LOS ANGELES — April Lampert and Amy Baldwin, creators and hosts of the female-forward podcast “Shameless Sex,” are involved in a censorship conflict with Instagram which they allege to be specifically targeting women.
“'Shameless Sex,' along with many other woman-run sex education/activism accounts have officially been ‘shadow-banned’ while it seems many pornographic accounts continue to run freely,” said Baldwin.
Colleagues of Baldwin and Lampert have also had similar issues with YouTube and Twitter, while other high-profile platforms such as Google, Apple and Reddit have also hit users with ‘violation of community guidelines’ notices.
The creators claim that last year’s passing of FOSTA-SESTA is creating an over-censoring issue, with female users bearing the bulk of the burden. Consequently they, along with fellow online sexuality educators and bloggers, are rallying to take a stand and get the word out about shadow-banning, a practice which affects traffic count, user engagement and hashtag searches.
“The guidelines don't quite add up considering what is still allowed on these platforms,” said Baldwin. “We feel targeted for pushing the envelope of women's sexual empowerment. We've had many listeners write in to Instagram on our behalf stating that they want us back, as we have had a strong influence on their personal growth and well-being.”
For more information, follow "Shameless Sex" on Twitter.
