Facebook and Instagram definitely have a problem with nudity. While the magazine Télérama has just released its new issue "Why do we reject the fat? ”, Devoted to this phenomenon now known as grossophobia, the magazine and the front page model have had their Instagram accounts suspended. This is DJ and LGBT activist Leslie Barbara Butch, posing nude for photographer Jérôme Bonnet.
“The algorithms of Facebook and Instagram, do not like nudity, even when it is not pornographic […] The photo of Leslie Barbara Butch shows neither sex, nor nipple, obviously, but a lot of skin. Too much, apparently, for social networks, "says Telerama reporter Thomas Bécard on the magazine's website.
Content "withdrawn by mistake" according to Instagram
He recalls that the magazine page had already been suspended "a few hours" after sharing an article talking about "Origin of the world", the painting by Gustave Courbet, representing the sex of a woman lying naked on a bed.
Asked by Télérama, a spokesperson for Instagram France said: “We want Instagram to be an inclusive place where everyone feels comfortable enough to be themselves. The content was removed in error and we are sorry. He has since been restored. This does not solve the problem of other censored Internet users.
Account suspended for 24 hours
For the LGBT activist, the account was suspended for 24 hours before being reinstated abruptly, "only because she had an acquaintance at Instagram France," reports Télérama. The magazine also reports several threats of censorship received by readers who wanted to share the cover on Facebook.
To counter social media censorship, Leslie Barbara Butcha launched the hashtag #barbarabutchchallenge to encourage subscribers to share the coverage in question. The successful writer and feminist Virginie Despentes posed herself with the magazine in her hands.
#BarbaraButchChallenge
Unpleasantly shared by this wave of indignation and support for the grossophobic censorship of Instagram on the cover of Télérama, I have two or three words to say to the allies of the fight against grossophobia: thread 👇 pic.twitter .com / asdSA8BgMs
Anti-grossophobia activist Gabrielle Deydier, also reacted on Facebook: “There are thousands of photos of top less girls (hidden nipples) which are not censored. This difference in treatment is unjust, marked by morality and grossophobia. The invisibilization of large bodies will not prevent these large bodies from existing. "
Activism to change mentalities
In its internal regulations, the social network of a billion subscribers, specifies that it does not allow nudity: "This includes photos, videos and other digital content presenting sexual intercourse, genitals or close-ups fully exposed buttocks. This also includes some photos of female nipples. "
DJ Leslie Barbara Butch seems to be used to such censorship on Instagram: "Here again is my censored body in this photo that I had put into story," she wrote last Tuesday in a post, adding feeling " really tired of all this. " She had already raised the problem twice in January on the social network.
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Calls to thwart the anti-nudity policy of Instagram and its parent company Facebook are frequently made on social networks. In 2015, Internet users had already created the hashtags “#Curvy”, then “#Curvee”, to encourage women with generous curves to post photos of them. Instagram had already cracked down.
Leslie Barbara Butch became known to the Parisian LGBT community from 2013. In a portrait that Liberation devoted to her last summer, she explained her activism against grossophobia: “It's a way of showing that dykes and the large ones exist behind the plates. I never saw my body as something that would keep me from moving forward. On the contrary: no matter your body, whether it is valid or not, whether it is thin or not, you have the right to live normally without being humiliated and without injunction to good health. "