Instagram Banned This Moms Account For Posting This Photo Of Her Child

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Instagram is quite strict on monitoring photos which people post. Users are able to report photos which they deem inappropriate, which will Instagram to check up on whether the reported photo lines up with their official Community Guidelines.

A Mommy blogger, Courtney Adamo, wasn’t anything near the typical Instagram user who’d get reported for inappropriate photos. Her feed didn’t display any exposed women’s bodies or spam. She had a strong following of users interested in her family’s day-to-day life with young kids.

Adamo was aware of Instagram’s photo guidelines but never worried about them as she wasn’t posting anything against their guidelines. The one night she discovered that Instagram had completely deleted her account due to community guideline violations. She was both shocked and devastated and said in a blog post:

Instagram has deleted four years of my family photos and memories. All the photos of our travels, my children’s birthdays, all my notes and comments about my children’s traits and milestones, all the comments from friends and family, the messages I received when Marlow was born, the hashtags I created to help organise my photos, and all the direct messages I shared and received from my siblings and family members whom I rarely see. All of it gone. I am sick just thinking about it.

What was so offensive that they had to take away all of this from Adamo?

Adamo posted one photo of her young daughter, Marlow, after a successful day of potty training. “I thought it was such a sweet photo of my baby girl and her gorgeous, round belly (and outie belly button),” Adamo said. “And I love that her pride is so evident in the photo.”

The photo shows young Marlow in her new big-girl underwear lifting her shirt up. Her cute, round toddler belly was poking out, so many found it ridiculous Instagram would ban Adamo over something so innocent. However, others pointed out the child was pulling her shirt just past chest level, which was most likely the reason Instagram made their decision.

Adamo was in disbelief. She said she was sure she had not broken any rules.

“Unless a baby’s belly is considered ‘nudity’…but surely it isn’t!” Adamo wrote. “She is a BABY! It is no different than a photo of a baby wearing a nappy, or a little boy in swim trunks, and to entertain the idea that it is even remotely inappropriate is a disgusting thing in itself.”

Adamo was determined to get her account back and when she couldn’t find a way to contact any sort of customer support at Instagram, the mom took to social media for help.

Please @instagram will you review my account. I promise you will not find any photos that violate any of your guidelines! courtneybabyccino
— Babyccino Kids (@babyccinokids) June 19, 2014



Adamo was followed by her huge following of fans backing her up and calling for her account to be reinstated. She got attention and Instagram responded.

A spokesman admitted that they had made a mistake and Adamo’s account was restored.

“We try hard to find a good balance between allowing people to express themselves creatively and having policies in place to protect young children,” the spokesman said. “This is one reason why our guidelines put limitations on nudity, but we recognize that we don’t always get it right. In this case, we made a mistake and have since restored the account.”

Most of her followers were happy for Adamo when she got her Instagram account back, but others thought she should never have posted the photo in the first place, saying it’s better to never share nude or partially nude photos of children to protect them from child predators.

What do you think?