instagram or another outlet), we have found that it is better to promote our message from within the confines of the guidelines. An unknown source once said, “in a contest between a river and a rock, the river always wins. Why? Because the river is willing to follow the natural call of gravity, going over, under, around or, eventually, through the rock, to its destiny which, as with all water, is to ultimately merge with the ocean.”
Being crass and demonstrative will only give these governing entities the power to shut us down, and when they shut us down they also silence our message. We aren’t going to change Instagram’s rules, so let’s find a way to share pleasure-based sex education within Instagram’s guidelines. This will consume less energy and produce greater results. Be the river.
Forward Approach Marketing (FAM) provides reliable, result-driven attention to businesses by creating custom marketing plans designed to meet each client’s unique goals. We implement a strategy of “educate to elevate” across all platforms, sharing stories which break stereotypes, obtaining positive placement with trade and consumer press, offering media preparation, as well as advertising and social media strategies.
