MIAMI — Romi Chase has released a statement accusing Instagram of “abuse and bias against curvy and larger-sized women.”
“Instagram is fatphobic, racist, homophobic and sexist and does not care one bit about their users,” Chase lambasted.
The adult content creator, plus-size model and social media influencer, who runs her own production company and uses the popular site to promote her brand and boost her profile, believes the Instagram photos she and others publish “are targeted and removed while thinner women’s similarly-posed images are not.”
Facebook-owned Instagram recently announced they will introduce a new nudity policy this week, which will allow “pictures of women holding, cupping or wrapping their arms around their breasts.”
Instagram said the change was prompted by a campaign by Nyome Nicholas-Williams, a Black British plus-sized model who had accused the Facebook-owned company of removing images showing her covering her breasts with her arms due to “racial biases” in its algorithm.
Chase’s accusations echo Nicholas-Williams’ successful lobbying campaign.
“The inconsistency in Instagram’s guidelines and lack of accountability is appalling,” Chase said. “Fully clothed photos with PG-13 captions get removed for nudity and sexual activity while slimmer models get away with promiscuous poses in micro-bikinis."
Vicious Bans and Unclear Rules
Chase accused Instagram of applying "vicious bans on accounts that limit our reach and visibility, or worse, delete the entire accounts without the slightest warning or explanation. There is no customer support to reach out to, and things have gotten to the point where they started removing posts that have been sitting in an archive for months.”
Chase added that “many creators, including myself, are unable to find any logical pattern to it. Why don’t the rules apply to all? What exactly are the rules? Why, even if you adhere to the rules, do you still get targeted?”
Adult industry groups, like the Alana Evans-led union APAG, and individual models have protested the platform’s inconsistent policies for months, with varying degrees of success in getting Facebook and Instagram to listen to their grievances.
Chase urged the photo-based platform to “promote all body types equally. It should be fair to all, not just certain people. Body positivity is for all of us. Instagram’s policing of images that don’t violate guidelines is wrong — if you’re going to choose to censor photos on your platform, do it for all of us or none of us.”
“We will not be silenced, erased or oppressed,” she stated.
Visit RomiChase.com and follow the performer on Twitter.
