Instagram has a history of censoring content on the platform. They banned the eggplant emojibecause it promoted nudity on the platform. It seems like the company has realized that you can’t really prevent people from posting NSFW (Not Safe For Work) content and as Mashable reports, the company is considering a way around the problem.
Apparently in a summit, Instagram’s CEO and co-founder, Kevin Systrom revealed that they have talked about creating an R-rated version of the service. He was also quoted as saying that Instagram is not in the business of hosting porn rather they focus on people being able to express themselves in “beautiful ways”.
Systrom also said that it is a “slippery slope” in that it would be difficult to determine what is R-rated or not. Social networks like Tumblr have options where you can flag your content on settings as adult oriented. This is also the same case with Reddit where as the CEO pointed out, any NSFW material needed to be flagged.
The company made a significant update to the mobile app where they revamped the Explore tab and Search to include curated collections like Discover New People or Explore Trending Places. The company could start a collection named NSFW so that people may discover and view that content. Also, they can add a persistent toggle when about to send any post on Instagram so that if it contains content that may be considered indecent, the user can appropriately tag the post.
Instagram now has 400 million users who upload 80 million photos every day and as the social network, tackling such issues as flagging NSFW content will make the user experience of some users bearable at least.
