Transcript of Video Plus a bit of Extra Information
Today I am going to be looking into censorship on Facebook and Instagram in particular. Shadow banning and the banning of artists and life model’s accounts.
A shadow ban on Instagram is a ban which is unofficial and restricts an account’s visibility and bans some of its content. Artists are having work banned and shadow banned for going against community guidelines when no infringement has occurred.
Basically the portraying of the naked body by artists in drawings and paintings is supposed to be within the guidelines and rules. However these AI bots seem to have taken on a life of their own and are banning artists work left, right and centre.
Here is some of Lena Meyer’s work she is @l.kunstmeyer on Instagram.
As you can see these are beautiful simple line drawings with nothing in the remotest about them that they could be mistaken for being a photograph of a naked person or even indecent in anyway. This post was banned by Facebook for being sexual.
The second post I am showing you is by an artist called Michael Duggan who is @mikeduggan2020 on Instagram
As you can see, this is fairly abstract in style and could no way be mistaken or interpreted as a nude photograph or even indecent . This was again banned by Facebook for sexual content.
However, the piece de resistance has to be the banning of Nina Thorgeirsdottir’s work on Instagram. Nina is @sansuna.art on Instagram but has also opened up an account @zanuna.art for fear of having her original account closed. Nine was very inventive and after her original versions of drawings were banned for sexual content, Nina made cut out fig leaves and placed the over what AI bots my have seen as being the ‘offending regions’ And reuploaded the doctored versions
Instagram only saw fit to ban these too for sexual content! It would be laughable if it didn’t have such a big impact on artists being able to publicise their work and themselves. And once they get you in their sights, they keep banning your content again and again, I know of an artist who had 5 works banned and managed to get them reinstated, only to have 5 more banned almost immediately. This to me shows that the AI bots are out of control and need putting back to factory settings, but something needs doing that is for sure.
Also the life models are being treated horrendously. They are meticulous in doctoring their promotional photos to blank out any nipples and nether regions, so as to make sure they keep within community guidelines. Yet many of them are having their accounts on Instagram terminated all the time and having to set up new ones.
The worst case I have heard of is that of the life model Mariana @mar_artmodel on Instagram. Here is a painting I have done of her which also features on my homepage of this website
‘The reference photograph that I used for this painting, was published on Mariana’s Instagram ,with her nipples removed in photoshop. so a not to offend the bots. Despite Mariana doctoring her photographs meticulously, she has had 5 accounts on Instagram terminated!
To combat this censorship I have set up a petition on Change.org .
Please click on link below and sign and share the petition
Thank you for any help and support re stopping this censorship of the arts