Censorship And Queer Art
DOABLE GUYS started out with the goal of sharing homoerotic art with the world. We wanted to form a space where artists could create, share, and connect with no judgements and hopefully gain exposure to a larger audience. And while our anthology and Instagram still do that, we feel the grip of social media censorship tightening.
Just a couple weeks ago, we lost Tumblr as we knew it. The majority of our posts were flagged and would have been hidden from view. We decided to make a stand against their increasing censorship and shut our account down.
So far, our Instagram has gone relatively unscathed, but a lot of our artist friends have not been so lucky, having posts removed, being shadow-banned, or the ultimate fear, having their accounts deleted.
We understand that there are “community guidelines.” We understand why they are important. They are the foundation of forming a safe and welcoming space. We also understand that Instagram is owned by a private company, and end of the day, can do whatever they want with it. The problem lies in their implementation and follow-through of these “guidelines.” The lack of consistency in the moderation and apparent bias against Queer art is frustrating to say the least. We see artists get trolled with reported posts time and time again, and yet when someone wrote a homophobic comment on one of our posts, ending with “go kill yourself,” we were told it doesn’t violate any of their “community guidelines.”
This thing is, we as artists NEED these platforms. This is where we find our audience. This is where we find our voice. THIS is where we cultivate our global community. So we try and play by the rules and hope the rules don’t change on us mid-game. But instead of just going along with their unclear and inconsistent rules, maybe it’s time for a new game all together.
At DOABLE GUYS, our “community guidelines” are brief and to the point: Nothing violent, hateful, or illegal. We are here to celebrate the beauty of the male form, the love between men, and the Queer community as a whole.
With this post, we want to showcase the work that has fallen victim to the “community guidelines” of other platforms. While we feel in a few cases, this will highlight the anti-Queer bias, that is not necessarily our goal. The goal here is to present artwork in its uncensored form, as originally created. We aren’t showing cropped versions, or with blurred out squares. These images are presented as they were always meant to be seen. (A big NSFW warming ahead) So here is our first “too hot for social media” round up. Enjoy and go give the artists some love!
JAMES FALCIANO:
Shadow-banned. @jamesfalciano
ANTHONY GONZALES:
Original account deleted/shadowbanned. @gonzart1
JUDE RIBISI:
Posts removed. (Original IG posts were cropped) @juderibisi
ALEKSANDER SAMUEL:
Posts removed, Tumblr refugee. @aleksandersamuel
ZACH GREAR:
Post removed without notice. @zachgrearart www.zachgrear.com
ADOLPH SOLIZ:
Shadow-banned. @solizart
CLAY BURCH:
Posts Removed. @clay.burch www.clayburch.com
SEBASTIANWHOA:
Posts removed. @sebastianwhoa
STEFANO KERBEROS:
Shadow-banned. Never received a response from Instagram. @queerrilla
JONO MADISON:
Posts removed.
Flagged on Tumblr. “It has to be the most frustrating thing to have a platform to share your work and to be an artist with the abilities to create limitless work, but forcing yourself to edit your work with in the guidelines of which you are posting in order to be have it be seen.”
Eric:
Posts removed. @eeecville
German Ferreiroa:
Accounts deleted/Posts removed. @gerfer_tattoo @gerfer.maleart
We hope to make this at least a monthly feature here at DOABLE GUYS, so if you are censored, shoot us an email (or DM us on instagram) with the subject “CENSORED” to have your work showcased!