Is This the Most NSFW Hashtag on Instagram?
Photo: Instagram
Instagram, the photo-sharing app with more than 300 million users worldwide, is notorious for its strict policy against nudity and sex. Even the most famous and well-liked celebs have had their photos (and possibly entire accounts, a la Rihanna) deleted for failing to adhere to the rules, which ban photos of sexual intercourse, genitals, close-ups of fully-nude buttocks, and maybe most notably, female nipples.
In an effort to more easily police itself, Instagram has also banned certain hashtags from being searchable within the app. Searches for #boobs, #underwear, #sexy, and even the phallic-looking eggplant emoji all yield zero results. (Confusingly, #curvy has also been banned — along with #photography. Huh?)
But one hashtag that, somewhat surprisingly, hasn’t been banned? #FreeTheNipple. The tag originated as an Internet rally cry to fight Instagram’s censorship of the female body, and often identified and labeled photos — often those non-sexual in nature — that included female nipples. But as I personally discovered recently, it’s evolved to mean so much more than some emancipated areolae.
While doing research for a recent post about the latest #FreeTheNipple strategy — superimposing male nips onto lady breasts to further show the absurdity of Instagram’s rules — I came across a somewhat shocking discovery: The hashtag is now home to some of the most pornographic images I’ve ever seen online, let alone on Instagram. Yes, there are nipples. There are also photos and videos of penises, vaginas, arses, and just about every sex act to ever occur in the history of human sexuality. This stuff is Xtina level Dirrty and BEYOND.
It’s not like the people posting these pics have found a loophole, but rather that Instagram simply can’t keep up with the constant flood of pornographic imagery infiltrating its system. Insta may be removing the “offending” photos almost immediately, but at the same moment, someone, somewhere, is uploading another one.
Meaning that, until the app decides to ban #FreeTheNipple as a search term (along with all the other smut-derived hashtags out there), it’ll continue to exist as the home to some of Instagram’s filthiest, most NSFW posts. The posts may not all be supporting women’s rights, but they’re certainly something.
Check it out to see for yourself, if you can handle it — though I’d highly recommend you wait until after work.
More from Yahoo Style:
Free the Nipple: Fighting for Women’s Rights
Chrissy Teigen Wears White Lace Altuzarra Boots & Nothing Else in W, Breaks Instagram’s Boob Rules
Are Chelsea Handler’s Nipples the Key to World Peace?
