Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Who Does Instagram Choose to Censor？ (Hint： Women)

00:00:00.000 Hello, everyone. I have to tell you, I was just going about my day today. It is pouring rain

00:00:19.400 here, so I've been hiding in the house. I was going about my day. I was posting

00:00:26.660 Glynis McNichols' new book cover to my Instagram. If you didn't listen to the first couple seasons

00:00:34.280 of Under the Influence, Glynis is my, I don't even know how to describe her. She's one of my

00:00:41.380 closest friends. She married Nick and I at our wedding. She was the officiant. She wore this

00:00:47.540 beautiful vintage Halston dress. She was on the first two seasons of Under the Influence.

00:00:54.420 We've driven across the country many times together. And she's just a brilliant, wonderful

00:01:00.860 human being. She is like, she's the human equivalent of your favorite caftan, is what she is.

00:01:09.680 And she has this new book coming out that I love called I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself,

00:01:15.960 which is about her crazy adventure in Paris as a single woman who, as the title says,

00:01:23.040 sets out to enjoy herself. A woman who wants more, who wants more sex, who wants more cheese, 0.98

00:01:29.960 who wants more passion, who wants more men coming over and giving her massages. The book is great. 0.97

00:01:36.420 I've read it many times at this point. And it's great. And I love it. And I wanted to post the

00:01:41.400 cover today. And I did. And then Instagram told me to take it down. They told me to take it down

00:01:49.100 because the cover contains a beautiful, historic, and very famous painting of a woman lying on her

00:01:57.520 belly showing her backside. This is a painting that hangs in the Louvre, a very, very famous

00:02:04.920 museum. People see it. Millions of people see it every year. Instagram did not like this painting.

00:02:11.440 Instagram did not like that this painting was on my feed, and it asked me to take it down

00:02:16.200 using language that said, if I didn't, I would lose engagement on an account that is essentially

00:02:25.520 my business. So you will lose business if you do not take down one of your closest friends' book

00:02:33.660 covers. This was fascinating to me because it does not actually violate Instagram's rules of

00:02:41.840 engagement, which are very vague. But it does call into question, who can censor what at these

00:02:48.660 social media companies? Because I see stuff on social media that is disturbing all day long,

00:02:55.640 and I doubt Instagram is asking them to take it down. Now, of course, I mean, look, it's not my

00:03:02.280 book. If we really want to get into this, if we really want to talk about it, I had to call up

00:03:07.340 glenis your hair looks fantastic yeah i have to get author photos done the end of next week

00:03:14.040 you know i don't think your author photos matter when the cover of your new book

00:03:19.640 looks like it does this is not the episode that i was planning on doing today i was working on

00:03:26.840 an episode called attack of the fit fluencers

00:03:30.360 which will obviously be coming down the pipeline yeah are you are you suddenly being served more

00:03:39.860 fitfluencer content because i'm just like all i'm seeing is is abs i'm seeing so many abs

00:03:46.140 on my instagram account yeah uh since january 1st and we're gonna do a whole episode on

00:03:52.100 why that is and it's a good reminder that you as the consumer of instagram are the product

00:03:58.400 companies are paying a lot of money to sell you these things this time of year and paying a lot

00:04:05.720 of money to make you feel bad and they're paying a lot of money to make you feel bad so that you

00:04:09.960 will buy their stuff all of capitalism is based on there being something wrong with you that can

00:04:15.760 only be fixed obviously if only be fixed by something that you buy from instagram yeah

00:04:22.160 Yes. But yeah, but what's happening right now was so interesting to me that we had to record

00:04:30.200 this right away. And it gets into something I've been thinking about a lot, which is what exactly

00:04:37.100 are Instagram's rules about what it will show you and what it doesn't want to show you. And I just

00:04:44.980 want to set this up for the listeners and tell them what happened this afternoon. You did a

00:04:52.300 cover reveal for your new book today, which I'm so excited about. It's called I'm Mostly Here to

00:05:00.260 Enjoy Myself. And tell the audience what it's about before I tell them about the crazy thing

00:05:06.860 that happened this afternoon? It's funny because maybe we talked about this. Penguin asked me to

00:05:15.840 do a video in support of the book. And I'm like, what is my elevator pitch for this video?

00:05:22.160 What's my elevator pitch for the book? The book is about the five weeks I spent in Paris in August

00:05:26.900 of 2021 after a year, over a year, home alone in my little apartment in New York, very alone.

00:05:35.400 And so when the borders opened back up, I hopped on a plane, went to Paris and essentially took all my clothes off and ate a lot of cheese and had a lot of sex and came back and thought we don't have any good, enjoyable stories about women that aren't, you know, framed in the narrative of marriage or parenthood or partnership.

00:06:04.260 And then I was like, we definitely don't have any enjoyable stories about women over 40.

00:06:08.420 So I decided to write one. 0.99

00:06:11.640 No, no, there's not enough stories out there about women enjoying themselves and then not

00:06:18.340 being shamed for it, enjoying cheese and not being shamed for it.

00:06:23.660 I put so much cheese in the Sicilian inheritance that you get hungry while you eat the book.

