Today, Explained - Instagram's war on nipples

Episode Date: November 1, 2019

Vox’s Reset podcast explores how Instagram's nipple ban affects art and identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every week, people tweet at me, they tweet at the show, they email us, and they say, hey, can you explain this thing, and can you explain that thing, and we really want to know more about this thing over here. And the truth is, we really want to explain it all, but we only get to make five shows a week, and it's pretty hard to do just that. So we don't get to everything, and that is why I am so glad that Reset exists now. It's the show that we just launched from Vox and Recode, all about technology, comes out three times a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Sundays, because there are so many stories related to technology that we just never get to. And today, we're going to bring you one of those stories, a story that we wanted to cover,

but just never got to. But Reset did, and they did it in a really beautiful and thorough way. It's all about Instagram's nipple ban, and if you have no idea what that is, you're about to. If you like what you hear, I highly, highly recommend you subscribe to Reset wherever you listen to your podcasts. Episodes are dropping now. Here we go. Hi, I'm Ariel Dumros, and this is Reset. Today's episode starts in New York City at Instagram's headquarters. The lobby was pretty, you know, generic, and the people at the security desk were really friendly, like almost overly friendly, like saying, hello, good morning, hello, good morning, like to every single person that walked in.

Joanne Leah is a photographer. She was there, along with other artists and museum curators, for a closed-door meeting with Instagram, whose parent company is, of course, Facebook. Everybody had Facebook t-shirts on. You walk into kind of a big open space. There's a juice bar. There's a little library. We were in a large conference room, and there were art books staged on the shelves.

Really? Yeah. Do you think they were there for your benefit? Oh, yeah. They had one of the more established artists' books on the shelf that was at the meeting, which was really funny. Interesting. Yeah. How many people attended this meeting? It was 20 people from the art community. And then I would say like

seven people from Facebook and the head of Instagram also stopped by briefly. Okay. So that's like direct contact with Instagram decision making. Yeah, it was direct contact. But I guess the meetings sort of started with them kind of like going over what their policies are, why they have these policies in place, and how they enforce them. Those policies are Instagram's community guidelines. They dictate which images stay up on the social media platform and which get taken down.

Instagram is pretty strict about things like nudity, which means art gets removed and artists get banned on the regular. I make photo-based art of nude bodies. So Joanne Leah's photography and account have been... It has been removed and censored a lot. And the meeting with Instagram was to talk about that censorship and the banning of one specific thing, female nipples. Today, we're diving into the controversial world of Instagram censorship.

And yeah, we're going to talk about female nipples. Because the impact of Instagram's nipple policy is much larger than you might think, affecting free expression, art, and identity. Censorship affects everybody. You know, if Instagram is telling you what kind of art you can look at or what kind of books you can read or what kind of podcasts you can listen to, why should they be telling you that? Why? Think about that for a second. Like, there's no reason a company, a corporation, should be telling anyone what they should and shouldn't look at, listen to, and read. Just a heads up here, we'll be talking about nudity and there's some swearing in this episode.

Okay? Okay. Joanne, Leah, you're an artist. What kind of art do you make? I make images of nude, mostly female, sometimes trans, sometimes male bodies using really bright colors inspired by fetishes and sexuality and sensuality. no undergarments. But there are genitals and sometimes nipples are covered in some way. The reason that is is because I have to post my images on social media because I'm an artist. And social media is very important for artists to be visible. That's the power that Instagram wields over artists.

The platform, which has more than one billion users, has a chilling effect. And Joanne makes decisions about her art based on what's acceptable on social media. My first account was removed in 2015, and I basically had to start over. It wasn't a huge account or anything, but it was devastating. You know, it felt horrible. So the body of work that I have now is a direct result from getting that account removed. So I started to wonder what I could get away with. So I was like, okay, I'm going to use bright colors. I'm going to cover different parts of the body. I'm going to make fake vaginas and like put them in front of real

vaginas and see what happens. You know, in my work, I try to cover up female nipples or any nipples, really. Or I see if the algorithm will tell the difference between a quote-unquote male and quote-unquote female nipple or anywhere in between. It's definitely made me self-censor my work quite a bit. What exactly are Instagram's community guidelines when it comes to nudity? No close-up images of human buttocks. No female nipples. I don't know how they can tell whose nipples are what gender, but... And no sexual acts in photography.

