Monday November 8, 2021; 12:27 PM EST
- One of the reasons I've been thinking about Facebook today is that Instagram blocked a post of mine yesterday and it really pissed me off. #
- Instagram, for me, has been a rare bright spot in going online over the past few years. Not due to anything the company has done really but because I have some kind and generous friends and colleagues on there who send positive vibes (or at least "likes", haha) when I post pictures, mostly of my kids.#
- Instagram seems to have created a positive space, with its focus on pictures and, admittedly, with some of its UI decisions. A positive space at least for some users, like me.#
- Anyway Instagram decided a picture of my 4 and 7 year olds shirtless in public in Brooklyn was unacceptable nudity and blocked it. I clicked some "appeal" button then immediatley posted a picture of a note, telling my friends I would be deleting my account soon because of this.#
- I then did some digging into Facebook's "community guidelines" and found that technically I did break the rules! You are not allowed to post any "uncovered female nipple" from a child. Even for a 4 and 7 year old outside on a summer day cooling off the way boys are free to do. I find that sexist and dumb.#
- Then an unexpected thing happened, the appeal worked basically instantly and my photos went up. So I sheepishly deleted my "I'm leaving Instagram" note, calculating that I get a little more emotionally out of Instagram, as of today, than it drains from me.#
- The next day I got a nice Instagram mention from my fitness instructor, who I think is just great.#
- What a melodrama! I resent even that I care enough to write a post like this. I hate being in the position of having to care what a corporation thinks about a picture I took of my kid in public. I hate that we as users have to constantly do cost/benefit calculations about whether it's worth the humiliations doled out by so many big platforms. Do I quit Amazon because they censored the review where I said "this [cheap] caviar is great but turned my poop blue"? (True story!) Do I quit Apple because they might report me to the cops for that same picture of my kids, if and only if I have iCloud Photo turned on? Do I use Amazon Web Services even though they were among the first to sell out Julian Assange?#
- Anyway, all this is a way of saying, if a worthwhile effort comes along to make an open nice version of Instagram, I'm definitely helping out. How hard can it be? :-) #