00:06:30.560 And I got so hungry when I was reading the first draft of your book.

00:06:34.980 Did you? That's good to hear. I don't feel because I don't cook at all, which, you know, writing about food feels scary because I'm just like.

00:06:45.840 I don't have the knowledge or the vocabulary tools I felt like to do it.

00:06:50.940 But people keep telling me who've read it that they that they think that the food is the hedonism.

00:06:58.260 I will tell you, I actually – and I don't know what this says about me, you know, as an exhausted mom or a person that's been married for eight years now.

00:07:10.800 But I like the food parts of the book.

00:07:13.000 It's been eight years.

00:07:14.280 Yeah.

00:07:14.600 I liked the food parts of the book better than the sex parts of the book.

00:07:18.240 You're not the only person to tell me that.

00:07:19.820 I think, you know, I think this book is going to – it's probably like any book, right?

00:07:24.300 It was definitely like this with No One Tells You This.

00:07:26.140 people found different things in it that people read for what they need they don't

00:07:32.500 that's like what you put in it when people get out of it are very different so it's like going

00:07:36.340 to a dinner and i love the steak and you love the you know the fish or the vegetables or whatever

00:07:41.900 i also love the steak let's be honest i want to stay but it's like i'm sure some people are going

00:07:46.820 to come away from this and be like i love the food or i love the female friendship and some

00:07:50.100 people are going to come away and be like this is porn fantastic and some people might just like

00:07:53.520 hearing about Paris. I don't know. I have no idea. It's going out there now. It's out of my

00:07:58.200 control. It's like putting, you know, anything out into the world. You do what you can and then

00:08:02.280 it's out of your hands. Well, exactly. Exactly. But it's also not really out of your hands.

00:08:08.740 Not yet. Well, because, and I say this a lot, we're both authors. We make our living by writing.

00:08:16.220 and so so much of the marketing of the book falls on us so today was a big day for you

00:08:23.860 because the day that you release your cover is the day that your pre-order link goes live

00:08:29.360 and so this is really the first time that readers can can see the book it's almost an ad for the

00:08:36.360 book in a way right yeah absolutely and it's like um especially I love the cover so much

00:08:44.580 remember Sicilian Inheritance has got such a good cover too it's such a relief when you

00:08:50.260 feel great about your cover when you love your cover yeah well your cover your cover is what

00:08:56.340 we're going to talk about today my friend yes we are but it's just it's such a it's like you've

00:09:01.340 been working on this the book doesn't come out for six months but you know as you know

00:09:04.920 you've already been worked by the time you get to this point you've been working on it for over a

00:09:08.380 year or two years whatever long and so finally having it out into the world is both so

00:09:13.240 gratifying exciting and also a little terrifying it's hugely hugely terrifying hugely terrifying

00:09:20.460 it's like taking off your clothes for the first time in front of a stranger in this case

00:09:25.020 in this case literally you literally take your clothes off in this book you do you do multiple

00:09:30.480 times multiple times and so i wanted to do an instagram post celebrating the real the release

00:09:36.860 of this cover. Because you are a very good friend and sometimes wife. And sister wife.

00:09:43.620 And sister wife. Yeah. Yeah. Because I know how hard it is, right? We've been running a campaign 1.00

00:09:49.160 over here to get people psyched about the Sicilian inheritance. And I'm continuing to do it where

00:09:55.100 if you pre-order the book this month, you get a free lifetime subscription to our newsletter

00:10:00.760 over the influence. I know. You know, I said this to you the other day, but I think you could

00:10:05.460 run a seminar on how to do this because you are very good at it, but it's also exhausting. And

00:10:11.840 we talk about this every time a new book of ours comes out. It's like, what's the way to do it now?

00:10:17.100 It shifts. It shifts. This is different. And I think people really appreciate it because I know

00:10:22.580 that books are so expensive. And frankly, at the end of the day, I want this book to reach as many

00:10:28.300 people as possible. I want as many people as possible to read and enjoy the Sicilian inheritance.

00:10:33.460 So that's why I'm giving away this paid subscription.

00:10:37.160 And when people DM me their receipts, they send it to me on Instagram.

00:10:40.620 They email me at joe.piazza at Gmail.

00:10:43.760 I instantly add them to the sub stack and give them a lifetime subscription.

00:10:48.020 We've been doing it all week, and it's been gonzo.

00:10:49.940 I mean, so many people are doing it.

00:10:51.120 It's incredibly exciting.

00:10:53.120 I'm just blown away by it.

00:10:56.680 But today, I wanted to post about your book and your cover to get people excited about that. And that is when this weird thing happened. This weird thing. First, I actually think I'm not going to pat myself on the back. But I think that the caption I wrote for it is a good elevator pitch.

00:11:18.420 for your book. It's great. It's great. It's wonderful. I might have to lift it from there

00:11:22.060 before it disappears. I took a screen grab earlier. It might disappear. It might disappear.

00:11:26.540 Yeah. So what I said is bias aside, because you are my sister wife. This book is amazing.

