The self-censorship of images is a form of adaptation to the censorship imposed by social platforms, Instagram included. To deepen this phenomenon, the analysis focused on Instagram's policies, that declare what users are allowed to publish or not on the platform. This section that regulates contents should be one of the most accessible ones, but it is not so simple to find it, especially on the application. To find it on the app, the users have to open their account profile, select “Settings” and then “About”, click on “Terms of use”, and scroll through the document until they find the highlighted text “Instagram community guidelines”.

The introduction of the policy says: "We want to continue to be an authentic and safe place for inspiration and expression. Help us foster this community. Post your photos and videos and always follow the law. Respect everyone on Instagram, don’t spam people or post nudity."
Concerning self-censorship, that is mainly applied to images that contain nudity, the analysis focused on the section about sexual contents of the community guidelines which is called "Post photos and videos that are appropriate for different audiences" and says: "We know that there are times when people want to share nude images that are artistic or creative, but for a variety of reasons, we do not allow nudity on Instagram. This includes photos, videos, and some digitally-created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks. It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed. Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, too."

Immediately, a contradiction emerged between Instagram's main intention, that is to encourage people's freedom of expression, and the guidelines that explain which contents the users are forbidden to publish. Moreover, unlike the policies of other social platforms, the Instagram's ones are not very detailed, they can be interpreted ambiguously and, in some passages, such as the one about nipples, they appear to be even discriminatory.