Instagram has a long history of deleting the accounts of activists who use the platform to speak about systemic injustice. Instagram also has a long history of deleting fat people’s accounts, especially fat activists. 

Many of these fat folks use Instagram to educate, to organize movements, and to promote their work. It takes years of diligent work to build a following on Instagram, and all of that work is erased when these folks have their accounts deleted. They literally have to start all over unless they can get Instagram to review the deletion and restore the account. 

One of the reasons fat folks’ accounts get deleted so often is that people with deep seated anti-fatness report the accounts for “violating community guidelines” when the account owners haven’t done anything wrong. 

This petition is raising awareness around the deletion of fat people’s accounts and to demand that Instagram change it’s biased deactivation process. We want Instagram to perform an unbiased review before an account is deleted to ensure that people who haven’t violated the community guidelines aren’t being deleted. We want Instagram’s community guidelines changed to remove inherent anti-fat bias that leads to account deletion. We want Instagram to institute an easier appeal process so fat folks who have their accounts deleted can get them restored.

We want Instagram to stop deleting fat folks!