On Thursday night, the verified Instagram account of Kendra Sunderland, a popular porn star with 2.2 million followers, was abruptly taken down. The why of it all is a bit complicated and involves a flurry of X-rated content, fanciful allegations, and liquid courage.
The drama seemingly began some weeks ago, when Sunderland, a 25-year-old adult performer who burst onto the scene after filming herself publicly masturbating in the library of Oregon State University, posted a topless photo of herself to Instagram. In the comments section, she alleged that she was able to do so—in violation of the social media site’s draconian rules regarding nudity—because she was “blowing” the “CEO of Instagram,” who happens to be Adam Mosseri (married, three sons). Despite flouting their policy, her account remained intact. Then, on Wednesday night, Sunderland posted an Instagram Live video of herself topless, fellating a dildo, followed by a familiar justification.
“Hey guys! I just wanna let you know I’m not deleted yet,” offered Sunderland. “I’m batshit crazy. I might be sucking off the CEO of Instagram. But whatever it is, I’m here to stay!”
Sunderland’s claim immediately raised eyebrows, as it wasn’t her first time making it, and she did appear to be receiving a certain degree of preferential treatment on the platform, given the two rather public instances of rule-breaking and the fact that her Instagram profile photo was a topless image of herself. When users tried to flag the topless image, they were told that it wasn’t in violation of Instagram rules.
When asked about her account, a representative for Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, provided the following statement to The Daily Beast: “Over a billion people use Instagram and at times that means we make mistakes. This account violated our policies and we’ve now removed it. This person has no connection to executives at our company, and claims that she received preferential treatment are baseless.”
Sunderland, when reached by phone, said this was all just a big misunderstanding, and she was merely tipsy from a few White Claws and joking around—though she’s not sure if the tall tales of an affair were the reason she was kicked off Instagram, or the risqué content she was posting.
“I’m not really sure exactly if that’s why. I was also going crazy on Live yesterday, doing things I know I shouldn’t have, and was just drunk and didn’t care. I’m guessing that’s why. I would be surprised if the other reason was why, because I said it in such a joking manner,” she explains. “I never even really knew who the CEO of Instagram was, or anything. I’ve never met this person before in my life.”
Like many in the adult industry (and beyond), Sunderland believes that Instagram’s firm stance against posting female breasts represents a sexist double standard—but she also confesses that she may have taken things a bit too far this time.
“I think having my titties out shouldn’t have been a problem because guys can be shirtless on Instagram Live, and there shouldn’t be any difference,” she says. “But as far as shoving a black dildo down my throat and pouring a White Claw over it, maybe that was too far. I’m sorry, Instagram!”
The Sunderland controversy raises larger questions about Instagram’s overall treatment of adult performers. About two years ago, Alana Evans, an adult performer and the head of the Adult Performers Actors Guild (APAG), a union representing those in the porn world, flanked by her lawyer and other performers, met with Instagram executives at their office in Menlo Park, California. During the meeting, Evans and the other adult actors took Instagram to task for disappearing a number of porn star accounts without any explanation as to what rules—if any—they violated.
“We’re negotiating with Instagram’s legal team. Our lawyer meets with them every week,” says Evans. “We have three cases active right now that are about to go to the next step, and with Instagram, our lawyer said, ‘We’ve got 300 more of these. We can go to court and cost you guys a million dollars.’ But Instagram said, ‘No, no, no, let’s wait until January and meet then.’”
That lawyer is Jim Felton, the managing partner of G&B Law and the lawyer representing APAG since its inception. As Felton tells it, that meeting two years ago did lead to a number of adult performers’ Instagram accounts being reinstated and started “a nice dialogue.” But it unfortunately didn’t last.
“They were short-lived gains, and ultimately we went back to having accounts being terminated—in many instances for reasons that performers didn’t understand, or didn’t know,” Felton says. “In many cases, a lot of girls’ accounts are suspended without any notice. They’re just gone. It would be one thing if a post was flagged that violated the rules, but in many cases that doesn’t happen. The accounts are just gone. So we’re putting together a number of examples.”
Instagram product head Adam Mosseri speaks during the F8 Facebook Developers conference on April 30, 2019, in San Jose, California.
Justin Sullivan/GettyAfter I asked Facebook about the meetings with APAG and their alleged discriminatory practices against those in porn, a representative for the company provided me with a series of bullet points:
- Adult performers and sex workers are subject to the same policies as everyone else on Instagram. We do not disable or take action on accounts simply because they are run by adult performers or sex workers.
- Specifically, we allow sex positive content and discussion, but we do not allow content that facilitates, encourages or coordinates sexual encounters between adults. We also remove content that contains uncovered female nipples, among other things - more here.
- We met APAG and spoke with them on numerous occasions about our policies and enforcement to help ensure adult performers and sex workers voices were heard. As a result of these conversations, we made changes to minimise the number of accounts that were mistakenly removed under our sexual solicitation policies. We also re-reviewed hundreds of accounts sent to us by APAG at different points, and restored accounts that were removed in error.
Evans and Felton, however, believe there is far more work to be done regarding Instagram’s treatment of adult industry entertainers.
“We started an arbitration process with them about two months ago for one particular performer, and we’re getting ready to submit a number of additional notices of dispute,” says Felton. “We have had talks with their lawyer about trying to set up some kind of meeting to potentially see if we can better understand why there’s such disparate treatment between verified performers or celebrities in comparison to porn performers, some of whom have quite a few followers—though not as many as the Kardashians or other celebrities have who are allowed to take their clothes off.”
As for Sunderland, she tells me that when she tried to appeal Instagram’s decision to kick her off she was met with the spinning wheel of death.
“I went to appeal it and you have to do this video of you looking in all directions so they can scan your face,” says Sunderland. “I went to submit it, and the loading button on the submit goes on forever and ever. I don’t know how long it’s going to go on for.”
She pauses. “Either way, I’m gonna be alright. It’s not life or death.”
