Instagram!

Instagram has elected to take measures banning  self-harm profiles and related hashtags. No more accounts promoting extreme takes on weight loss like anorexia or bulimia and no accounts promoting cutting or similar behavior. Here's a portion of Instagram's statement regarding the changes:

Going forward, we won’t allow accounts, images, or hashtags dedicated to glorifying, promoting, or encouraging self-harm. Should users come across content of that nature, we recommend flagging the photo or  flagging the user as a “Terms of Service” violation for our Support team to review.

It is important to note that this guideline does not extend to accounts created to constructively discuss, or document personal experiences that show any form of self-harm where the intention is recovery or open discussion. While we strongly encourage people to seek help for themselves or loved ones who are suffering, we understand the importance of communication as a form of support, in order to create awareness and to assist in recovery.

Instagram joins Tumblr and Pinterest as the latest social network (of any kind) to take proactive measures to deactivate such accounts. Hashtags such as "thinspiration" and "proana" or "proanorexia" no longer work.

This is a positive measure for any social network or community site to take but the change could also be viewed as being in line with the policies of Instagram's new owner, Facebook, which states that it does not "allow the promotion of suicide, "cutting," eating disorers, or illegal drug use." However Facebook appears to encourage user reports of such content, whereas Instagram has changed the wording of its guidelines to reflect a more direct approach: "any account found encouraging or urging users to embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders; or to cut, harm themselves, or commit suicide will result in a disabled account without warning."

It makes sense that a platform that often serves as the digital equivalent of your adolescent diary to try to grapple with issues of plague that demographic. (Of course, these kind of insidious mental health problems are not solely the province of the young.)  But woo boy, is this a slippery slope of where that line gets drawn, which might be why reaction to the post from users is mixed.

"We are deeply committed to supporting and defending our users’ freedom of speech, but we do draw some limits," says the post, offering much more clear-cut examples like identity theft and spam.

Tumblr made the wise decision to offer up it proposed policy change for comment. Along with the following language change, the company plans on showing a PSA for keywords that go with pro-self-harm blogs, like anorexia, thinspo, proana, and thinspiration. (Sorry, legitimate diet blogs who thought #thinspo was just a cute abbrevs!)

1. Implement a new policy against pro-self-harm blogs. Here’s draft language we are planning to add to our Content Policy:

Active Promotion of Self-Harm. Don’t post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-injury or self-harm. This includes content that urges or encourages readers to cut or mutilate themselves; embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders; or commit suicide rather than, e.g., seek counseling or treatment for depression or other disorders. Online dialogue about these acts and conditions is incredibly important; this prohibition is intended to reach only those blogs that cross the line into active promotion or glorification. For example, joking that you need to starve yourself after Thanksgiving or that you wanted to kill yourself after a humiliating date is fine, but recommending techniques for self-starvation or self-mutilation is not.

There's a wide gulf between those two instances and Tumblr is giving blogs a grace period to edit or download offensive content.

It's worth nothing that Tumblr has not taken as proactive a step against child pornography. Members have reported offenders in the past and successfully gotten sites deleted, but some members still post about seeing it in their feed. Then, of course, there's the you-to-do-yourself problem. Tumblr's content policy states: "Sexually Explicit Video. Accounts that use Tumblr's Video Upload feature to regularly upload and host sexually explicit or pornographic material will be suspended." Earlier this month, as Gawker noted, after "six years and a couple scandals" Reditt officially banned child porn.

For Tumblr, however, the new focus on self-harm, might not be as relevant. Says Jezebel, "Many of the thinspo blogs Tumblr so hoped to eradicate, meanwhile, have migrated to Pinterest. Sigh."