They do allow nudity in painting and sculpture. So Instagram specifically calls out so-called or what they determine to be female nipples. Correct. So you can put up a picture of what looks like the chest of a man and that will be just fine. Correct. But if it's what is perceived as being a woman's chest, that is not okay. Correct. So tell me about this meeting. Walk me through it. I can't tell you exactly who was there.

We had to sign a non-disclosure agreement saying that we wouldn't attribute any quotes to any specific person. I'm telling you that I was there, but I can't tell you who else was there unless I have their permission. They had a presentation that explained what their policies are, what their mission statement is, what their values are. So privacy, authenticity, safety, things like that. They went through all of the engineering and limitations, and then people started voicing their grievances pretty quickly and like offering ideas. I know one of the ideas was to have people control the content that they see.

So if they want to put a filter on their account that says, I don't want to see nudity, then they won't see nudity. Another idea was to have an image kind of have like a black film over it and you click on it if you want to see graphic imagery. I mean, I think it's coming down to people want to self-censor and not have Instagram tell them what they can and can't see. So what was Instagram's reaction to all of these suggestions? Their brains were kind of like going in circles a little bit, how they would achieve all of these things, if they're even possible to achieve.

But they were definitely open. I think it was a really good dialogue. During the meeting, did the issue of the female nipple policy, did that come up? McCall Hebron, an artist, activist, educator, she kept saying, how can you tell the difference between a male nipple and a female nipple? Why is a you tell the difference between a male nipple and a female nipple? Why is a female nipple different than a male nipple? And there was just no response at all. Instagram doesn't really have a response as to why they are determining whose nipples are male and whose nipples are female. Their only response is that it doesn't follow their guidelines. They made a comment about it not aligning with typical values. I'm not sure what they meant by that.

It was very vague. They basically blamed society. Correct. Let's say society broadly does not agree with seeing nipples that we deem to be female, and therefore that is unacceptable on our platform. Correct. Why was this meeting taking place now? Are you the reason that this meeting took place? I don't think that I'm the only reason,

and I strongly suggested that they hold a summit meeting. Yes. So I don't want to say that I was the only reason. I think I was a part of many reasons. Back in 2016, Joanne started a Change.org petition to stop Instagram from censoring art. More than a thousand signatures later, Facebook got in touch with her. Today, Joanne is basically an Instagram censorship whisperer. When an artist gets their post taken down, they reach out to her for help. And she contacts Facebook to get them to reconsider. That unofficial system is less than ideal. Joanne doesn't advertise the service, so you just have to be in the know.

But Instagram has had this nudity policy in place since it launched in 2010, and that's the best solution Joanne has been able to find so far. That's why this meeting with Instagram feels so significant. I think it's extremely significant. I mean, I also feel like they might start opening up like this to their users more often. They couldn't give us a deadline of when any of these things would be implemented, if at all. They did promise that the guidelines would evolve and would change, but they didn't say when and how. Here's the thing. Instagram isn't the internet. It's a prominent platform that means a lot to artists, but it's just one website. And companies

can do whatever they want when it comes to censoring speech and art on their platforms. That's entirely legal. But Instagram also depends on its users to keep going. So when a bunch of museums and artists with large followings say they want things to change, that's a problem for Instagram. One that it needs to balance against a bunch of other interests. When you let a platform run free, it gets taken over by

