Launched in 2020, the the Don’t Delete Art (DDA) project led by artists and activists social media platforms using suppressive content moderation algorithms that impact the visibility of the world’s most vulnerable creators. Recently, project collaborators produce a manifesto to call artists using social media to demand changes to these platforms now that internet visibility has largely replaced in-person artistic experiences.
“Social media companies have become cultural gatekeepers with unprecedented power to determine which works of art can circulate freely and which are banned or pushed into the digital margins,” reads the DDA manifesto.
In an interview with HyperallergicDDA Editor-in-Chief Emma Shapiro detailed the project’s goals and explained how content moderation prevents female-identifying, LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and disabled artists from reaching the same metrics when using their bodies in their work in a way that pushes the boundaries of what Meta (the company that owns Facebook and Instagram) considers content “objectionable” or explicit. Shapiro, a Hyperallergic arts contributor and writer who covered the “Free the Nipple” movement at length said that while there are many overlaps between DDA and #FreeTheNipple, the censored artwork isn’t always body-oriented.
“There are certainly artists who express certain politics with their artwork that are struck by certain types of text-based deletion that accompanies their works,” Shapiro noted, noting that text-based deletion also occurs. from the two uploaded images. like what is written in the captions of the posts. “We also find that Instagram can and will ‘shadowban’ people, effectively removing them without suspending their accounts outright,” Shapiro added.
When a social media user is ‘shadowbanned’, their content and account are considered ‘deprecated’; therefore, their account information will not appear through Instagram’s search function, their posts are removed by the algorithm, which decimates the number of impressions and interactions on their content, and their posts are no longer visible under certain hashtags or the Explore page of Instagram. Shadowbanned accounts are also not notified that their content is restricted, leaving users confused about their metrics and the sudden lack of interaction.
Shadowbanning was originally used to thwart spammers by making their content invisible instead of outright banning them so they didn’t feel pressured to find a workaround, but the feature has continued to impact artists, activists, sex workers and sometimes former regular Internet users. .
Despite the fact that Instagram posting guidelines explicitly allow nudity in artwork, many artists report that their body-focused paintings or sculptures were misreported by the platform’s content moderation algorithm. Shapiro herself even suffered a shadowban after posting a photo of a drawing featuring a naked body.
“A lot of people may misunderstand our focus on social media censorship as something quite frivolous and unimportant,” Shapiro continued. “But the truth is that the regulatory landscape of the internet is changing very rapidly, and those companies that haven’t yet created the framework to protect artistic expression and artists already at risk will be very inclined to keep kicking us out. platforms. ”
Shapiro asks us to further examine the implications of internet censorship against artists beyond visibility. Have these creators missed out on opportunities? Will galleries whose social media accounts are penalized for posting the work of a specific artist reconsider who they are investing in moving forward to protect their brand? Will partisan politics capitalize on these modes of censorship to continually encroach on the freedoms of women and trans artists on the web?
“We’re specifically asking social media companies to give artists a seat at the table on content moderation guidelines and how those decisions are made,” Shapiro explained.
Meta has not replied yet. Hyperallergicrequest for comment.
Supported by the National Coalition Against Censorship, PEN America’s Artists At Risk Connection, and FreeMuse, DDA offers evasion of censorship And account call resources for artists as well as a online gallery supported by a promotional newsletter which presents artwork submissions by artists This has been previously flagged, deleted, or removed altogether from social media through content moderation.
So far, the manifesto has more 1,400 individual signatures since its creation in mid-February. shapiro said Hyperallergic that the next step is to gain more institutional support through signatures and outreach from artist residencies, museums, galleries, collectives, and other businesses and community organizations that have a stake in the cause, that whether they know it or not.
“We want to see support from the major voices in the arts community for this very specific and powerful concern that we have before we take this to social media platforms and demand a seat at the table,” Shapiro concluded.
