A man who has made it his mission to get porn stars booted from Instagram has been haunting online sex workers, according to a Wednesday report in feminist outlet Jezebel.
Jezebel referred to the man as a “troll” in their piece.
The Instagram crusader, known only by his Twitter handle, Omid, told Jezebel he has succeeded in reporting and shutting down the accounts of 250 to 300 porn performers. His success has outraged performers and supporters of the industry, and apparently Jezebel itself, who characterized his efforts as “harassment” of a “marginalized community.”
“Everybody I know has had their Instagram taken down,” said popular porn star Abigail Mac. “You can be a woman and show your skin as long as you’re not affiliated with the adult industry.”
Chanell Heart, another porn star who had her account removed, said she lost 252,000 followers when Instagram pulled the plug on her.
“I lost access to so many fans,” she said. “That’s the way I promote myself. I was doing so well.”
Ginger Banks, a feminist performer who lost 134,000 when her account was shut down, eventually had her account restored by Instagram. However, Banks says she’s still paranoid about losing her followers because of Omid.
“He’s taken out so many prominent people in our industry it’s crazy to me,” Banks said.
“I’m so paranoid,” Banks continued. “I avoid talking about my job at all if I can because that’s how scared I am.”
Omid was even responsible for an Australian stripper-turned-artist losing her account, Jezebel reported. The artist, identified only as Caitlin, had illustrations on her account featuring ” breasts and labia (as well as the occasional man rendered as a bloody tampon).” After an appeal and complaints from fans, Caitlin’s account was restored by Instagram.
After learning Caitlin was an artist and not a porn performer, Omid told the outlet he regretted getting her account shut down. But Omid offered no such apologies for reporting the accounts of active performers in the adult industry, even going so far as to personally message or tweet to the porn stars he targets.
“I hate your career. u have the most terrible job, it ruins the youth’s future,” Omid tweeted to Aidra Fox, a porn performer whose account had just been shut down. “U must realize that Porn ruins the values of humanity.”
Omid often boasts about getting the accounts of porn stars shut down. He says he’s the one that got Fox’s account getting shut down. To back up his claims, Omid posts screenshots of messages he has received from Instagram after reporting an account.
https://twitter.com/Omid18097499/status/1115099759654707200
“Thanks for reporting this account,” one screenshot read according to Jezebel. “We’ve removed it from Instagram because it violated our Community Guidelines.” Jezebel reports Omid will accompany the screenshots with hashtags like “#no_porn,”, “#no_porn_on_IG,” and “#no_pornstar_on_IG.”
In a series of direct Twitter messages with Jezebel, Omid claimed to be a former “victim” of porn. Now, he regularly tweets about his war against the industry.
“I warn ya’ll who are contributed in the porn industry. Every pornstar, every porn site every porn photographers or even fans of pornstars, u won’t survive!” Omid once tweeted according to the report.
Jezebel reported they reached out to Instagram for comment, who said most of the accounts targeted by Omid were “correctly removed for violating our sexual solicitation policies.” According to Jezebel, an Instagram spokesperson said only a “small number were removed in error.”
“We allow sex-positive content and discussion on Instagram, but given the wide-ranging ages and cultures of the people who use our service, we do not allow content that facilitates, encourages or coordinates sexual encounters between adults,” the spokesperson told Jezebel.
Jezebel characterized Instagram’s response as evidence of the “confusion” and “uncertainty” regarding the social media platform’s sexual content guidelines. The outlet seemed to dismiss the notion that porn performers could be soliciting clients for in-person paid sexual encounters through Instagram. Instead, Jezebel devoted much of its article space to suggesting that porn stars are being unfairly punished – claiming they’re subjected to a double-standard that doesn’t apply to skin-baring celebrities such as Kim Kardashian –because they work in the adult industry.
“As written, these standards are broad enough that they might apply to any number of behaviors that fall far short of violating Instagram’s prohibitions on certain forms of nudity,” Jezebel’s Tracy Clark-Flory wrote. “In theory, anything a porn performer does online to promote their work could be construed as encouraging ‘sexual encounters between adults’ or having the potential to lead to solicitation.”
But cases of people using Instagram to solicit and sell sexual services are arguably not that rare. Fox 411 reported in 2016 on a crop of controversial new sites devoted to outing women who allegedly use Instagram to prostitute themselves.
And there can be an even darker side to sex work on Instagram. In March, a California woman was forced into prostitution after accepting an all-expenses paid trip to Orlando from a man she communicated with on Instagram.