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Facebook-owned photo sharing app Instagram has revamped its community guidelines to reflect a tougher stance on nudity, pornography and harassment.
The company’s new stance comes following criticism it has been too soft on unsuitable content and cyber bullying. Now, as the Wall Street Journal points out, the language of the policy has been changed.
“In the old guidelines, we would say ‘don’t be mean’,” Nicky Jackson Colaco, director of public policy for Instagram, told the WSJ (via The Verge). “Now we’re actively saying you can’t harass people. The language is just stronger.”
Currently Instagram looks into content reported by the user-base before deciding whether to remove it, but it's unclear how the company plans to police the new tough-line stance.
The aim will obviously be to cut down on the amount of mean comments and sexual harassment that sometimes accompanies posts to the app.
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In terms of nudity and pornography, the community guidelines have been changed to show a specific dos and don’ts, in much the same way Facebook recently clarified its own stance.
“We know that there are times when people might want to share nude images that are artistic or creative in nature, but for a variety of reasons, we don’t allow nudity on Instagram,” the firm wrote.
“This includes photos, videos, and some digitally created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks. It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed. Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, too.”
Previously, the company had politely asked users not to post “nudity or mature content.”