Of Nudes, a Peeled Orange, and a Loaf of Challah

For artists and art institutions who have come to rely on social media as integral to outreach, the whimsies of Instagram are more than an annoyance. Instagram began as an app for photo sharing and has become a world marketplace with well north of a billion users. More than a few of the site’s regular users are artists looking to sell their work and promote workshops and exhibitions. If your history with galleries has been fitful, it offers the promise of a free alternative. But as with most seemingly free things, there are strings attached. There are spurious accounts, eye catching reels and scammers to wade through, while attempting to carve out a lane in the unmarked superhighway of artwork where children, dilettantes, wannabes, and developing talent vie for bandwidth with established artists. Not least, there are the limitations imposed by Instagram itself.

When I opened an account and began posting to Instagram in the winter of 2016, I thought the only limitation was format, since an image that strays too far from square gets cropped. The first few years were pretty good. I sold a major piece to a movie star and amassed an unexpectedly large following; I didn’t understand my good fortune any more than I understood anything about the site’s mechanics, but soon my work was more popular in Tehran and Moscow than New York. Then the pandemic broke in the spring of 2020, and the reach of my posts expanded dramatically, bringing a lot of new followers. It was an awful time in the real world, but there was consolation online.

By the autumn of 2020, the faucet shut off without warning, and my reach diminished tenfold. I watched a webinar hosted by Dina Brodsky, an artist of rock star level influence on the site, and learned that Instagram’s complex algorithms were being programmed to emulate the success of TikTok, the Chinese app that specializes in videos. If Instagram was going to play catch up, then we would have to start posting short reels, preferably of a style and content that appeals to teenagers. They’re not traditionally a big art-buying demographic.

I was already familiar with the term “shadow-ban,” which is what happens when the reach of a post is severely restricted. Nobody tells you this is happening, nor the reason. Reading the metrics of my (now business) account, it seemed like I was getting shadow-banned a lot. Unlike some artists who posted nude figurative art, my posts were never deleted outright; they were just quietly suppressed. Another unexpected event: for a week or two, my account was blocked, every other day. It was bizarre—all of a sudden, I couldn’t see my account or communicate with anyone. After about twenty-four hours, access was restored, but the next day I was blocked again. This loop of block/unblock happened about five times. There was never an explanation, and it seemed either like punishment for some mysterious transgression or a computer glitch. In retrospect, it was probably the artificial intelligence of the site finding its footing and reacting, in a new punitive fashion, to figure posts. As with everything that happens on the app, what’s really going on is anyone’s guess. But some guesses are more educated than others.

Don’t Delete Art, an agency that advocates for free artistic expression on social media, summarizes the issue:

Overly restrictive and unclear community guidelines, along with vague definitions as to what counts as “objectionable” material, routinely erase art from search functions, explore functions, and hashtags. Algorithmic errors result in the removal of work, in account deletion, suppression of reach, and in loss of followers. Appeals processes are difficult, protracted, and often ineffective.

In the past few weeks my online kvetching on the matter prompted comments from other Instagram users who have had similar experiences. Some of them, with varying degrees of seriousness, have conflated Instagram’s opaque policies with the agenda of puritanical reactionaries, as in the recent resignation of a principal after a picture of Michelangelo’s David was shown to young students. There was a fair amount of grumbling about fascism and Big Brother. That Insta’s policies are easily lumped together with the current tide of conservative legislation is understandable, given the site’s aversion to transparency. The truth likely has more to do with legal accountability than moral judgment. Emma Shapiro, Editor-At-Large of Don’t Delete Art, wrote to me:

Social media companies (like Meta, for instance) have long ignored artists and creators who demand more nuance in how guidelines are applied to art, instead claiming that lack of manpower and faulty AI are to blame. In reality, social media companies are increasingly wary of imagery that could be deemed sexually illicit, as regulations such as FOSTA-SESTA have made them liable for any sexually illicit imagery on their platforms.

