Social Media streams can be a minefield of appropriate and inappropriate content. What defines inappropriate though, at least for Instagram has been made more clear though now, with an update to their guidelines on nudity and harassment.
The updated community guidelines looks to make users understand what may or may not be considered harassment within users profiles, picture posts or comments. It also adds more specific details about what the social network may or may not consider images with nudity. The “don’t be rude” section of the guidelines has been completely rewritten now stating that
it’s never OK to encourage violence or attack anyone based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, disabilities, or diseases.
On the nudity side of things bare buttocks, genitals, “some photos of female nipples” and intercourse are strictly prohibited and are no-go for posts to your profile. However to further clear up an area where it has been a little grey on, images of breastfeeding and mastectomy scarring are now allowable.
The company has further stated that there will be times when it will have to remove photos of partially or completely nude children from the service for obvious safety reasons. It will be interesting to see what certain photographers (and certain other parts of the community) might think of these new guidelines, given there are a few that have amassed massive followings by displaying pictures of either bare butts or breasts.
It might be worth heading over to the Instagram Community Guidelines page to get to know the new rules and see what you might think of them.
