Will Instagram Ever ‘Free the Nipple’?

Surely, we still acknowledge some difference between men and women when it comes to significance of their nipples, functionally and socially. No? Really?

Interesting that the company that can precisely target each and everyone of us with an unwanted ad filled with obscene hateful lies and misinformation, can't use the same targeting systems to prevent prudish viewers from seeing female nipples. Indeed, Z appears to have no problems with ads under the guise of "political ad" filled with obscene lies and deception being inflicted on everyone walking the streets of NY or on his FB website. "it was just keeping within the bounds of social propriety." Whose bounds? The Mullahs'? The Saudis'? They view women as a whole , not as an “erogenous zone,” but as obscene which is why women have to be imprisoned or covered up entirely in a burqa - as a hijab is just too sexy and revealing. Besides, who is Instagram trying to protect? Young little boys and girls? Really! How many nursing kids wear blindfolds? Obviously those who have an objection to woman's breasts needs to grow up.

Silicon Valley tycoons may be considered in future, if not existing, law, criminals. A monopolist is a criminal. A spy is a criminal, especially when it's for money. Preventing inventors to benefit and develop inventions is another type of crime, which, moreover, threatens civilization by strangling the invention flow civilization depends upon to survive the ravages it itself causes, and the unavoidable ecological devastation which fuels it. Worst of all, SV tycoons regulate art, thoughts and emotions according to their whims. Several of the most famous tycoons are not even college educated. Yet, they are received in presidential palaces. They are just greed educated, and they want humanity to justify the greed which fostered them. They used to block you if you showed a painting commanditated by a Pope in the Middle Age, on the ground that it was obscene. The abuse they indulge in where fostered by the naivety that incited us to allow them to develop the criminal niches they fester in, and try to control the world from. What do criminals do to cover their tracks? Well, they just scream louder, using their media and political control, and accuse the innocent and upright to be themselves criminals. A traditional way to do that is prudery, criminalizing what is natural. Another way is to enforce sexism, itself a crime against nature, and then criminalize it. This is what the war against the female nipple accomplishes. Holier than thou, to oppress and distract thou

Not sure what is the point of “freeing the nipple”? Seems like the stupidest non-movement ever. Are women and men the same? No, of course not. I can understand why men want want to see this, but what silly women are interested in showing their nipples and why? Publicity, Shock value? Being radical? There are so many other more worthy things for women to fight for.

Despite decades of the advancement of women's rights, it seems like The Great Algorithms that decides whether content is acceptable or not still deem women's bodies as inherently more immoral, controversial, and deserving of punishment and censorship than men's. They say that tech companies are "progressive", but they are clearly still borrowing rules from morality playbooks written decades ago. #freethenipple indeed.

Instagram and Facebook need only to sit on a beach in Europe for 5 minutes in summer to discover the democracy of nipples. For every perky, young breast there will be a droopy, saggy grandmother. Americans drop their jaws at beach breasts while Europeans chuckle at their reaction.

Women's nipples are formed ready to work, men's are not. There in lies the difference. But the controversy is from cultural views on the presumption that the body is the less than perfect vessel for the immortal soul. The human body as profane and an anchor upon souls to the worldly which keeps them from reaching for heaven, the spiritual insights into being and not being. We are stuck with this since St. Paul helped shape the culture of Western Civilization. It can all go away very quickly, once people just see the body as what all rely upon to live.

Images of violence are considered more acceptable than nipples... Seems strange to me.

Someone beat me to this comment — but let’s sensor men the same way we do women. Censor the male nipple! While we’re at it, I think Muslim men should be forced to wear head scarves, burkas, hijabs and ask permission from women for things like driving, education, whom they may marry, and even going for a walk outside.

Does the NYT allow/show any sort of nudity? If not, why not?

We should be more concerned about the boobs running Facebook and Instagram.

Let me guess - these would be the same folks actively pushing FB & Insta to aggressively censor political posts and adverts. ~ "Kill a man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.” — Jean Rostand

I am all for this. 100 percent. :)

Some time in the future, Instagram will be known as the Daniele da Volterra of our times.

Another ridiculous moral leftover from the Puritan past of this country. The irony is that it’s the very people who complain about nudity that are the problem. They just can’t seem to get past their own troubled thoughts when they see nudity.

Pretending that the nipples of men and women are the same is foolish and culturally destructive. A man’s nipple is decoration; a woman’s nipple is central to life itself. The life of newborn boys and girls flows through the nipples of women, not men. The act of nursing is in many ways a sacred one and it violates that maternal intimacy, that bod between a mother and her child, to pretend that a man’s nipple has the same place in our lives. Women should resist.

The simple truth is too much for Facebook/Instagram. Perhaps by calling a female nipple a lying political advertisement, it could be published.

Free the Nip! Now.

How bizarre. Nipples are considered obscene, but Trump's hate-filled rants are free speech. Go figure.

Hmmm, Facebook can allow American minds to be poisoned with Russian counter-measures designed to subvert American democracy but won’t allow the display of nipples. Which is more evil? Maybe someone should make nipple posts with the American Flag and the Star Spangled Banner playing in the background.

The ‘complete freedom’ claimed by any artist is a misunderstanding of art. No human being has complete freedom and art is, above all, human, or it is not art.

More special pleading from those incapable of putting together their own means of distribution. "Oh, look, free distribution of photos. Let's use it. Let's insist that they let use it any way we want." In related news: "A free press is a great thing, if you can afford to own one".

They just need the "Hot dog or not hot dog" app. - Jian Yang, Silicon Valley TV show.

The best solution? cover the men too. Please. Especially in public.

It’s not only photographers. Instagram repeatedly censors painters and other artists despite guidelines stating otherwise.

America is a Puritan country, so this will never be allowed here. In Europe nudity on TV is common and uncensored, but in America it's censored and always has been. European movies with nudity are rated "12" but in America they're either R or sometimes even X. This whole Facebook/Instagram debate would never even be an issue in Europe. It's only because these two giants are US-based.