Meta's Instagram has permanently removed Pornhub's account for repeatedly violating community guidelines of the social media platform, according to a report by TechCrunch. Pornhub's account was previously suspended by Instagram.
Pornhub has contested the removal of its account in an open letter that says "Instagram’s enforcement of these platform rules are opaque, discriminatory, and hypocritical".
The letter addressed to four Meta executives including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri was endorsed by 60 signatories from the adult entertainment industry.
Previously when the website's account was suspended for violating guidelines prohibiting nudity and sexual content, the adult entertainment website had claimed its account was PG.
American media company Variety had reported that Pornhub's Instagram handle had posted a video encouraging people to become adult actors. This might have been behind the account's suspension and ban.
Citing the threat to their livelihood posed by account bans, the letter stated: “Sex workers and performers have been unfairly targeted in the form of bans, shadow bans, suspensions, loss of Live privileges and content removal, despite taking extra care not to violate Instagram’s Community Guidelines.”
Strippers United, an account created to promote a social campaign for workplace safety for adult entertainers in the US, had their account disabled by Instagram. After backlash from various sections of society, their account was reinstated. Meta later said it was “mistakenly removed".
Instagram has not responded to Pornhub’s open letter.
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