00:11:32.200 It is one woman's journey to enjoy herself to the utmost in Paris. It's got sex and cheese 0.65

00:11:37.820 and romance and men who just want to give you massages. Yes, that is what happens when you 1.00

00:11:43.560 tinder in paris yeah massages and other things um massages and other things and and then i said

00:11:52.460 gift it to every woman you know who wants more more joy more pleasure more cheese oh i love

00:12:00.280 wants more that's so good wants more and i posted a picture of the book and let's describe this

00:12:05.660 book cover it's one of the most beautiful book covers that i have seen lately i've been here for

00:12:12.140 The whole process of it, it's a painting with the words, mostly here to enjoy myself, one woman's pursuit of pleasure in Paris, written over top of the painting.

00:12:27.980 Describe the painting to me.

00:12:30.120 The painting, the original painting is Boucher's Odalisque from 1745, I want to say.

00:12:38.620 and it's of a woman uh lying on blue velvet on her stomach with a bare bottom looking over her

00:12:46.500 shoulder uh with this very inviting look on her face and the author or the cover designer lynn

00:12:53.020 buckley who did such a good job with this sort of cropped her down and superimposed the text on top

00:12:59.820 of it and it's just there's a little butt crack on the bottom right hand corner um which sums up

00:13:06.880 so much about the book and also the paint the actual painting not the actual painting but that

00:13:12.980 the the painting is in the book i talk about this painting in the book so i was really um thrilled

00:13:18.060 that she had given the book such a close read before she came up with this cover because

00:13:22.760 once again as we both know covers are fraught and especially covers on women's topics are

00:13:28.720 covers are fraught covers now now this painting is in the public domain right this painting's in

00:13:35.540 the public domain and also hangs in the Louvre it is a highly highly respected I mean Boucher

00:13:42.100 is you know one of the preeminent painters of the Rococo movement although I could not speak

00:13:48.520 at great length about that but this is not like an obscure painting we found in the corner of like

00:13:55.460 Pinterest somewhere that's the AI came up with this is a highly respected regarded artist in a

00:14:01.140 painting that hangs in the Louvre. In the Louvre, in the Louvre, but also one, and I say public

00:14:06.960 domain, because it's, it's one that, that can, can appear on social media sites. It is something

00:14:14.060 that can be used for different kinds of art. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because I just,

00:14:20.940 I just want to leave no doubt the reason that I got an Instagram message immediately after

00:14:28.200 I posted this cover and this caption. And this Instagram message was from Instagram. I got a

00:14:35.420 warning. Essentially, when I opened my Instagram, I was given a slap on the wrist for posting this.

00:14:43.840 And it wasn't just a slap on the wrist. It was, and I think it might be because I have a business

00:14:49.340 account now. I don't know. I don't know how any of this works. My book account is a business

00:14:52.420 account, but it's not verified. But anyways, go on. I was told this post, this post that you just

00:14:59.200 posted of your best friend's book could limit your account's reach with non-followers. It may

00:15:06.880 go against our recommendation guidelines. And then it told me to delete the post if I didn't want to

00:15:15.200 lessen my reach. Yeah. I mean... Now, I'm not the only person that... I don't know if you know this,

00:15:21.820 but I'm not the only person this happened to oh who else did it happen to it also happened to

00:15:26.780 Jen Romolini did it she didn't tell me that it did it did well she messaged she messaged me

00:15:32.840 and so it was it was a very ominous message because it wasn't just hey this might violate

00:15:38.520 something it was if you don't take this down you might lose business yeah you didn't know that

00:15:44.680 god forbid you show a painting of that I mean that's interesting it happened in Jen too I have

00:15:50.200 to text her about that um I think I mean this is certainly not it's definitely there's no doubt

00:15:58.000 that it's the booty oh of course not it's of course yeah it is absolutely because I am showing

00:16:03.600 and you can see you can you can pretty much see full booty in in on the book cover um it's a sexy

00:16:11.280 booty but because I haven't got that message from Instagram at all and so I'm wondering why

00:16:19.600 Instagram is like this is definitive censorship yeah of a book a book cover in my mind is art

00:16:27.760 and it is censorship of that but also censorship of a masterpiece of art that hangs in the loop

00:16:36.160 yeah I'm looking sorry I'm now I'm like looking to see if anyone else's has because that's the

00:16:41.980 thing it's like um god i wonder if they would have i'm so tempted to put up a photo of the

00:16:52.420 statue of david and find out what happens okay do you want me to do that i'll do that next

00:16:58.160 i'll put it up i'll put it up while we're talking and let's see what happens by the end of this and

00:17:01.860 by the end of the show that'll be a fun thing for listeners to tune into the whole episode to hear

00:17:05.960 yeah here's the thing we know that men run these social media sites we know that any

00:17:13.900 hint of a nipple in anyone's photo even if it's breastfeeding which i think you've spoken about

00:17:19.480 before can get yanked or or um or pulled off i'm curious if it's like do we have to put a

00:17:28.200 sensitive content warning on the cover which would be so funny but then it's like it's like

00:17:32.300 You would sell so many more books if you put a sensitive content warning on it.

