Sex Workers & Social Media | Living in the Dark Age of Disabled Accounts

Once again, Instagram has disabled my account for violating community guidelines. This time, the reason I was given, most likely by a bot, was for soliciting and/or posting explicit content. I find this quite interesting as the content (both organic posts and stories) are carefully and cryptically curated to adhere to Instagram community guidelines. If you consider fully clothed posts and stories of unboxing high heels and vague domestic travel offensive, then we are truly are in trouble.

Before my account was disabled I noticed an increase of catfish scammers that I reported and blocked. It’s no coincidence that my account was disabled because I chose to stick my neck out to report fraudulent accounts of identity and content theft. I find it interesting that Instagram will keep the catfish accounts alive and active yet disable genuine accounts who adhere to community guidelines.

This week, Instagram banned PornHub from the platform after "repeatedly violating policies” which has resulted in a backlash from PornHub back to Instagram to end discrimination towards those involved in the adult industry (read full article here) This will be fascinating to see if Instagram changes their tune from this as being a sex worker trying to exist on most social media platforms in recent years is becoming impossible.

What bothers me most about losing my account is not the likes, it’s being cut off from community, which was the original purpose of social media. I have seen countless friends and peers lose, regain and/or start new accounts over and over again. This leads me to believe the prejudice of sex workers on social media is acutely increasing. During the pandemic, when access to friends, community and support through social media was validly needed, the rampage of sex worker account deletion was almost as bad as the daily case numbers. Instagram made it clear, sex workers are not welcome.

So, can I recover my account by appealing? Simple answer is, most likely not. A couple of years ago, I wrote a how to blog post with some simple steps on contacting Instagram to appeal if you had a paid media account. Instagram has now changed their appeal policy to ‘bot only’ and appeals are made via a form which are managed by automation not people. A lucky few eventually get their accounts back but most don’t.

I’m also in Twitter prison, being search suggestion banned after maybe using a hashtag deemed not appropriate for a sex worker. Twitter uses Thread shadowbans or Ghost Shadowbans to prevent other users from viewing your tweet comments. It includes a search prohibition, as well as threads being entirely pulled apart by hiding the impacted user's reply tweets to others. Everything will appear normal to the affected person, but many others will be unable to view the afflicted user's reply tweets at all. You can check your Twitter account status here

The word on the street is that there are people who offer their services in restoring your disabled Instagram account for a hefty fee but I have decided to move on and start another account. Why? Because my view on social media as a sex worker is that it is disposable, a commodity. Just as quickly as you can build your tribe, the platform can take it away from you. I choose to try again on Instagram in attempt to stay connected to my community not for the likes. How long my fifth account lasts for is yet to be seen.

If you would like to follow my Instagram account, please do so here