Alphachanneling

Medium: 3 image carousel post : Colored Pencil on Paper

Censored by: Instagram

Date of censorship: February 3, 2021

Was there notification of removal? If so, what was the reason given? Nudity/Sexual Activity.

Was there the opportunity to appeal? If so, did you appeal and what was the response?
No opportunity to appeal.

What, if any, were the consequences of the removal for you?: 
The main consequence is the continued threat of accumulating too many violations and getting deleted off instagram. IG’s guidelines are vague and ambiguous, and often contradictory. Instagram is such a wonderful platform to connect people to art and ideas and it’s unfortunate that it’s simultaneously such a threatening and insecure environment where artists are always at risk of having their accounts shut down, and not because of overstepping any clear and defined boundary. These communities of artists, curators and art appreciators are like castles made of sand that can disappear overnight, entire histories of posts, comments and discussions erased just like that.

Instagram is now filtering content that they categorize as 18+ and only showing that content to accounts that have entered in birthdates in their account profile. This is a good thing but the unfortunate side is that the majority of accounts prior to those who just recently joined never had to enter a birthday when they signed up, and therefor, a huge amount of my following and other creative accounts similar to mine are no longer seeing published content without understanding why that is or that there is even missing content. I wish the 18+ settings were communicated to the users of the platform rather than the shadow-ban method of secretly removing posts. It is a reminder that we are blind to the way our voices are mediated by the platform and algorithms. Even with the 18+ filters, the above post was removed for some reason.

Artist Website: alphachanneling.com

Artist Instagram: @alphachanneling