terrible people. So people will post pornography, they'll post a lot of extremely violent imagery, they'll interfere with our elections, and people will stop using the platform, right? It doesn't take too much terrible content on a platform to just drive people away. And of course, once you drive people away, then you drive advertisers away, and all of a sudden Instagram wouldn't have a business. That's Casey Newton. He's the Silicon Valley editor at The Verge, and he's reported a ton about Facebook moderation. Yeah, so if you ever see

something on Instagram that you don't think should be there, you can report the post. You tap a button. You're asked to specify why you don't think it should be on Instagram, right? Like, maybe you think it's pornographic or it's violent or it's bullying or it's spam. And then once you do that, it's sent to a content moderator at one of a couple dozen sites around the world. So an actual human being. Yeah. So the moderator is sitting at a computer and they have kind of Instagram's or Facebook's

policies up on one screen and then they have the of Instagram's or Facebook's policies up on one screen and then they have the post on another screen and then they review the post to see whether it meets the guidelines or not. And then there are a series of steps that they can take depending on whether it needs to be removed or whether it's more serious and they need to consider banning the account. And I've heard a lot of artists also sort of mention the word algorithm, right? Blaming an algorithm for flagging one of their images.

Is that happening on Instagram? They do use machine learning to try to catch policy violations before they're sent to human beings. So there's a good chance if you uploaded an image of like two people having sex, for example, that they would be able to recognize that using machine learning and flag that immediately. Where does the female nipple policy come from?

So they all started the same way at all the platforms, which is basically, initially it's done by the co-founder. Somebody posts something bad according to whatever the definition of bad is that the co-founder has, and they take it down. And then once they reach a certain size, they think, well, gosh, we should really write some rules down. And usually, one of the very first rules that people write down is no pornography, right? It's just very difficult to run an internet business that has porn on it if it's going to be an app in Apple's App Store in particular. And so, Facebook has long had anti-porn rules. And over the years, those have become much more detailed as far as, you know, what is considered appropriate versus inappropriate nudity. You know, in the United States, it is generally

not done to have naked female nipples on display. And it's like, it's culturally specific to America. I remember going to England as a kid and you pick up newspapers there and there's like a page three girl, which is like a topless woman. And I was like very scandalized by that as a 15 year old. So because we just have this sort of American cultural norm against female toplessness, that norm got turned into Facebook policy. Instagram is very much dependent on its users and the artists that populate it with beautiful images. What does the fact that this meeting took place at all, what does that tell you? I think Facebook as a company is responsive to public pressure. It is a communications medium, essentially.

And our norms for what is acceptable communication change over time, right? Society changes. Its values change. You know, when I was growing up, you couldn't say the word sucks out loud. I got in trouble for saying sucks at like a school assembly. So, you know, I think the overall trend is society kind of coarsens over time. It becomes more permissive over time. And so maybe this is a moment where Instagram is sort of rethinking some aspect of

that policy where maybe they think that there are ways that they can permit more art on the platform while still keeping porn off the platform. But it's a really tricky balance. That's really interesting because I feel like a lot of this debate comes down to what Instagram deems to be art or not art. Because it feels like right now we're having a discussion about art versus pornography. Yes, it is a very difficult question to answer. And Facebook finds itself in these kind of impossible philosophical debates all the time, right? You know, my kind of higher level issue

that I take with all of this is none of this would matter if Facebook and Instagram weren't so big and powerful, right? Like, if we had a dozen healthy social platforms where people could post their art, it wouldn't feel quite so fraught if, you know, one particular image couldn't be posted on Instagram. But because we don't have meaningful antitrust regulation in this country, the question of what Instagram thinks is art feels like weirdly super important. Because these platforms have gotten so large, we're now in this sort of unique position where we're trying to apply one standard to the entire world, right? Like one set of community guidelines to apply to 160 countries. And so it is not surprising that there has been a lot of conflict as a result. So far, we've mostly talked about how Instagram's censorship policies affect artists. But what if your body is the art?

