Is the end of nipple censorship on social networks nearing? Instagram and Facebook surrender to #FreeTheNipple

Los nipples could start to be well seen in Instagram and Facebook. Both social networks prohibit the publication of female bare breasts except on rare occasions related to health, actual motherhood, or artistic purposes. Every self-respecting influencer has had to deal with the censorship of Meta’s social networks and even see how her posts were deleted without prior notice.

This policy of prohibitions has led to the movement #Free The Nipple (freedom for the nipples) to which millions of people around the world have joined. Women have always considered this censorship is discriminatory treatment, since the prohibition falls exclusively on the female sex. Now, after years of complaints, Instagram and Facebook will review their protocols on nudity and They will give a verdict in March.

The content advisory council of Facebook and Instagram has seen the need to redefine its nudity policy. This department is responsible for ensuring that the regulations of these networks are equal and equitable for their users and is made up of academics, journalists and human rights defenders who operate independently. The council consider that there little transparency in the application of rules to intersex, non-binary and trans people since the algorithm often acts arbitrarily.

The complaint that has put Facebook and Instagram on the ropes

If it is now when Facebook and Instagram take the step, it is for a algorithm failure which led to the withdrawal of 2 posts by a trans person and another non-binary gender. It was an image in which the couple posed topless but with their breasts covered. They explained in this publication what superior surgery for the trans collective consisted of and the medical care they encountered.

Finally they claimed and Facebook reinstated his post but he could not prevent the barrage of criticism from the LGBTIQ + collective. The collective believes that Facebook contributes to the binary view of society and the patriarchal distinction between male and female bodies.

Many well-known faces have had to deal with the censorship of Instagram and Facebook to publicize their work or simply to share their images. These are some of them:

Pedro Almodovar

The poster for the movie ‘Madres Paralelas’ was removed from Instagram for explicitly showing a nipple. The Manchego director became a benchmark for the #Free the nipple movement, denouncing that he had not been able to publicize the poster for his film on this social network. His complaint was seconded by numerous faces in the world of culture and in the end Instagram recognized that it was for an artistic purpose and allowed the publication.

Madonna

The queen of tease has been censored on Instagram numerous times for posting her bare breasts. At 64, the American artist shared a photo session with her followers in her underwear in which a nipple was visible. Instagram censored the image and Madonna shared it again, this time with a heart that covered the nipple. She accompanied the images with a protest text in which she wondered why a woman couldn’t show her nipples and a man could.

Miley Cyrus

The artist has not only been against censorship but has tried to outwit it on many occasions, fed up with Instagram removing images of her breasts. In one of the sessions she got the social network to ‘swallow’ her breasts under a fishnet top that blurred her image. Cyrus has gone so far as to share the image of her nipple encouraging her followers to take screenshots before Instagram removed them from the account

Kylie Jenner

Kylie Jenner, the first woman to reach 300 million followers on Instagram, posted a photo wearing a bikini that mimicked the female chest. She accompanied the image with the tagline #Free the nipple’. In a few days the image accumulated 11 million ‘Likes’

Rigoberta Bandini

The singer claimed the woman’s chest with her song ‘Ay Mama’. In this topic, she said phrases like “I don’t know why our tits are so scary.” Instagram precisely censored the subtitle “tits” in this part of the lyrics by writing “t****”. The artist showed her rejection of this censorship with a story of condemnation

Leticia Dolera

The actress and activist in favor of women’s rights was a victim of censorship when she published a nude image of her friend, the actress Cecilia Freijeiro, on her Instagram account. It was the presence of a nipple that triggered the censorship alarms on Instagram, after which the actress re-uploaded the image with a small cross on the nipple and with the message sent by Instagram that says “your publication violates the community standards”.

Melanie Olivares

She is one of the homeland actresses who tests the Instagram algorithm the most for her nude posts. When she had her son, she did not hesitate to publish an image of her with a bare chest that was censored, years later she repeated the snapshot in Ibiza with her child and the social network acted in the same way: deleting the post. Finally, after many attempts, she managed to circumvent the censorship with an image of a full nude on a blurred background.