Under Pressure Instagram Brings Back #Curvy Hashtag After Taking It Down For Porn
MENLO PARK (CBS SF) - Instagram users can once search #curvy.
The voluptuous hashtag became searchable again last week, after Instagram removed it for reportedly becoming a magnet for pornographic images.
"It was being used to share images and videos that violated Instagram's community guidelines around nudity," a company spokesperson told Buzzfeed Life.
The removal lasted several days and caused an Internet uproar among Instagrammers, who considered it a positive hashtag promoting acceptance of women's bodies. Curvy women protested the ban and continued to post full-figured photos using hashtags such as #BringCurvyBack, #Curvee and #EffYourBeautyStandards.
Now, Menlo Park-based Instagram has fully restored #Curvy, and according to the Washington Post is stepping up curation of the hashtag, "to make sure that no one looking at #curvy pictures gets an obscene surprise."
"There is zero chance that the company would intentionally try to stifle the positive messages that people who use the #curvy hashtag were communicating," said Nicky Jackson Colaco, Instagram's director of public policy.
To date, #Curvy has more than 2 million posts.
CBSSF.com writer, producer Jan Mabry is also executive producer and host of The Bronze Report. She lives in Northern California. Follow her on Twitter @janmabr.