That's after the break. to Reset from Recode and Vox, but it's coming in your Today Explained feed just this one time. I know it happened once before, but that was a Sunday. That was icing on the cake. This is the real deal. Hope you're enjoying the episode. And also while we're at it, let's just talk about telling friends about podcasts. Like if you're loving this Reset episode, tell your friends about it because they're probably looking for new podcasts to listen to. If you love Today Explained, which I know you do, tell your friends about the show. The election's one year away and we plan on kicking ass and taking names every single day until then, but not on the weekends, never on the weekends. Thank you for listening. Enjoy the rest of this episode of Reset. Talk to you soon there's another issue that came up a few times during the meeting with instagram

the misgendering of people who are trans and non-binary as a result of the female nipple policy that's why i contacted rain dove rain is a model who doesn't identify as any one gender uh my pronouns are just a sound to me. And all I'm listening for in that sound is positivity. So you can use whatever you want. He, she, it, one, they. You can use schmergen, flergen, chicken, fluff. I don't really care.

All I care about is the intentions that you have as a person. So you're a model, you're an artist, you're an activist. Have you ever had a picture of yourself banned or censored on Instagram? I definitely am a person who has had quite a few photos banned on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, and of accounts that got canceled. You know, my account used to be Rain Dove, and now it's Rain Dove Model, because my original account before my career took off was banned. What types of images of yourself tend to be banned or removed from Instagram? Those images tend to do with my body. Oftentimes my face doesn't

correlate with what you think would have a pair of double Ds or have certain curves. And my stature doesn't really reflect what people would think should be wearing the clothing that I wear or doing the things that I do. And the images that typically are banned are ones that are showing body fluids, any kind of like large amount of skin. One picture that comes to mind when thinking about your interactions with Instagram is an image of you topless drinking milk. Yes. I have seen multiple times that image get removed and then I've seen you repost it. Right. And every time you repost it, you have sort of a caption that says, hey, Instagram, I'm not violating your community

guidelines. I'm not a woman. Do you want to tell me about that approach? Yeah, of course. Well, the first thing is that I don't think that anyone should have to qualify their right to show their nipples based on if they're male or female. I think if one person is able to show their nipple, we should all be able to show our nipples. If one person is not able to show their nipples, then nobody should be able to show their nipples. And I believe that if you identify as a female, you should absolutely have the right to show your nipples 100%. But part of the reason why I do this tongue-in-cheek, hey, Instagram, this isn't against your guidelines, I'm not a woman, is because at the end of the day, like, Instagram is a business. And so they're operating within a certain parameter of guidelines.

And I, as a user, have gone on and assigned their user agreement. I agreed to their user agreement. We have a legally binding contract. And so I can hit them with feelings and be like, this doesn't feel right. But feelings don't always get things done because feelings aren't threats. But if you fight them with facts, it's not even fighting. It's just coming to the table with a fact. Like, I did sign this agreement. I'm not violating it. You're violating it. It makes them have to look back at that agreement and say, wow, maybe we're not as educated in this realm as we thought we were. We're going to have to evolve some of our ways of approaching the content that's posted on our page. But essentially, what Instagram is doing when it removes an image of you where you are topless is misgendering you. And I'm wondering, what impact has that had on you? How does that make you feel?

It's difficult. Because, you know, on one hand, I voluntarily signed up to be on Instagram. But at the other hand, Instagram does have a global reach. And you would hope that when they're dealing with so many people around the world, they would also deal with the complexities that make humans human, which is their iniquities and their expression. When people delete my image, it says to me that they're lazy, that they're not doing their homework,

that they think that standing up for what has always been is more valuable than standing up for me. And it's kind of a frustrating thing. It's like they're consistently agreeing with a narrative that I've had to experience all my life, which is that there's something wrong with me. That simply by existing freely and equally to other people and sharing the same amount of flesh, I'm harming people. I know that Instagram is a business. You can't blame them for wanting to be safe when you look at it from that business perspective. But I want to let them know that it is safe to allow me to be me online and that it's