00:17:38.280 I mean, I totally bought the Dr. Dre CD just because it had a parental advisory warning on it back in 92.

00:17:45.780 Well, do you remember when Demi Moore, at nine months pregnant or whatever it was, showed up on the cover of Vanity Fair?

00:17:52.220 I think that there was like a wrapper around it is what I recall. 0.96

00:17:55.580 And that's just her. 0.69

00:17:56.380 She was naked. 1.00

00:17:57.880 She was pregnant. 1.00

00:17:58.560 Yes, absolutely.

00:17:59.100 so I mean the thing is it's sort of underscoring part of what the book is about which is our 0.55

00:18:05.460 inability to talk without what that is is shaming the cut it's shaming me it's shaming

00:18:16.040 the cover it's shaming this idea of women of naked bodies essentially enjoying themselves

00:18:21.500 enjoying themselves shaming the idea of women enjoying yourself yeah yeah of a very I mean

00:18:26.020 this pain I just anyway uh and so that's so it's so I mean I wonder what happened I'm just trying

00:18:35.480 to think through my head of like artists it's like remember when they'd only play Madonna like

00:18:38.860 a prayer after midnight it's uh yes oh remember when you last time or like three times ago when

00:18:44.740 you were here and we just watched Madonna videos and drank until three in the morning there's

00:18:49.180 something that's like of course made you want to see that video so much more but it's this idea

00:18:55.620 this institutionalization of like it has to be bad because it has to do with women it's not even 1.00

00:19:02.580 sexual it's like just physical it's a your a women's body is a source of shame and should 0.82

00:19:08.780 be punished yes this is this is bad because a woman or invisibilized which is also part of the 0.90

00:19:14.940 like the narrative of the book is like there's no narrative we have such narrow narratives around

00:19:20.880 all women's lives were so invisiblized by storytellers. And then to have the cover

00:19:26.460 actually invisiblized is very interesting. To have the cover invisiblized. Is that even a word,

00:19:33.440 girlfriend? I don't know. I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm, listen, if they can erase that,

00:19:37.400 I can create it. I've been invisiblized this week. I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to post that

00:19:44.800 find out. I cross posted it. I cross posted the cover between my personal account, which is

00:19:55.780 private, which just has literally it's I split the two before they started the Instagram where

00:20:01.460 you could have close friends so that I was keeping like the kids in my life and my private life in a

00:20:07.160 very small group of people I actually just knew. So I cross posted this to both. So I can't actually

00:20:11.320 tell who who is who's posting who's sharing it where and i to see if it's i can't believe i have

00:20:20.620 it's so interesting that i haven't gotten any warning about this maybe i know i know well

00:20:26.140 we're gonna we're gonna take a breather really quickly uh we're gonna take a quick break uh we

00:20:31.500 have a new sponsor that i really like that i'm gonna talk to you about actually uh but when we

00:20:36.420 come back to our chat about this, I actually have the Instagram guidelines in front of me.

00:20:42.180 Oh, okay. Interesting.

00:20:43.580 And you do not violate them. You don't. So I really, I want to dig into that a little more

00:20:49.940 when we get back. But first, I want to talk about a new sponsor. Now, Glynis, you haven't been on

00:20:56.040 the show in a while, but part of the awesomeness of me doing the show on my own is that I get to

00:21:05.000 choose the sponsors I love and I I don't I don't well I used to like you know I used to have these

00:21:12.480 sponsors not when I was talking through them but like they would insert ads into my podcast that

00:21:17.940 were really inappropriate sometimes it was a guns.com and I'm like are you kidding me we got

00:21:22.380 I got emails about that on the wilder podcast and I think it's one of those things listeners don't

00:21:27.260 always understand the same with when newspapers put headlines on your articles it's like

00:21:31.320 you have very little control most of the time over the ads that are running in what you put

00:21:37.100 out there much the same as I don't have any control over the what the times ads run around

00:21:42.420 my articles it's not so the idea that you have exactly control over it is wonderful

00:21:48.160 yeah I mean I still the some of the dynamic ads the ads that someone else reads are still

00:21:54.200 inserted but I am more careful who I choose and all the ads that I'm reading are all things that

00:22:00.780 I actually use and I actually like, which is really nice. But so today's I'm very excited

00:22:07.420 to welcome Green Chef on as a sponsor of this show. I am so freaking busy right now. I mean,

00:22:15.640 I'm just I'm drowning. I'm drowning in podcasts. I'm drowning in trying to get people to preorder

00:22:21.100 the Sicilian inheritance. And so I need a way to make dinner time easier. There are three children

00:22:27.900 in this house. There is my husband, there is our caregiver, there's my mom,

00:22:32.300 so many people to make decisions for and to feed. And I have been using Green Chef to make dinner

00:22:39.640 time, not just easier, but to take the decision fatigue away from me. Like, I don't want to have

00:22:47.600 to decide what I'm going to cook and then go to the grocery store and get all the ingredients and

00:22:53.500 then make the recipes, Green Chef, which is a meal kit company, just makes it so much easier.