Shapiro accuses Instagram of gaslighting users for maintaining that it does not implement shadow-bans. Insta’s claim that it doesn’t suppress posts received support from an article in the Financial Times last year, which concluded:

Like Uber drivers and Deliveroo couriers, social media influencers are at the mercy of algorithms. This makes them perfect fodder for conspiracy theories. It also makes sense that influencers would be baffled by any sudden decrease in engagement and spooked by changes that might jeopardise the brand deals they sign. Instead of believing that their own popularity is waning, some cling to the idea that shadowbans are a disciplinary measure that is used against creators who do not warrant an outright ban from a platform.

And cling they should. Since I welcome any information that debunks conspiracy theories, for a few years I accepted the line sold by Instagram that time of day, engagement with fellow users, and hashtags were most important factors in a post’s reception. Some users flood their posts with hashtags in the hope of broadening reach, but unless one already has a large following, there’s no reason to think this is helpful. I once asked an artist who seemed to have mastered the puzzle of Instagram about this, and she replied that “Hashtags are like a prayer.” Likewise, the timing of a post doesn’t appear to matter much. When you’re hot, you’re hot.

I switched to a business account in order to see the metrics of each post; all I have to do is press a blue bar that says “View insights.” In February, I promoted a class by posting two photographs taken at the Art Students League of New York while I taught a figure drawing workshop. The post has so far reached over 14,000 of my followers, or roughly 20% of the accounts that follow me. But an account grows through exposure to new viewers—to date, only 200 non-followers have seen the post. Lately, the number of new accounts who can view my posts—regardless of content—has slipped from multiples of thousand to double digits. That restrictiveness does more than reverse an account’s growth. It greatly diminishes the ability to reach prospective students and expand a client base for sales of artwork. Mine is one career amid many whose fortunes, fairly or not, have come to hinge on such data. As Shapiro points out,

This is a maddening circumstance, as every day artists are cut off from their main source of income and outreach when their work and accounts are suppressed and erased. It should come as no surprise that this has the most impact on artists who are already at risk: women, BIPOC, disabled, LGBTQIA, and artists living under partisan regimes.

For a long time, I remained at a loss regarding suppression of objectionable content, let alone what constituted objectionable content. Despite fluctuations in viewership and those mysterious blocks a few years ago, Instagram’s customer service never responded to my messages—that, it seems, is a universal experience (I left a message asking to hear from a representative before I started writing this, but speaking to someone who works there is unicorn-level likely. To IG’s credit, despite its billion plus users, I’ve found it responds quickly to copyright violation complaints). I did receive a direct message from another artist with a very popular Insta account, suggesting I go into my settings and check “Account Status.” Therein was the answer, a statement that “Your content can’t be recommended right now.” Under “Edit or remove content” are five recent posts of figure drawings and paintings, each accompanied by text informing me that the content cannot “be recommended to non-followers,” because it “may go against our guidelines on sexual activity or nudity.” For at least several weeks thereafter, the suppression of reach isn’t limited to the flagged images, but includes everything a user posts; right now, if I shared a video of a kitten hugging an otter, it will be shadow-banned as surely as would a figure study. At the same time, Instagram tells me “You haven’t posted anything that is affecting your account status.” Technically, this is true only insofar that I haven’t been blocked. Restrictive measures are imposed by AI, while Instagram pretends there are none, affording a kind of a plausible deniability.

Everyone agrees that AI and algorithms are at fault, and that’s where it gets interesting. Shapiro’s claim that “social media companies are increasingly wary of imagery that could be deemed sexually illicit” is supported by Brodsky, who wrote me that “they’d rather censor all figurative art, than have 1 minor show inappropriate body parts.” Brodsky, who in addition to running her own highly successful art account on Instagram, maintains those of other art agencies, sent me shadow-banned posts of academic figure work and a plaster cast drawn by students at Grand Central Atelier. “Classically trained academic artists,” she said in a webinar hosted by PEN America, “just get completely battered by this.”

AI and algorithms are created by people. They do what they’re programmed to do. The failure of AI to view figurative subjects with greater discernment veers into the absurd. It’s not just drawings, paintings and photographs of nude figures that get flagged and suppressed. Brodsky shared images of a drawing of a woman’s neck, and paintings of a peeled orange and a loaf of challah bread, all of which were deemed inappropriate. Maybe AI is sensitive to food fetishes, but it has as much trouble figuring out the visual properties of skin as do artists; interwoven braids of bread were apparently mistaken for entwined bodies. If the artificial intelligence is that flawed, why hasn’t an effort been made to refine it? Brodsky, the rare account holder who has corresponded directly with individuals at Instagram, writes, “I’ve tried talking to many people there about it, the verdict is that no one cares.”

