Adult performers protested Instagram’s nudity guidelines yesterday

Sex workers and adult film professionals protested wrongful termination at Instagram’s headquarters.

Adult performers have taken an #instaSTRIKE straight to IG’s Silicon Valley doorstep where they picketed the company for what they say is its wrongful termination of sex workers’ accounts.

Adult performers protested Instagram’s nudity guidelines yesterday

Other users — including artists and various activists — say they’ve been affected by the platform’s arbitrary removal system as well.

2-4-6-8-Instagram’s act-ing opaque 

According to The Guardian, the protestors said the guidelines currently in place are “opaque” and inconsistent, with little explanation for why accounts are removed.

According to James Felton, legal counsel of the Adult Performers Actors Guild, 1k adult professionals have had their Instagram accounts banned that didn’t contain any nude material at all. And that’s just 2019 so far.

Hi. People make their living on the internet now

As Instagram — a service with over 1B users, and an influencer market expected to reach as high as $2.3B by 2020 — grows, grading systems (inconsistent or not) have very large consequences for a very large, and growing, group of people.

And IG isn’t the only one playing fast and loose with people’s financial fate: Facebook and Twitter have also had their share of wrongful termination controversies (Twitter just gained a competitor because of it).

This time, collective bargaining came through

By yesterday afternoon, the Adult Performers Actors Guild tweeted an update, saying the march was a success.

According to the APAG, Instagram agreed to reinstate deleted accounts from a list provided by the union.

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