00:23:00.040 So much easier. They offer a wide range of recipes to suit your preferences. And they pretty much

00:23:05.680 just take the work out of eating clean with their nutritionist approved recipes. And the ingredients

00:23:12.360 are always fresh, organic. There's, you know, cage-free eggs and sustainably sourced seafood.

00:23:18.640 It's all good stuff.

00:23:20.020 It's all the stuff that you want in your meals.

00:23:22.600 But without you having to go do all the labor it takes to make these meals.

00:23:30.060 Well, that sounds right up my alley.

00:23:32.340 As we both know, I don't cook.

00:23:33.840 Girl, I've been in your fridge.

00:23:36.260 There's nothing in there.

00:23:37.360 There's plenty in there.

00:23:38.780 It just got pre-made before it arrived.

00:23:41.760 Is there?

00:23:42.800 Yeah.

00:23:43.320 Is there?

00:23:43.680 Yeah.

00:23:43.920 Um, well, I also, it also green, the green market of green chef also lets you stock up

00:23:50.480 on functional snacks and clean beverages to do things that we're all talking about this

00:23:56.200 New Year's, like support your gut and your brain health and all the things that we say,

00:24:00.640 Hey, I want to, I want to do more of this clean eating now, now that, now that the really

00:24:05.820 dirty eating part of the holidays and New Year's are over you.

00:24:10.740 I mean, you were with me for New Year's.

00:24:11.820 We ate so much chocolate.

00:24:13.920 oh I had purchased it it was like five pounds of it you bought an entire grocery bag full of

00:24:21.380 Cadbury chocolate we walked into that place near you in the where what was it called it was so

00:24:27.240 great Van Dusen's Van Dusen's and there was an entire table of British Cadbury chocolate which 1.00

00:24:32.660 is I know and you took it all Canadian let me tell you is just the jackpot I took it all you 0.77

00:24:38.480 took it all yeah you took it all you took it all um and so yeah and so obviously i need a reset 0.82

00:24:45.460 right now and green chef is is it every week you get to choose from 80 different options

00:24:51.880 you easily customize any meal to suit all of the different kinds of eaters in your house

00:24:57.200 they've got keto they've got vegan they've got vegetarian they've got mediterranean they've got

00:25:01.200 things i haven't even heard of uh and you're making me hungry forget about me making you

00:25:06.560 hungry with the book. I'm just going to get a snack. Seriously. But yes, so it's great. I love

00:25:12.880 Green Chef. I'm having a really good time with it. And it is making my life so much easier at

00:25:18.480 dinnertime, which if you know, it can be it can be it's it's hard. It's hard. And we have we have

00:25:26.000 a really good deal for listeners. If you go to greenchef.com slash 60 under the influence and

00:25:34.080 use the code 60 under the influence, you are going to get 60% off plus 20% off your next two

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00:26:00.460 I'm very, I'm excited to share this with people.

00:26:03.280 Green Chef is the number one meal kit for eating well.

00:26:07.340 Don't worry.

00:26:08.420 We'll talk more about cheese in the next few minutes.

00:26:12.420 But I have the guidelines up here for what Instagram does not consider appropriate imagery.

00:26:21.520 And now this is the only place that you can go to find out because Instagram will never

00:26:26.900 let you talk to an actual human.

00:26:28.380 Never. They do not have customer service. Anytime there's a problem, they say, well,

00:26:33.480 look at our community guidelines. So I'm going to look at the community guidelines. And it says,

00:26:39.780 we do not allow nudity on Instagram, with some exceptions, like photos of post-mastectomy

00:26:48.600 scarring and women actively breastfeeding.

00:26:52.180 now i just want to say that they their exceptions are trauma and labor trauma and women's labor

00:27:02.480 this is the one thing i'm going to say but here is here is how i know that you didn't violate the

00:27:07.600 rules it says nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is okay too yes i mean but not in your

00:27:18.480 but not in your case my friend not here's the thing is if you go I mean you go to any major

00:27:24.320 museum there's nudity on the walls right and you've got kids it's not you know that's it's

00:27:28.600 not nudity depicting sexual acts obviously it's nudity I see this all the time on people who are

00:27:36.020 posting images from the Mideast or posting images from conflict zones that are controversial or just

00:27:43.660 controversial in general that instagram um instagram sort of i don't know what the actual

00:27:51.160 phrase for it is there is an actual phrase where they sort of they invisibilize them essentially

00:27:54.780 or they they invisibilize them yeah they they no one sees it or no one can find it like they're

00:28:02.060 definitely i didn't i think mark zuckerberg spoke about this at the beginning of um the war in gaza

00:28:08.860 and saying like looking into the fact they're not spreading certain accounts or they're silencing

00:28:15.020 certain accounts so i but i again the when you say ai it's it's like of course it's ai of course

00:28:21.620 ai is in there reading some random data that we don't know about and something's triggered it and

00:28:26.660 then you get punished for sharing which is silencing which is silencing and that's the

00:28:33.300 thing it's it threatened to silence me it said it said will you delete it's not just take it's

00:28:38.080 It's like, it's going to punish your business by sharing my work.

