This ‘Genderless Nipples’ Account is Confusing the Heck Out of Instagram’s Obscenity Algorithm
Women are not allowed to reveal their nipples on Instagram, but men can post their nipples as much as they want. That has caused some frustration among users, many of whom point out that the distinction is weird ansd sexist. Men’s nipples are safe, but women’s nipples apparently shoot eye-melting laser beams. That anger led to the creation of the #FreeTheNipple movement, which advocates for equality in rules about nudity. Now they’ve very cleverly figured out a way to thwart Instagram’s “no women’s nipples” policy by posting close-up photos of nipples without any context.
The “Genderless Nipples” Instagram account is exactly what it says it is. All they do is post close-up photos of nipples, so Instagram can’t tell which ones belong to men and which ones belong to women. The photos are accompanied by funny, snarky, or motivational captions like “People of quality do not fear equality” and “I will respect your opinion as long as it does not disrespect anybody else’s existence.”
Of course, a lot of the commenters can’t help playing “guess the nipple owner” with the various pictures and trying to guess the gender of the nipple owner. The account holder has not revealed anyone’s identities, though. They just keep posting photos of nipples to tease Instagram and its nipple-hunting algorithms.
“Dear Instagram, why don’t you try and figure out which nipples you can and cannot delete? Good luck!” they wrote.
The nipples are supplied by donor protestors who send in photos of their nipples for the purpose. Sometimes Instagram’s nudity algorithms are confused. One of Genderless Nipples’ early posts was deleted for “nudity,” ie: female nipples, but the nipples belonged to a man.
The deletion does point out the silliness of anti-nipple rules. If Instagram can’t tell if the nipples are acceptable or not, why ban them at all?
Rules against female nipples are pretty silly. Back in September one mother got her Facebook account shut down for posting a “topless photo” of her child playing at the beach, but she was reinstated after she explained to Facebook that her child is a little boy with long hair, not a little girl wearing swim trunks.
In April 2015, Instagram updated its community guidelines to make an exception for the “no female nipples” rule to allow nipples to show in a photo of a woman actively breastfeeding.
