Chubby Lumpkins: Poorly Shaped Teen Says Instagram Is Guilty Of Fat-Shaming After Kicking Her Off For Pics

Really??

Fat Teen Says Instagram Kicked Her Off Because She’s Obese

Via Think Progress reports:

In the photograph, Samm Newman is smiling. She’s got that Lorde look with her wet, curly hair tossed all the way to one side. Her eyes are as blue as the cover of her cell phone, and she poses for the selfie hand at her side, stomach bare. Her white bra and pink polka dot underwear don’t match, not that they even need to, because that’s not the point. She’s happy and she’s proud. She’s also 19 years old. And a size 24.

The Ohio teen posted the picture to Instagram on Saturday. This was only the second post of Newman’s that revealed her stomach. (The first time, she’d been wearing a bikini.) But she wanted to join the ranks of plus-sized woman on Instagram using the hashtags #pizzasisters4lyfe and #bodylove to share messages of body positivity and create a space of inclusion on the social network.

On Sunday at 2 a.m., Newman got a notification that her picture was removed. Instagram told her it was because it violated their community guidelines under its “what not to do” section:

“Don’t share photos or videos that show nudity or mature content. If you wouldn’t show the photo or video you are thinking about uploading to a child, or your boss, or your parents, you probably shouldn’t share it on Instagram. The same rule applies to your profile photo. Accounts found sharing nudity or mature content will be disabled and your access to Instagram may be discontinued.”

Angry and confused, Newman began scouring the #bodylove thread to see how her picture differed from any other, how somehow it was inappropriate enough to be removed so quickly. What she found: thousands of pictures of thin, conventionally attractive women, in the same amount of clothing that Newman wore (and in many cases, even less) and some in far more revealing positions. One account in particular she found, @shapeofawoman posts dozens of borderline-pornographic images of skinny women all of which used the #bodylove.

With the help of a friend, Newman began reporting these pictures as clear violations of Instagram’s nudity guidelines. If her picture was removed, so should these. Two hours in, she was forcibly logged out of her Instagram account. “I was using it one second, and the next I was kicked out,” she said. When she tried to log back in, she was told her account had been deactivated. After posting only one semi-revealing photo, Newman was exiled from the social network, the next day when she checked the accounts she had reported, none had received the same censorship. In fact, @shapeofawoman had 25 new posts.

“I was crying, I was so devastated,” Newman said. “I contacted Instagram relentlessly for help, and I basically felt like message I got was to shut up and go away, so that’s when I decided to go to the media.”

The rejection from Instagram was all the more hurtful because the network had recently become a place where, for the first time, Newman was embracing her body and bonding with other plus-size women. “All my life, I was told to suck it in, and I would see these commercials on TV every day of these Victoria Secret models who weighed just nothing,” Newman said. “As comfortable as I was with myself, I wasn’t comfortable with my body, and that was a really huge drawback.”

Newman received messages from journalists the world over, some as far away as Australia, where she was asked to be on a morning talk show. “It’s insane,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

In the wake of all this negative press, Instagram issued a statement:

“We are truly sorry for our mistake here. When reviewing reported content from the Instagram community, we don’t always get it right. As soon as we were made aware, we restored the content.”

Big girls need filters and likes too! Do you think teen should have been kicked off Instagram??