It's no longer a blanket rule on Instagram to simply "keep your clothes on."
The photo and video sharing app released a significant update to its community guidelines Thursday, seeking to clarify its stance on nudity and abuse.
Instagram, like other social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, has found it difficult to balance a commitment to openness with creating a safe environment for its now 300 million monthly active users.
The app has had a particularly hard time dealing with female nudity. While its old policy asked users to refrain from posting nudity or mature content of any kind, Instagram's new guidelines allow a little more flexibility. It now state that "photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed." Nudity in paintings and sculptures is also permitted.
Close-up, full buttock shots, however, are still not allowed.
Controversies over the removal of photos showing pubic hair and nipples have made headlines, but many women have been irked when the platform deleted photos of them breastfeeding their children.
In 2014, a Canadian woman, Heather Bays, told CTV News that she was "heartbroken" after Instagram removed a photo showing her breastfeeding her then 20-month-old daughter and deactivated her account. Her account was later reactivated.
A photo posted by Heather Bays (@heatherbays) on Apr 13, 2014 at 6:46pm PDT
Trolling and harassment, the apex problems haunting all social media platforms, are also directly addressed in the updated guidelines. Doxing, threats and hate speech are now actively discouraged.
A statement from Instagram said its policies were not changing. Rather, the new guidelines were simply more detailed guidance about the kind of content and behavior the social media platform would allow.
“In the old guidelines, we would say ‘don’t be mean’ ... Now we’re actively saying you can’t harass people. The language is just stronger," Nicky Jackson Colaco, director of public policy for Instagram, told the Wall Street Journal,
“How do we establish a baseline around nudity when you have hundreds of millions of users?” Colaco said. “We need to create a standard that most people can live by.”