I would like to call out those who are the monitors, for lack of a better word, of Instagram. You know, the ones who have the power to shut down Instagram accounts deemed “inappropriate”? Either you need to sharpen your game, or you need to get a better public relations team. Although I strongly prefer the first option, I suppose the choice is yours. On Sept. 27, the Instagram account @allwomanproject was shut down due to violating terms, according to a Refinery 29 article. In case you are unfamiliar with this account (and in all honesty, I was, too, until I came across this story), it is essentially an Instagram account that promotes body positivity for women. It shows raw photos of women of various body types, all of whom are clothed, and …show more content…
Instagram has users of all ages, so I completely get the need to be wary of nude and other inappropriate graphics. That being said, I’m also not an advocate of censorship, so, although I would still want Instagram to interfere when an account is deemed offensive, maybe there is a way to simply limit the access of younger Instagram users to more inappropriate accounts. That, however, is a conversation for another time. Not long after its shut down, @allwomanproject was reactivated, and, as said in the Refinery 29 article, an Instagram rep said the mistake was caused by a spam filter error. Sure, that could be, but, as highlighted by the article, this is not the first time that Instagram has disabled an account that highlights the female body. To me, it just seems all too coincidental. I think that social media is a means that can seriously harm body positivity. It is detrimental in that it provides easy access to images that an insecure person might compare himself/ herself with. It is harmful in that it allows people to use filters and other editing techniques that warp photos into an unrealistic depiction. The amount of likes a person gets on an image becomes like a popularity contest, and if you don’t get enough, you might feel