Why Instagram Scrubbed My Account—And How It Can Happen To You
Late last month, Instagram scrubbed my account. Why? What were they wanting to achieve? A year of tip-toeing the line got me in trouble a couple of times—how much ass is too much? Why did visible dick print cross the line in one image and escape censorship in another? Why should we lose access to content we created for revealing a little more to a select few? These pictures, shared privately and consensually and not to my feed, still alerted Instagram’s censors. How? If they can surveil, punish, and delete me, what’s stopping them from doing it to you?
Nothing is private anymore—and you’re okay with that?
If you’re a gay man, you know we use the Close Friends list for flirtatious content. We’re talking risque selfies from Marshall’s Beach, a .gif sticker barely stretched over a sunbathed groin. The Folsom fit pic with 98% skin exposure. Your Pride Parade fag hags with tits out in all their glory, nipples taped over. At this point in the internet’s conservative devolution, we’re thankful for one corner of social media where we can still (sort of) be ourselves. But even there is danger.
Gay sexuality is not some outpouring of unethical depravity. It is definitively queer to push back against false modesty. We push back against what is and is not considered transgressive. Our bodies are not shameful. They are to be celebrated, worshipped, respected and adored by our peers. Too often the same people decrying our harnessed tits and jock straps are those with CP on their hard drives. So why are we getting punished?
Although I shouldn’t, I will step up and accept blame for the first time I got put in IG timeout. The gay bar I worked at for two years played gay porn on the TVs above the liquor wall. I posted one story to Close Friends, TVs bright and loud behind me, and captioned it, “Office views.” IG took it down within seconds. Okay Instagram. I’ll play your game. So I joined the countless gay IG users pushing the envelope of what they can get away with sharing.
I carved up my body like a rotisserie chicken. What parts were OK to share? Which were a little too appetizing?
The rules were deceptively simple. No buttocks, no genitalia, no obvious sex acts. Okay (boring, but okay). Yet I understood the ostensible reason given. In line with SESTA-FOSTA, Instagram is purportedly doing their part to curb sex trafficking via site-wide modesty enforcement. Any post deemed too revealing could be an advertisement for escort services hiding in plain sight. So the solution from Instagram’s perspective is a blanket approach, to literally shield explicit body parts from view. If that sounds like a dress code, that’s because it is, and like spaghetti straps in 2004, too much skin gets you suspended.
I’ve tripped the censors a couple more times since my first temporary ban last summer (which, given how regularly I used Close Friends, is surprising). Then something strange began to occur. Long after IG reprimanded me for saucy posts and punished me accordingly, the app would ban me randomly. As if, like an alcoholic mom, it dispensed another penalty for an already-penalized offense. Indeed, the offending post was always one that had already been addressed and taken down—how was it still relevant? I was being persecuted for thot-crimes I had previously and/or not yet committed. Soon I felt as though Instagram had it out for me personally.
So long, @jacobkevin.sf
Then came the most alarming in a series of unjust banishments: exile for trading nudes. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe whatever you share privately should remain private. Only a subpoena should intervene, yet Instagram has taken it upon themselves to be judge, jury, and executioner. I was disturbed to receive a three-day ban for sharing consensual pics via private direct message. Not only was it unwarranted, it proved I was under surveillance.
And yet I didn’t abandon Meta, because its principal functions had integrated so personally with my life. The increasing career value of social media presence aside, it’s how I stayed connected with loved ones near and far. On a solemn note, it was how I remembered those no longer with us. My Instagram account compiled more than twelve years of valuable memories, images from smart phones and lives long gone. I believed my memories were safe there because that’s what social media promised.
RELATED: What Real Sex Workers Have to Say about SESTA-FOSTA
It frightened me enough that I stopped posting on Close Friends altogether. Flirty messages and pics went unanswered. I became scared to connect with other gay men on Instagram for fear of risking my presence on the app. Sure, on one hand, looking slutty on Instagram is not a hill many are willing to die on. But the anger I feel is an indicator that certain principles are being violated. My community, my livelihood, my memories—why is that the price of privately bearing all to men who agreed to see?
Late this July, I reconnected with a guy and we flirted via DMs. I’d forgotten to save his number. I sent him mine and thought it would be cheeky to attach a nude for a contact pic. The following day, Instagram disabled my account. For a second I worried he reported me but he confirmed he hadn’t. Despite my appeal, and the fact I swapped photos with grown men agreeing to see them, I lost the account.
But hey, at least Instagram shut down my sex traffic ring.
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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