Instagram would have concluded long ago that neither people nor artificial intelligence will ever reach a satisfactory standard on what constitutes illicit content. If AI can’t tell the difference between a nude and a loaf of bread, how is it to distinguish Manet’s Olympia from soft porn? How do algorithms unpack the significance of a once-scandalous work that is now part of the canon? Or discern the nuances between Rembrandt’s Bathsheba, with its references to the Bible and human experience, and a Bouguereau nude, at once cloying and seductive? Hollis Dunlap, a popular artist and instructor who posts figure drawings and paintings, wrote to me that although he disapproves of censorship, “it would be dishonest to act as though there isn’t a sexual element in a lot of nude art, or at least an interest in pushing the boundaries there. Thats [sic] what makes a lot of art interesting, after all.”

Dunlap made another point that corresponds to my observations. “I also think that Instagram favors female nudes over male nudes generally—so the algorithm promotes sexist cliches in predictable ways.” When I post a female nude, there are two simultaneous responses: the image will accrue more “likes” than a male figure or a landscape, and there will be an uptick in accounts that unfollow me. Sharing figurative work is more complicated for August Lamm, an artist and author I’ve come to know through Instagram, who has posted nude self-portrait drawings in part as an exploration of physical disability. This exposes her to a dual gauntlet, censorship by the platform and harassment by male viewers. Last year she accompanied images with the explanation:

Always advocating for a woman’s right to represent her own body without harassment, censure, or ridicule. If these self-portraits seem excessive to you, keep in mind that it’s gonna take a whole lot of them to balance out the millennia in which women were represented almost exclusively by men.

Many of the comments recently shared at my posts raised the inconsistency of social media’s disciplinary actions. While images of the figure are flagged for violation, it’s not difficult to find videos of real life violence, hate speech, personal attacks and thirst traps linking to pornography sites (Today, an account showed up in my feed that’s devoted solely to videos of children being injured. It solicits home videos. It has over five million followers). A few years ago a contemporary artist displayed a painting of blood libel that trafficked in antisemitic mythology. Despite newspaper coverage and complaints to both Facebook and Instagram, neither the main image, details, nor a string of hostile comments against Jews were deemed sufficiently inflammatory to warrant removal. Users were advised, presumably after their complaints had been reviewed by a human, simply not to look. The posts and comments remain visible.

Instagram appears to be slowly acknowledging what we already know. In January of this year, an independent panel funded by Meta found that its rules regarding female nipples were “extensive and confusing.” As reported by Insider, Instagram’s moderators are as confused by the guidelines as we are:

Meta’s Oversight Board has recommended sweeping changes to a woefully muddled adult nudity policy, taking issue with the policy’s lack of clarity as well as its binary view of gender.

Instagram and Facebook can do pretty much as they please. They can formulate arbitrary and opaque guidelines on the boundaries of free speech. Yet they also provide platforms at no quantifiable charge, except for the ocean of crap—irrelevant ads, reels, and unsolicited suggestions—you have to swim through to view the content you choose. Artists regularly bemoan the deterioration of Insta and mention alternative apps, but nothing yet rivals its reach. We stay in this bad marriage because there’s nothing better out there.

What to do. The short answer is that I’m starting to self-censor by refraining from posting nude figure drawings and paintings, the very foundation of what I teach and practice. I downloaded an app that allows one to blur an image selectively, and may try using that on nipples and genitals, though doing so defaces the artwork and tacitly acknowledges there’s something shameful to hide. At the moment, I’ve cut back at Instagram while I wait for the shadow-ban to lapse. Having shared hundreds of figure works over the long term, perhaps my probationary period will be longer than most. At any rate, when I continue posting I’ll favor landscapes and clothed portraits. Until the folk who formulate policy at Instagram and Facebook decide it’s worth their while to adapt to—nay, welcome—the creative presence, a willingness to censor art will remain one of the least endearing aspects of social media’s legacy.

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