Meta and censorship changes
Meta has been deleting a lot of our sexy faves in the past month or so, a grim trend that has been picking up in the past year. As someone who plays the role of unpaid and often fairly powerless…
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Everything is content and I am tired
Content dominates our social media feeds, while the process of making, sharing and critiquing it is central to many people’s work and personal lives. As a platform governance scholar specialising in the creator economy, a content creator and a culture…
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How do social media affect pole dancing as a practice?
Social media can be invaluable resources for pole dancers, connecting us with fellow polers all over the world, providing inspiration and helping us promote our work. But social media can also be draining, disheartening spaces of self-doubt, censorship and comparison.…
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Reels first: what the backlash against Instagram means for creator rights
Reels: love them or hate them, we’re gonna be stuck with them. A worldwide backlash has followed Instagram’s latest update, which pursued a video-first, TikTok-like strategy by prioritising reels more than its historic, culture-defining pictures. And people are pissed –…
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I was deleted by Instagram
On Tuesday, 20 July 2021 around 7 PM BST, my profile was deleted by Instagram. I’m an online moderation researcher, activist, blogger, writer, survivor and pole dance instructor researching on and campaigning online censorship. And yet, even though I have…
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A history of modern pole dance
Where does pole dancing come from and what is its history? These simple questions often turn pole dance Facebook groups and conversations among pole dancers into a culture war. In this blog post, I use multiple sources to trace the…
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Updates on shadowbanning, nudity and ads on Instagram
Policies on shadowbanning, visibility and content recommendation have been clarified by Instagram both in a recent post and in my recent communication with the policy team. This post sheds some light on those policies, questioning some of their elements and…
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Petition update: sharing community experiences of moderation with big tech
After Instagram announced updates to their Terms of Use in November 2020, a petition I started with a variety of accounts posting content related to nudity, sexuality and performance was signed by over 100,000 people. As a result of the…
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In the sexy social media Wild West, users have no rights
My experience on TikTok is yet another example of why social media users have very little rights. This should worry us all.
Unsah Malik Interview: The Social Media Expert’s Growth Tips For NSFW accounts
In my first interview of 2021, I speak with leading social media expert – and former uni classmate – Unsah Malik. Unsah’s SLASHED IT eBook and the advice it shared massively helped me grow my following and launch the petition…