00:28:41.840 It will punish my business.

00:28:44.460 The reach on the post is low, given it initially, like right before that warning came out, it went to a lot of people before the robots found it.

00:28:55.580 And you're going to like this.

00:28:57.320 I mean, so many people are excited about it. 0.99

00:29:01.040 Farnoosh to Robbie said, holy shit, what a hit she has on her hands. 0.94

00:29:04.280 but the one that you're going to be the most excited about is that uh susan casey liked it 0.97

00:29:10.120 susan casey anybody who hasn't read the wave i mean get on it also her devil's island book where

00:29:18.100 she lives on an island um off sam where the islands off san francisco called again um and

00:29:23.300 she lives there in a boat with sharks what are they that the something alone's the um yes uh

00:29:30.340 it'll come to me the second we get off this and then her most recent book is about deep sea diving

00:29:35.420 and she did a book about dolphins she's like i'm susan casey susan casey is like is like

00:29:41.260 we both fangirl susan casey and she likes your cover i just want you to know if i could follow

00:29:47.720 susan casey i mean if i could literally fangirl her as like i'll just follow you around i would

00:29:52.440 i i'm a good swimmer but i don't think i'm she like swims with sharks and i think that

00:29:56.780 i don't i don't swim with sharks i swim at the jcc you don't you don't swim with sharks her

00:30:02.640 you don't swim with sharks i mean just yeah it's just not a thing you do you know her susan casey's

00:30:08.480 new book is the underworld and yeah it's about deep deep sea diving and the environmental impact

00:30:14.460 of what's going on she's i i mean you should just i everybody's listening to just read everything

00:30:18.200 she writes she's so does read everything susan casey has ever written we love her and we love

00:30:24.740 that she loves Glynis's cover we do I like our little segue like our little um moment of like

00:30:30.660 Susan Casey Susan well that's what we're here to do we're here we're here to we're here to fangirl

00:30:36.860 over people like Susan Casey and we're here to wonder what the hell is up with this because if

00:30:43.440 you can post pictures of nudity and art did the robot that works for Instagram think this was your 0.95

00:30:51.320 butt well the thing too is that when you say ai you know they're reading some sort of data right 0.83

00:30:57.280 that that i wouldn't understand some sort of like literal numbers that signify something

00:31:01.700 and there must be some sort of code in there that just triggers nudity but i'm so i'd be so curious

00:31:08.500 and maybe someone listening to this podcast would know it wouldn't surprise me under the

00:31:12.880 under the influence like i'd be very curious to know all the people who make a living including

00:31:18.740 you like on instagram knowing what triggers certain shutdowns like is it specific things 0.99

00:31:27.860 and if that was a man's ass would we have the same or a male looking ass like if it wasn't 0.99

00:31:33.940 the ass on my cover is like voluptuous and like very it's a voluptuous it's a voluptuous 1.00

00:31:40.100 it's a voluptuous beautiful butt yeah it really is yes it's a woman who's enjoying herself 0.99

00:31:45.940 totally but like if it was like the back of the statue of david would that get the same response 0.85

00:31:51.400 and i mean it's so fascinating and it makes me um

00:31:57.220 oh i just lost my train of thought of like what it makes me think of um

00:32:03.720 i don't i mean but i mean it just makes me want to send this to mark it makes me want to be like

00:32:12.040 you're mark zuckerberg mark zuckerberg by the way he wants to like mud wrestle elon musk i if you

00:32:17.420 want to talk about things that maybe should be silenced uh that might be one of them

00:32:23.080 oh it's so interesting it's so it's not just i mean i'm sort of

00:32:29.880 sanguine about it a little bit just because in certain ways

00:32:33.960 it's it's of course this is what's happening and of course

00:32:39.300 like of course someone takes issue with a small butt crack in the bottom right hand of a cover

00:32:43.700 and of course it's instagram it's actually not that small to be honest i mean it's a pretty big 0.92

00:32:47.180 butt it's okay you're right it's pretty big it's the lower quadrant um but like 0.97

00:32:53.780 at the same time it's just like how dare you how dare you you can walk around topless than you

00:33:01.800 like how dare you i just it's just like how dare you i also think i really i genuinely believe

00:33:08.620 that uh they pick and choose yes what nudity is not okay so i also follow a lot of porn stars

00:33:17.000 on instagram and i will tell you why because we had an episode of committed years ago and it's

00:33:24.420 one of my favorite episodes where i interviewed two married porn stars about what their marriage

00:33:30.320 was like and it was it was just it was a tender tender beautiful episode I went to their house

00:33:39.240 in LA where they were also raising baby chickens and she was going through IVF and it was just

00:33:45.040 it's the opposite of what you thought you were going to get from a porn star marriage

00:33:49.140 but I still follow her and and I forget often that I follow her until all of a sudden I'm like

00:33:56.060 that's a booty in my face but you know the porn stars they're they're usually very careful they 0.94

