Cant believe how much of a coincidence this is after i posted about this issue under a week ago, so happy people are talking about this issue and action is being taken!!
Shut down: Instragram closes pro-anorexia loophole
POPULAR photo-sharing app Instagram has cracked down on an 'exploding' pro-eating disorder culture on the social network - closing a major loophole young women and men have used to worship starved bodies.In response to a swelling pro-anorexia community which posted photos with captions such as 'I plan to sleep all day so I don't eat' on the social network, Instagram last year announced it would censor accounts or ban search terms promoting eating disorders.
While search terms such as 'thinspo', 'probulimia' and 'proanorexia' were shut down, a community flourished around the hashtag '#thynspo' and others with similar spelling. Instagram blocked the 'thynspo' hashtag at the weekend, prompted by questions from news.com.au. 'Thynspo' was a growing host to more than 100,000 images. The pictures tended to be 'selfies' by skin-and-bones young women accompanied with messages including 'hunger hurts, but starving works' and 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'.
"Any account or hashtag found to be encouraging eating disorders is in direct violation of Instagram community guidelines and will be disabled," an Instagram spokeswoman said.
Eating disorder charity the Butterfly Foundation said it was pleased Instagram had clamped down on the 'insidious' practice."We are pleased that Instagram is true to its policy and removing these insidious hashtags that group damaging images," Butterfly CEO Christine Morgan said.
Instagram and other social media sites such as Tumblr and PInterest have policies to delete pro-anorexia content, but the Butterfly Foundation says it has witnessed a big move to the Facebook-owned photo app in the past year.
