The ‘Not-Naked’ Calendar of Images That Instagram Tried to Censor
December 1, 2023Queer collectives Slagland and Quench are selling a “not naked calendar” for 2024 to get back at Instagram’s slapdash, dodgy approach to censoring sexual content. Made in collaboration with sex workers, pole dancers and queer nightlife organisers, the point is to highlight the inequality of Meta’s censorship rules and content policy, as each one of the photos in the calendar has been censored by Instagram – despite many of them looking pretty PG and, you know, the lack of actual genitals on show.
These collectives argue there’s a disparity in how Meta treats different types of sexual content, and so, despite IG deplatforming these workers, the calendar gives “a tangible physical space to share in the queer joy that has been hidden from social media”.
“Censorship is on the rise,” they argue, pointing to “at least 45 sexuality-related accounts removed from Instagram this summer”. Further worsening the situation is the Online Safety Bill in the UK which passed last year and basically “criminalised advertising sex work online”.
There are over a dozen sex-positive and queer people and collectives in the calendar, including Kitty Velour, Ivy Maddox, Unruly Affair, Leila Davis and Riposte London. “An online presence is important to me for my work, a lot of my collaborators and people who hire me reach me through my online platforms,” Leila Davis, the company director of Blackstage Pole, says. “Being deplatformed will literally harm me by stopping me from earning a living, and stopping me from reaching and engaging my community on matters that harm us.”
“I’m a Black, queer femme,” Davis adds. “Historically we’ve always been censored, we’ve always been silenced. You rarely hear or read about us in history because despite doing the most, we are the least protected, least appreciated, least recognised. So in keeping with the historical oppression of Black women, I’ll always be targeted more than the white girlies.”
Their case is just one example of the severe repercussions the censorship is having, with many workers seeing their ability to earn, be themselves or build community severely affected. There’s sometimes no rhyme or reason to Instagram’s oddly conservative – yet, for certain creators, wildly liberal – approach to censorship.
“The lack of transparency in Instagram’s rules means that not all accounts are censored equally: Users with millions of followers can share entirely naked photos, trolls can send dick pics, alt-right content can flourish and bots can help sway elections, but a fat Black woman can’t pose in her bikini,” write the people behind Slagland and Quench.
Quench founder Lily tells VICE: “Online spaces are immeasurably important, especially for communities outside of what society says is ‘acceptable’. We can proudly tell stories through our own narratives and celebrate our people with unfiltered passion — until we are silenced, censored and inevitably deleted.”
“To exist safely on mainstream media we’re forced to filter — sex becomes s3x, kink becomes k!nk, bodies are blurred. Who gets to decide who can be seen online? Censorship forces us to be who we are not. We want our existence to be acknowledged, we want to be seen.”
The calendar comes with an open letter, which argues for more transparency from Meta, as well as “a person-centred appeals process”. All profits from the calendar will be donated to NE Spicy Coffee Collective, a sex worker organization. So come on Meta, sort it out, for fuck’s sake.