00:34:04.780 will have a g-string on yeah but it's a lot of booty and it's a lot of booty doing something 0.99

00:34:11.560 that is it's a it's a sexual pose and that has not been taken off my feed ever and there's 0.63

00:34:19.440 millions of followers and hundreds of thousands of engagement and so maybe instagram only wants

00:34:25.980 to take it off if they're not making money from it i wonder i'm so it's like i i i want to know

00:34:34.140 what is the thing that flags it because you know getting any response from instagram i mean you

00:34:40.120 know this it's nearly impossible it just reminded me they'll never i have i have the email address

00:34:44.500 for the i mean the woman who was the public relations person for instagram and i emailed

00:34:49.840 her about this i don't think she'll ever get back to me oh god no you're never gonna it's like it's

00:34:54.980 no there's no no one no one's there no one's responding even if they are there they're not

00:35:00.460 responding but it just what it reminded me of that sort of slipped my mind earlier is

00:35:03.860 a friend of mine who has a newsletter who runs and it has you know like a hundred thousand subscribers 0.75

00:35:09.120 and in the subject line I think I was guesting on it and we were going to put the word ass in

00:35:17.920 the subject line actually um oh interesting interesting or something close to that or

00:35:23.120 like something that was just a little edgy and she said and and in the body of the email and she 0.98

00:35:27.980 said i'm so sorry to do this but can we switch it oh it was the word bitch it was like but it 0.98

00:35:34.120 wasn't like the word bitch referring to women it was like it was a bitch of a time or something

00:35:37.440 like that it was a direct quote from georgia o'keefe by the way from 100 years ago yeah and 0.95

00:35:43.360 she's like oh we have to take that out she said i'm so sorry but this will get absolutely shuttled

00:35:48.180 to spam by Google if we leave that word in the email. I was like, how dare these people

00:35:53.900 do that? Wow. It does feel like all of these tech billionaires are such puritans.

00:36:00.060 When I'm trying to type the F word into my texts, which I do constantly, and it ends up being

00:36:06.600 ducking. And I'm like, I am not saying that I hate my ducking husband. That's not what I mean. 0.98

00:36:12.920 that's not what I mean also when you really consider you're around kids my nieces and

00:36:18.420 nephews all have phones and they're a little bit older than your kids and you really think about

00:36:22.500 what they're all consuming on tiktok or instagram or insta stories or facebook which all of these

00:36:28.200 companies are desperate to get them on as much as possible it's so actually damning like damaging

00:36:34.080 that that this is a thing that they that would be silenced versus what actually needs to be

00:36:43.100 silenced in the world to protect people is of course like I'm so I'm so glad that you're

00:36:48.680 blocking this picture of a beautiful painting a beautiful bottom on a painting so glad you're 0.55

00:36:56.480 blocking that and doing nothing to deal with the fact that you're destroying young girls mental

00:37:02.280 hell yes the i mean the the terrible things that kids see on these sites i mean we're not talked

00:37:08.940 this is not a necessarily new conversation but what's frustrating is to not to have it removed

00:37:17.860 without any discussion or any understanding and just to have it broadly silenced and here's the

00:37:24.760 thing putting the sleeve on the demi more cover first of all up sales i'm sure but it punished

00:37:32.800 oh my god of course i'm dead i'm deadly serious could i just put the sicilian inheritance in a

00:37:38.140 sleeve or put it behind a beaded curtain of a blockbuster because people are going to want

00:37:42.440 sensitive material it's so much more but the thing in those i mean or when you said like

00:37:47.760 you know madonna can't be aired until after midnight madonna was being punished condé

00:37:52.640 nest was being punished but in this situation it's almost as if i purchased one of those things

00:37:59.760 behind the sleeve then i would lose some of my income you know what i mean like this is the

00:38:04.780 weird thing is that you're being punished for my it would be like if you were punished for buying

00:38:10.660 someone else that vanity fair you were punished for showing somebody else the madonna video this

00:38:17.060 is the thing it's like it's collectively punishing and it's enforcing a collective silence

00:38:21.920 which is it's like a little authoritarian in nature if i may use that

00:38:30.020 it's super authoritarian it's super authoritarian and yeah i i actually just messaged some people

00:38:38.380 some friends of mine who are not in media just like my i call them my normie friends

00:38:43.680 and asked them to scroll through their feeds and see if i was showing up with your cover

00:38:51.080 because they don't they don't follow as many people um as we do necessarily my my like school

00:38:56.940 mom friends and stuff and so my feet my post would normally show up for them and it's not

00:39:03.120 oh it's wild i wonder if it's because your feed has got so many kids on it

00:39:09.040 like i'm just when i say that i'm like i'm trying to sort out why like if they're looking at what

00:39:15.580 you normally post and making a decision the way instagram makes decisions about your interests

00:39:20.640 and are saying, oh, your feed is so kid oriented. We can't possibly have this on there.

