Photo sharing service Instagram has rolled out a significant update to its community guidelines to take on online harassment and pornography.
The updated guidelines now clearly detail content which is allowed or banned by the social network. While Instagram allows for posting of breastfeeding and photos of nude paintings and sculptures, it bans more sexually explicit content. The company said it may also remove images that show nude or partially nude children for safety reasons.
“We know that there are times when people might want to share nude images that are artistic or creative in nature, but for a variety of reasons, we don’t allow nudity on Instagram. This includes photos, videos, and some digitally-created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks. It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed. Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, too,” read Instagram’s new guidelines.
“We remove content that contains credible threats or hate speech, content that targets private individuals to degrade or shame them, personal information meant to blackmail or harass someone, and repeated unwanted messages. We do generally allow stronger conversation around people who are featured in the news or have a large public audience due to their profession or chosen activities.”
Commenting on the change, Instagram director of public policy Nicky Jackson Colaco said “In the old guidelines, we would say ‘don’t be mean.'”
“Now we’re actively saying you can’t harass people. The language is just stronger.”
The announcement comes weeks after the picture-sharing site faced criticism for removing a picture of a woman whose pants featured a splatter of blood.
