After seeing a number of Instagram models recently falling victim to the ultimate act of social media censorship, I thought I would give you a quick run down on what being “Zucked” is and what you can do to do to avoid it. I was “Zucked” in December 2018 after growing my account to 4K followers in less than a year, and I have learned a great deal about how the platform works in the time since. This includes mentorship and professional development from Amberly Rothfield, who is someone at the forefront of marketing adult performers and a wealth of information (read as: go and follow them now on Twitter).
Being “Zucked” gets its name from the CEO of social media platforms Instagram and Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. While Instagram began as a relative safe haven for adult content creators, erotic artists, sex educators and sex workers, with it’s success has come crackdowns on what (and who) is allowable on the platform. Rules regarding nudity, depiction of sexual activity and advertising of adult products which are detailed in the Community Guidelines of the platform have gradually become stricter and stricter. Alongside “shadowbans” (which in 2019 Instagram confirmed they do implement), accounts can be deleted without warning and without appeal if Instagram deems them in breach of their community guidelines. This is what is meant by getting “Zucked”; having your account alive and thriving one day, and gone from the platform the next.
Shadowbanning and the censoring of accounts are lively topics of debate and I have previously written about the dangers of censorship on social media. In this post, however, I am going to talk about what you need to avoid doing so that you don’t get the attention of Instagram moderators and it’s hardworking AI and in turn, get kicked off the platform.
Are your pictures safe for work?
People are pretty well aware of what counts as “inappropriate content” on Instagram… to a degree. But I still see people commenting that they are stumped about why something was removed from their account, when to myself (who has had so much stuff removed) I can see immediately what is going on.
For women, if you are touching or squeezing your breasts or butt with your hands, that is not safe for work. Even if you are using your hand to cover your nipples or genitals, this is seen as sexually explicit (don’t rant at me, I didn’t make the rules).
People with larger bodies are unfairly targeted by the platform due to the AI that scans pictures for skin tones; so if you are bigger and wearing a crop top and booty shorts, your picture may be flagged as inappropriate, even though a size 0 model wearing only a thong may get through.
Aside from these, if your photos have words, emojis, logos or links that are against community guidelines, they will get a strike. This means anything that is sexually suggestive or points to an adult site. For example, I have had posts removed that I have posted before, but by simply adding the logo of my ManyVids store , Instagram flagged it as inappropriate.
Keep your captions clean
It’s not just your photos that need to be safe for work; Instagram also checks captions. Aside from the most obvious (eg mentioning adult sites in your caption), using particular words will get you in Instagram’s bad books. Along the same lines of recent updates to Facebook’s community guidelines, explicitly talking about sexual activity or body parts and the use of emojis associated with sexy talk is to be avoided. Some captions you just cannot post on the platform as the AI will kick in IMMEDIATELY and block it. These breaches may not get you deleted or restricted in the first instance, but multiple breaches appear to add up.
This also includes hashtags. Hashtags are an extremely powerful tool for users to find the content they are looking for, but they are also flagged by Instagram for pointing to content that is in breach of community guidelines.
Certain hashtags are completely useless on Instagram and will show nowhere (#nude, #booty, #boobs, #pussy) whereas others go through periods of being restricted in search due to posts being tagged with them that are in breach of community guidelines.
“#women” at one stage was restricted and “#horror” still requires multiple click throughs of warning messages to get to the content.
People attempt to subvert the hashtag restrictions, in particular, by using accents over certain letters, and these accents change depending on what has been restricted by Instagram at the time. I have seen multiple rotations of certain hashtags subtly changing once the particular ones hit a block in search.
How do you describe yourself and where do you point people to?
What does it say in your bio or description section? What wesbite link have you submitted there? If you say “Porn Star and Travelling Escort” and have a link to your OnlyFans or clipsite, you will get deleted…
I may or may not be talking from direct experience.
I use extremely broad terms in my description so that it isn’t 100% clear what I am doing there. And the link I have is to my own website. I cannot stress ENOUGH how getting your own website is so necessary for us in this business at this particular time.
I remember when the internet first came about and there were 3 websites and two of them were porn (pretty much). And I remember the days when you had to pay a web developer thousands of dollars to get something that looked half decent and actually worked…
Those days are OVER. Get a domain name through an adult friendly provider, host it on an adult friendly server and use WordPress to develop it. Even if you just have a front page with all your links and some pictures, that is way better than nothing at all!
Some people swear by Linktrees or AllMyLinks to be the centre for their directory. I have had mixed feedback from people regarding their use in Instagram bios, as they are becoming less safe as more adult industry people start using it. Think about it like this… you see a link for an OnlyFans account for the first time and you don’t know what it is. Now, due to the amount of people using it for this purpose, OnlyFans = porn. Same deal with Linktrees and AllMyLinks.
Profile pics that will get you in the bad books
It is not just the pictures you post on your account that will get you a black mark from Instagram. Be very careful with your avi or profile pic.
My profile pics on all my platforms were of my big delicious booty… until I kept getting strikes (and on one platform my account was locked till I had replaced it… looking at you, Twitter!).
So, headshots are ok. Profile pics that focus on your butt or boobs or a singular body part will get you in trouble. Likewise, profile pics that LOOK like you are naked or up to some naughty business will get you a swathe of black marks. Basically the same things that are in the “Are Your Pictures Safe For Work?” section above.
What are you talking about in your DMs???
Despite whatever you may think, what you are talking about in your private messages on Instagram is in fact, not private. Artificial intelligence software used in the sweeping of posts is also used to sweep your private messages on all Zuckerberg platforms.
Sending links to adult sites, talking about things which are against the terms of service and community guidelines will get black marks against your account. In isolation, they may not get you deleted, but account deletion on Instagram appears to be a case of reaching critical mass with ongoing bad behaviour on the platform.
If you want to talk about certain things, you need to encourage people off of the platform. My default is email and if people are serious about connecting with you, then they will use the other ways to talk to you.
Finally… don’t be seen to be subverting the rules!
One of the things that is definitely against Instagram’s Terms of Service is behaviour that aims to get around all these rules and controls of platform content. These behaviours include:
- Making a “backup” account for in case you are deleted
- If your account has been deleted, writing “deleted at 8.7K (or whatever)” in your bio. You are advertising that you have previously broken the rules and still are doing so
- Making a backup account and writing “backup for @xyz” in the bio
- Masking content in posts with “censored” stickers
There is obviously a shit tonne more that I could say on this topic, but I wanted to give you a brief introduction to this beast that is social media. For adult performers, becoming a member of APAG is also key. This union has done a lot of work with Instagram and is now in a position to negotiate with the platform if an adult film performer has been deleted despite following all the rules (which also happens!).
What would you like me to talk further about on this subject? Comment below and I will work on follow up blog posts!
Rem Sequence is an Australian adult content creator, blogger, and internationally published alt model. She has a background in psychology, philosophy and political science and worked in health and sex education, youth work and trauma counselling for almost two decades. Now, she works full time in the adult industry, as well as indulging her passion for arts, writing and music in numerous side projects.
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