00:39:25.840 And, or anyone else's feed that's kid oriented is not seeing it. Cause I'm getting,

00:39:29.860 I mean, whatever it's, it's the more we're talking about this at first, I was just like,

00:39:36.220 whatever. And now the more I talk about it, the more irritated I get. And not in behalf of like

00:39:39.700 sales that I'm going to lose, but just on the general sense of how dare you not allow people

00:39:46.200 to make up their own minds, but what they want to see. If someone doesn't like seeing this on my

00:39:49.960 feed. Unfollow me. Unfollow you. And again, it's not pornography. This is this is really not

00:39:57.840 pornography. This is really like not actual pornography. And again, Instagram is not

00:40:03.700 Instagram is not censoring any of the things that it should be censoring. Again, we recently had an

00:40:09.620 episode about an entire account that talks about potty training through elimination training where

00:40:16.960 you have your kids not wear a diaper and forget the method for a minute everyone should potty

00:40:22.160 train their kids however they want to i personally potty train my children by letting them watch as

00:40:26.900 much youtube and eat as many m&ms as they want no freaking judgment here but that account is

00:40:32.920 almost exclusively pictures of naked children on the potty right which which i which i mean

00:40:39.680 adorable love it but that is a massive invasion of those children's privacy and yet instagram

00:40:46.240 totally totally fine with that i do it's also an invitation to pedophilia i would argue but

00:40:52.440 yes huge huge well and that's what i argued on the episode and i reached out to the

00:40:57.300 well i reached out to the woman who runs that account her assistant got back to me not her

00:41:03.080 her assistant uh and uh then and i said what i wanted to talk about and they never wrote back

00:41:09.280 to me again so yeah yeah they pulled an instagram i don't have an assistant yeah no no you don't

00:41:14.520 on Instagram. They silenced me. No. I don't have an assistant. No. But the person that runs the

00:41:19.620 diaper-free Instagram account has an assistant. I'm not bitter about that or anything.

00:41:26.160 What is this world we live in? I hate this world we live in. I hate it. These days, as an author,

00:41:34.300 you have no choice but to sell the heck out of your book on Instagram because that is where

00:41:40.520 people's eyeballs are they're not going to see a book anywhere else unless you are one of the

00:41:44.840 three books chosen to be a celebrity book club pick and also you're relying on word of mouth

00:41:51.000 which is people sharing what they're reading over and over and over again like that actually was

00:41:57.920 what i think sells books is someone reads it and loves it and posts about it or they tell people

00:42:02.640 about it and talks about it exactly exactly and so someone you know so readers are going to want

00:42:09.100 to post about this yeah and will instagram censor them i mean i guess we're gonna find out i'm gonna

00:42:18.200 have to go back and find a photo of the sleeve they put on demi moore and try and mock one up

00:42:23.040 for my book cover oh my gosh well it's a book you know what that it's a book condom is what it is

00:42:28.520 it's a book condom it's a book let's let's make some book condoms it's a book i'll bet you we

00:42:33.940 could find some real great knitters on etsy to knit us some book condoms the same the same ladies

00:42:40.620 who made the pussy hats it's so interesting i'm just like thinking it because that's very

00:42:46.320 instagrammable right the question comes down to it really comes down to me having to decide

00:42:53.440 whether i will put a star over that part of the book when i posted on instagram

00:43:01.800 to hedge my bets and and and hopefully have it go wider or and and then kowtow to

00:43:12.160 instagram's algorithm or ai that's punishing me for what's on there or will i stand my ground

00:43:19.240 behind not just the book cover but what i believe i guess we're gonna find out is a theme of the

00:43:24.880 book i guess we're gonna find out it's gonna come down to probably my con ed bill as it normally does

00:43:31.040 yeah yeah well you know it's but whatever instagram still allows someone to make a living

00:43:36.940 by posting naked babies on toilets yeah yeah wow all right yeah yeah that's where we're at

00:43:46.080 that's where we're at but i'm so glad you know this was so nice you need to come on more often 0.94

00:43:50.320 i agree this felt like a therapy session in the best way i mean i just i just i am therapy i am

00:43:55.700 therapy we're missing a martini because you're doing dry january and your newsletter about it

00:44:01.320 i thought was really well articulated actually about about drinking and social drinking and

00:44:08.280 drinking in your 40s and all the other things i thought you did a good job with that thank you

00:44:12.720 thank you thank you um all right well tell everyone you know before we go we're gonna go now

00:44:18.640 but tell everyone where they can see your obscene book cover are you ready people um on my instagram

00:44:25.580 which is no one tells you this thank you guys for listening loved having you here now go do

00:44:31.760 something nice for yourself and uh you know take a look at glynis's book cover and have some cheese

00:44:37.760 thank you all for being here if you love this show leave us a review or tell a friend about it

00:44:44.200 or order glynis's book order the sicilian inheritance it all helps it all helps the

00:44:52.400 the sister-wife ecosystem here. As always, I love to hear from you. So if you have questions,

00:44:59.800 comments, ideas for shows, DM me. I am at Joe Piazza, author on Instagram, and you can find

00:45:07.700 so much more at our newsletter, Over the Influence, which is on Substack.

00:45:22.400 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - January 10, 2024

Who Does Instagram Choose to Censor？ (Hint： Women)

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