A recent wave of porn performers who have seen Instagram shut down their accounts—accounts that have become invaluable for self-promotion and creating their own financial opportunities—may have been the victim of one person, an online “troll” calliong himself “Omid,” according to an investigative report by writer Tracy Clark-Flory on the site Jezebel.
Though Instagram prohibits nudity and explicit sexual content, the platform has proven a boon to porn performers when it comes to developing and growing their fan followings. At the same time, porn accounts have often come under attack. As AVN.com reported last year, at least three well-known performers reported that their accounts had been seized and frozen by hackers, shutting them out for a full month.
But according to the Jezebel report, “Omid” is not a hacker, though he initially claimed to be one. Instead, his method appears simply to be reporting the porn performers’ accounts for supposedly violating the Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform’s “Community Guidelines.”
The troll also made a habit of taking to Twitter, taunting his alleged victims after their accounts had been deleted, telling one, “Your IG account was deleted due to your porn activities. Leave it and live a better and respectful life. #say_no_to_porn”
“Omid” went on to add, “U should know: 1. Creating new accounts is just wasting your time, I'll delete them again. 2. Blocking me doesn't help u, I watch u!”
Clark-Flory corresponded with “Omid” through direct messages, learning that, at least according to him, he considers himself a “victim” of porn—whatever that means.
But despite Omid’s claims to have single-handedly shut down “250-300” porn performer Instagram accounts, Jezebel could not confirm that claim with Instagram. The platform reviewed the accounts allegedly shut down in response to Omid, finding “no evidence of a single person being responsible.”
The Instagram response did not rule out, however, that Omid was behind at least some of the shutdowns—or possibly all of them, if he used a variety of accounts and online identities to report the porn performer accounts for the alleged guideline violations.
But Instagram also told Jezebel that the majority of the accounts has been “correctly removed for violating our sexual solicitation policies.” A small number were removed in error and restored, an Instagram spokesperson said.
In one case, according to the Jezebel report, Omid was responsible for shutting down an account operated by an Australian artist, “Caitlin” who posts artwork “inspired by her five years working as a stripper.” When Omid realized that the artist was not in the porn industry, he apologized. Caitlin’s account was eventually restored.
“It’s actually life-changing,” Caitlin told Jezebel. “You can go from having a steady, consistent income one day and have that all taken away from you the next.
(Of course, we can't help but point out that the new AVN Stars social media site will never close an adult performer's account on account of nudity—and they can make money on their own content through the site as well!)
Photo By Today Testing/Wikimedia Commons
