Milena Guberinic
Medium: Watercolor and liquid charcoal
Censored by: Instagram
Was there a notification of removal or downranking, and if so what was the reason given?: No notification was given. I simply noticed that anything new I was posting over the course of a few weeks (even when they were just portraits) was getting a small fraction of the interaction and likes my posts typically got. When I checked my account status, I noticed that FIVE of my paintings were flagged as "explicit". I am sharing one of those here.
What date was your artwork removed or downranked?: March 22, 2022
Were you given an opportunity to appeal? If so, did you appeal, and if so, what was the response?: Yes. I appealed a week ago and there has been no response. I also sent a message to the help center and got no response for 5 days (despite the fact that I pay for Instagram verified and responses are supposed to take 24 hours). After 5 days, I sent another email to the help center. They then asked me to take screenshots of the problem, as though they did not even see that I had appealed 5 of my paintings being flagged as "sexually explicit or suggestive" or sent an email already.
What consequences have you faced as a result of the downranking or removal? Please describe in detail: *I am sick and disabled. I have serious autoimmune illness, which causes multiple organ problems, massive fatigue, brainfog, joint pain, as well as carpal and cubital tunnel syndrome, all of which limit my ability to play the hellscape merry-go-round Instagram seems to love to unleash on its users. I paid for verified status from a very limited income in order to alleviate some potential stress of using the app (as stress causes flares), but that has not seemed to help at all. I created the series of figure paintings that were censored in order to express the pain and isolation of living with chronic illness. I pixelated breasts and made the paintings quite abstract. Instagram made them invisible regardless. This only validated all the feelings of anxiety, self-doubt, anger, pain, and isolation that I was trying to use the paintings to release. The censorship made me feel invisible, unwanted, and unworthy. It made me doubt my ability as an artist and the worthiness of my pursuit. I had just embarked on a series of paintings I was passionate about presenting to the world and helping others to see what it was like to live with chronic illness in what I thought was a beautiful way, but Instagram said no.
*On top of all of this, my physical limitations mean that I have very limited income. Limiting my visibility to fellow artists, potential students, and collectors, is limiting my ability to continue to pay to eat and live in my home. I have also been an International Brand Ambassador for a reputable paint company for only a short amount of time. I am terrified of what this censorship will do to my relationship with them going forward.
*Finally, the censorship has caused such a massive storm of emotion that sent me into a flare of my autoimmune disease, so I've been barely able to sleep or function for the past week. I will have to start taking stronger medication in order to deal with this, which will create more problems.
Please write any additional comments: *In addition to the whirwind of anxiety, potential lost income and connections, and negative emotion that Instagram's censorship causes, delegating the censorship to an ALGORITHM feels dehumanizing. Are we not better than pushing each other down by an automated process? If you have such "powerful" AI, can you not prevent the sex spam bots from being spawned in the first place? The whole of Instagram and the Meta suite feels like a shambles of reactionary algorithmic stupidity.
*Also, there was absolutely nothing explicit or sexual about any of the posts that triggered this shadowban, and especially not the one that I am sharing here today. One of the posts was actually flagged as "explicit" previously, but cleared within 2 hours when I made an appeal. The flagging was announced to me in the app. I immediately appealed, and was cleared within 2 hours. My appeal on these latest 5 paintings, which includes the one that was previously cleared, has gone nowhere over the past week. Again, this is despite having paid for the verified program for just about the past year.
*I've included the post of the original painting without redacted areas and the EXACT redacted Instagram post that was flagged as explicit. I have also attached screenshots of the problem in my Account Status area on Instagram.
Website: http://www.milenaguberinic.com/
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/milenaguberinic.art
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/milena.guberinic/