Jessa Fairbrother
Medium: Hand embroidered photograph
Censored by: Instagram
Was there a notification of removal and if so what was the reason given?:
It was shadow-banned, twice, under the guidelines of nudity, for this specific image. But on-off for many images throughout my account.
What date were you censored?: September 19, 2023
Were you given an opportunity to appeal? If so, did you appeal and what was the response?:
I was. I could press the button. Every time I did, it would take a few days then it would appear the "appeal" button had been re-activated, so I could press it again. What that suggested to me was technology looked at it but didn't remove the shadow-ban. So I would press the 'appeal' button each time it became available. After about 7 times - and well over a week - the shadow-ban was removed. I assumed that time it was looked at by an actual person. About three days later, the same post was then shadow-banned again, and I'd not touched it. This time it was shadow-banned for a few days and I pressed the 'appeal' button twice.
What have the consequences been for you because of this removal? Please describe in best detail.:
It was incredibly frustrating because I needed to publish dates for a workshop and other events that I had coming up, but my account was virtually invisible to anyone who didn't already follow me, as I was not shown Explore page. This meant my engagement started to drop overall even amongst my regular followers. Several times I’ve geared up to do something, like the Artist Support Pledge, because I need to bring in some more income, and just as I’m about to do it I discover I’m shadow-banned - so there’s no point because my engagement will be really low. I want to do a Kickstarter (or similar) next year to raise money to make a book, but the whole point of those type of fund-raising efforts is promotion on social media to gather pledges by pointing to your fundraising page. If I’m shadow-banned for no apparent reason it will make it significantly harder.
Please write additional comments:
This is a post which shows a photograph of my back, embroidered. I had become ingenious at making custom 'censors' which seemed to work for a while, cutting out pseudo-pants to put on the figure. Originally I thought this was in 'an abundance of caution'. It turns out it wasn't anywhere near 'enough'!!
My attention is sapped by how time consuming this is. It affects my professional life because it takes up so much time. I can’t ‘grow’ my account. My followers only really go up substantially when I do a take-over on someone else’s account. On a day to day basis I can’t share on social media in the same way other artists can who do not make work including the naked body… It’s not even about compliance with arbitrary rules because they change all the time. What might be fine one minute isn’t the next. It is so clearly aimed at certain types of content - overwhelmingly content that contain women’s bodies which are naked, regardless of what the purpose is of that nakedness. It could be about sexuality, or pregnancy, it could be vulnerability, it could be about health. The algorithm doesn’t know how to distinguish (we even talk about ‘the algorithm’ like it’s a person now). It cannot distinguish between sex, sexuality, object and objectification.
And all those 'Hacks' that get pushed that are supposed to drive your engagement? None of them will work if you are shadow-banned. It's literally impossible.
Your website: http://www.jessafairbrother.com
Your Instagram: http://@jessafairbrother