not a risk to their business. And it's up to us to let them know that, like, it's actually incredibly safe and profitable to allow morals to go over money. So you are well known. You have a blue checkmark. You have a large following. What impact do you think these policies have on non-binary and trans individuals who don't have the voice that you have? When I look at the world of trans and non-binary individuals and people who have had top surgery and people like my friend Diamond, you know, they just really had top surgery. They had images really removed because they had, you know, C cup breasts. And then once they got pecs, it was the same nipple, the same nipple put onto their now flat chest. And suddenly they can now post topless photos. It's the same nipple, same exact thing. And it's frustrating. It can feel very dehumanizing. It can feel very much like I'm a transaction.

I'm not a person. Instagram met with a group of artists to discuss things like the female nipple policy. Right. And that meeting wasn't about how Instagram has been treating non-binary and trans individuals. How does that make you feel, you know, after having your own images be repeatedly removed from the platform, it's hard. I mean, I want to come at this and just be like, fuck them. Fuck them all. I want to be so mad at them and just be like, screw you.

I'm a person. I'm here. Like, you know, if somebody can share a certain amount of flesh, I can share a certain amount of flesh. Don't you realize that when somebody sees that they're not valid or when somebody sees that they can't pass or that they're not good enough for your system or that they're not being seen, they feel like maybe they're not worth being seen by anyone. And part of me just wants to be so mad and just be like, screw you, screw you, Instagram, screw you. I know, though, that we have to take that rage that we feel, that righteous rage. We need to tell them that we will be with them if they make these changes

to support a world that is equal. We need to let them know that we're asking them to step into unknown territory, which is to enter into a world of sociopolitics and to back us. And we need to let them know that we got them, that it's going to be okay, that they're not going to have to lay off thousands of employees because their app is going to crumble because they've decided to take a chance on us. But it's scary because all we are are just angry, you know?

And we need to not just be angry, we also need to be business people because we're dealing with a business. We're not dealing with a human being. We're dealing with a business that affects human beings. And we conflate it because it has such a big effect on our human experiences. We have to let them know that the world, more connected than ever, is evolving at a rate that has never happened before. And that if they don't get on this train to evolve with us, they're likely to be left behind. What do you and others stand to lose if these policies,

like the female nipple policy, don't change? In many ways, what Instagram is doing by playing it safe is they're being complicit to a society that says that we should be ashamed of the fact that we were born into a body that we did not choose, that we should be ashamed of the fact that we were born into a body that we did not choose, that we should be ashamed of our flesh. They have the power to save lives, to bring us into a world which accepts us on an equal footing, and they have the power to be complicit. And when they're being complicit, they're saying, we don't actually care about you. And sometimes a large entity that just says, I don't care,

tells the rest of the world that it's okay not to care either. Rain Dove is an artist, a model, model an actor and an activist rain thank you so much for joining me thank you very much for having me i was grateful to be here we reached out to instagram to get their take on all of this stephanie otway from facebook told us by email that instagram hasn't, quote, committed to any changes yet. When we asked if Instagram would do anything to prevent topless images of non-binary and trans folk from getting banned, Otway said that Instagram is a large platform and as a result,

it sometimes makes mistakes. Quote, we're always working to minimize these mistakes and the unintended hurt they can cause. That's it for today's episode of Reset. I'm Arielle Duemros, but you don't have to say it that way. If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can find me at ADRS. You can also reach the Reset team by emailing reset at vox.com. If you haven't already, subscribe to the pod. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or in your favorite podcast app.

And if you like what you hear, give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. It really helps. Skylar Swenson, Martha Daniel, and Will Reed produce the show. Our engineer is Eric Gomez. Golda Arthur is our executive producer. Liz Kelly Nelson is the editorial director of Vox Podcasts. The mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder composed our theme music. Reset is produced in association with Stitcher and we're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Later, nerds.