With great powers come great responsibilities. Instagram recently took it upon themselves to voluntarily delete accounts they believe to be spam or inappropriate, but have they taken things too far already? According to recent reports, Instagram took it upon itself to delete the accounts of hundreds of porn stars, just out of the blue!
In the numbers of hundreds of porn stars and many sex workers have had their Instagram accounts deleted this year out of nowhere. According to stats collected by Ms. Evans Group, a list of approximately 1300 people, who are a part of the porn industry, came out who claimed to have had their accounts deleted by Instagram.
The artists have vehemently lashed back at this uncalled-for step and declared that it’s downright discrimination. They believe that they are being held to different standards in comparison to a celebrity because of their working choice. Alana Evans, president of the Adult Performers Actors Guild, said: “I should be able to model my Instagram account on Sharon Stone or any other verified profile, but the reality is that doing that would get me deleted”.
According to Instagram, they had to get rid of the said accounts due to violation of community guidelines but many account holders have claimed that despite their posted content being totally under the guidelines of the site and being nowhere near to the criteria of NSFW, still, they face censors. Even if their posts contain little to no nudity, these account holders are greeted with downright humiliating and discriminatory censorship.
Many adult performers have claimed that in 2018 an individual or a group of individuals started a campaign to report the accounts of the victims. Ginger Banks was one of the first victims of this campaign and suffered a severe backlash in the form of abusive and hate comments. Bank believes it’s another way to make their community feel marginalized because of the work they do.