A photograph of the hilarious Celeste Barber has been censored by Instagram. The actress imitated the break of the model Candice Swanepoel, thinner than she …
Is the Instagram application grossophobic? Latest fact: Australian actress Celeste Barber, world famous for her celebrity photo parodies, has been censored by the platform, reports Numerama. In the photo, she imitates the sensual pose of the model Candice Swanepoel, in profile and in the simplest device, covering her breasts with her hand. The two photographs are thus similar. Yet the Victoria’s Secret Angel post was not withdrawn … Something is wrong, right?
Celeste Barber's subscribers warned her. An alert notification stated that it was impossible to share their post because it was not "did not respect community rules on nudity or sexual activity", can we read in the Guardian. The comic has since published another post, captioned: "Oh hey, I'm just here to check your double standards" (i.e. the different treatment between those which embody the traditional canons of beauty and all the others). Instagram has since apologized to her, explaining that her photo had been censored "by mistake".
An algorithm that poses a problem
However, it is Instagram's algorithm that seems to be at fault here. The social network is indeed making war on women's bodies in general, in particular their nipples. Photos of breastfeeding women, for example, are deleted, because algo judges them "contrary to the regulations". During this time, these gentlemen have the right to be shirtless at the gym or at the swimming pool …
Beyond the female breasts, it is all the images of non-standardized bodies, and by extension, the people to whom these bodies belong, who are persona non grata on the platform. First target: the fat.se.s, and it is again the fault of the algo. In 2019, a team of Instagram moderators confirmed to the site Fast Company that artificial intelligence was being used to detect nudity. "We can say that 'machine learning' identifies a 'percentage' of skin, although the reality is a little more nuanced and complicated", they explained then. And since a fat body has more skin than a thinner body, it goes by the wayside. Outstanding example: early 2020, the cover of the French magazineTelerama on grossophobia had been censored. We could see Barbara butch, queer artist, feminist and anti-grossophobia activist, posing nude, her nipples concealed by her arms. The algorithms of Facebook, Instagram and the like don't like nudity, even when it's not pornographic, had reacted Télérama. (…) The photo of Leslie Barbara Butch shows neither sex nor nipple, obviously, but a lot of skin. Too much, apparently, for social mediaIt is hoped that the Celeste Barber case will prompt the web giants to end their censorship.