Why Social Media’s Confusing Nudity Policies Are Problematic for Creators

Social media has the most confusing and arbitrary policies on what constitutes adult content. If you don’t want to have your account deleted for posting fully clothed people, you need to understand these rules.

Nudity policies on social media are actually very important. They keep platforms like Instagram from turning into sites like Model Mayhem. However, those policies are only effective when they are clear and applied with consistency. Here are some examples of images that I have recently tried to use in paid promotions on Instagram and that have been rejected for violating Instagram’s community guidelines on nudity and sexual activity to illustrate the confusing nature of these policies:

Pictures of fully clothed women in ads that were rejected by Instagram

Instagram’s Nudity Policy Only Allows a Visible Anus if It Is Photoshopped on a Public Figure

When my images were rejected, I was given a link to review the community guidelines so that I could understand why my content was not allowed. Under Instagram’s policy for nudity and sexual activity, it has some content that it does not allow under any circumstances, and other content that is age-restricted. The policy goes on to describe how they define nudity and how they define sexual activity. The definition of nudity includes the following confusing clause:

“Real nude adults, where nudity is defined as: …Visible anus and/or fully nude close-ups of buttocks unless Photoshopped on a public figure.”

From a grammatical standpoint, it’s not clear if the “Photoshopped on a public figure” part pertains to the visible anus and the fully nude close-ups of buttocks, or just the fully nude close-up of buttocks. The other problem is that it’s not clear what that sentence even means. Does that mean that we can post a fully nude close-up shot only if it is a public figure and only if we liquify or use frequency separation or put a gradient map on it? Or does that mean that we can Photoshop fully nude close-up buttocks onto a public figure? If it is a zoomed-in fully nude close-up buttocks Photoshopped on a public figure, how would they know that it is the buttocks of a public figure? Instagram’s help page says that it uses the blue verified badges to identify public figures. Why is the community a safer place if it can only see the visible anuses and fully nude close-up buttocks of people with blue checkmarks? How does this make any sense?

Instagram Will Allow, With an Age Restriction, Any Sexual Activity if It’s Funny

The Nudity and Sexual Activity Policy further describes content that it will allow, but it will be restricted to adults. That clause includes the following language:

“We only show this content to individuals 18 and older: …Digital content that meets our definition of sexual activity, where:…The content was posted in a satirical or humorous context.”

Under this policy, users are allowed to post content that meets the definition of sexual activity (defined as “Explicit sexual intercourse, defined as mouth or genitals entering or in contact with another person’s genitals or anus, where at least one person’s genitals are nude.”) if there is a funny context. Again, we are not given very much explanation on how to invoke this example or what it means, but under Instagram’s own guidelines, you can post actual hardcore pornography if it is funny or there is some kind of funny backstory.

YouTube’s Nudity Policy Prohibits Fully Clothed Buttocks If the Fully Clothed Buttocks are Sexy

Here is the image that I recently had taken down from YouTube. Granted, it is slightly more provocative than the Instagram images, but it is still a fully-clothed woman cropped just around her head, just standing and staring into the camera.

Here is what YouTube said:

Again, I was given a link to review the guidelines on nudity and sexual activity. YouTube offers the following guidelines to creators on nudity and sexual activity:

“Explicit content featuring the below policy violations could result in channel termination: Depiction of genitals, breasts, or buttocks (clothed or unclothed) for the purpose of sexual gratification.”

As with Instagram, YouTube’s confusing grammar makes it unclear if creators are not allowed to post depictions of clothed genitals, breasts, or buttocks, or if the clothed/unclothed clarification only pertains to the buttocks. Regardless, there is either an algorithm or a Google employee in charge of determining whether YouTube videos contain fully clothed buttocks that are for the purpose of sexual gratification to send out emails like the one above.

YouTube Does Not Allow Videos of Kissing that Could Lead to Intercourse or Eating for Sexual Gratification

Google also provides a list of more examples of things that are not allowed, including: 1) kissing in a way that invites sexual activity, or 2) everyday scenarios such as getting injections or eating for the purpose of sexual gratification. I’m not sure what it means to eat for the purpose of sexual gratification, except for maybe eating Velveeta in bed with your wife in a hotel?

The Confusing and Arbitrary Nature of the Rules Is a Problem for Creators

Instagram uses an algorithm for determining which of your followers get to see your content and whether people who don’t follow you can see your content with hashtags or on the explore page. In a recent interview, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri, wrote a blog post entitled “Shedding More Light on How Instagram Works.” In his post, he touched on shadowbanning and how the algorithms work. Or are supposed to work:

“We also hear that people consider their posts getting fewer likes or comments as a form of “shadowbanning”. We can’t promise you that you’ll consistently reach the same amount of people when you post. The truth is most of your followers won’t see what you share, because most look at less than half of their Feed. But we can be more transparent about why we take things down when we do, work to make fewer mistakes – and fix them quickly when we do – and better explain how our systems work. We’re developing better in-app notifications so people know in the moment why, for instance, their post was taken down, and exploring ways to let people know when what they post goes against our Recommendations Guidelines. We’ll have more to share soon, and we’ll also go more in-depth on these topics in this series.”

The “Recommendation Guidelines” referenced in the last sentence can be found on this page. It states:

We also try to not recommend accounts that: 1. Recently violated Instagram’s Community Guidelines. (This does not include accounts that we otherwise remove from our platforms for violating Instagram’s Community Guidelines.) 2. Repeatedly and/or recently shared content we try not to recommend.

So, when you post content and it is determined that it violates the poorly-drafted and confusing community guidelines described above, there is a period of time that Instagram hides your content from the explore page and from showing up for people who follow your hashtags. The result is a complete lack of certainty of whether your account will be punished and demoted for any type of content that contains women if the woman is wearing jeans that fully cover her buttocks but her buttocks is for sexual gratification. Or if you post a video of a woman kissing in a way that could later lead to sex. Or if you post a hardcore pornography scene that is not funny enough to meet the guidelines. Or if you post fully nude close-up buttocks of a celebrity, but you edit it in Luminar instead of Photoshop.

The rules make no sense. As Adam Mosseri explained, they don’t even have a system in place right now to let you know what you did to have your content not recommended to other accounts. After many years, they are finally working on letting people know when they break a rule and are secretly punished with an unexplained drop in engagement and reach for an undetermined amount of time.

The first step is to come up with some clear guidelines, not this clown porn blue checkmark buttocks mishmash of words. The next step is to find a way to consistently apply the rules. The third step is to give clear notifications to users which content penalizes their account and how long that penalty lasts. If you want users to use less content that you don’t want on your platform, you have to let them know when they violate the rules and what the punishment is.