We were lucky to catch up with Katya Karlova recently and have shared our conversation below.

Katya, appreciate you joining us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

I struggled with body image issues and body dysmorphia my entire life, like many other girls, women, and though less discussed, men as well. It took many years to confront these issues and even more years of self-work to overcome them. I began posting to Instagram as part of my campaign to conquer my issues. What better way to face your fear than to show it to the world? I shared my whole story; from the shame I felt for many years about my curves to how the agonizing battle of constantly fighting negative intrusive thoughts affects your mental health. I also shared how modeling and boudoir photography helped me heal from a decades-long battle with myself about my body.

Modeling as a method to combat body image issues may sound counterintuitive to the uninitiated. But for those of us with body shame, the mental health impact of disliking one’s body can be all-consuming. Finding a way to confront those issues head-on is transformational. Carrying with you the weight of those self-doubts and insecurities, not to mention the guilt and shame, takes a huge toll on your entire life. Once you start embracing the body you’re in, the self-love, empowerment, and confidence you feel also radiates to all aspects of your life, but in a positive way, letting you show up as your best self in your relationships, at work, and no matter what situation you’re in.

I used Instagram to share my life and my photoshoots in hopes it may inspire and empower others to also step outside their comfort zone and find body confidence that would lead to self-love that could transform all aspects of their life too. I even had the opportunity to share my journey and approach with many reputable publications and media outlets. So many in fact that I was verified as a public figure by Instagram before it was available by subscription. I continued sharing my life, even after I was diagnosed with endometriosis, and spent a year battling the chronic illness through four surgeries, six procedures, and countless ER and specialist doctor visits. Although I thought I’d lose followers, I didn’t. People were surprisingly happy to see someone sharing true vulnerability and raising awareness of the pain and suffering the disease causes; it had touched more lives than I knew. Without realizing it, I had also given endo awareness another voice it desperately needs.

However, when my message started to reach a larger audience on Instagram and I decided to leave my executive corporate job to become a full-time model, actress, and content creator, I was suddenly met with shadowbanning. For those not familiar with the term, it’s when Meta makes your account non-recommendable but in reality, undiscoverable by anyone but your current followers. It makes it impossible for your content to reach a new and broader audience and in turn, impossible for you to grow on the platform. Meta doesn’t like to recognize the terms shadowbanning, suppression, or censorship, but it is just blatant censorship by the platform. In the past, they have routinely shadowbanned accounts of s*x therapists, s*x educators, adult content creators, or anyone with a s*x-positive message, even if their content was appropriate for the platform. Now, it seems the net has widened significantly.

Upon a little investigation, I realized I wasn’t the only model & creator now living in fear of Meta’s implementation of AI to enforce their ever more restrictive “community & recommendation guidelines.” A little digging showed that #boudoir, the entire branch of photography, was permanently censored. A couple of months prior, #bodyconfidence was censored for a long time. Creators with the words “self-love” or “curve” in their bios were forced to remove them to adhere to “guidelines.” Curvier creators saw their content repeatedly flagged and accounts shadowbanned regardless of what they were wearing in their content, what the post content was, and what hashtags they used.

When I began to get censored Instagram started flagging my posts to “edit or remove content,” with a note that “this decision is based on our guidelines on s*xually explicit or suggestive content.” None of my content had EVER been s*xual, only sensual and I always followed guidelines. I didn’t even make any s*xual or adult content. But the censorship worsened. Pictures from months prior were flagged with no clear description as to why. I have even re-created reels and shots depicted on a brand’s Instagram content I was partnering with only to have mine flagged, but not theirs. First, my posts then my actual bio was flagged, a bio that had been the same for over 2 years.

I rewrote my bio over 25 times only to have it re-flagged as “non-recommendable.: Simply writing the words “model, creator, actress, speaker and author” ended up flagged. Deleting posts to appease the AI only resulted in more posts being flagged from months prior, as if deleting content was some kind of admission of guilt. Words like “curve,” “empowerment,” “self-love,” “courage” and even “endometriosis awareness advocate” were flagged as non-recommendable. I removed my website link in case traffic leading away from Instagram was an issue, but it is still banned. On top of that, my numerous appeals have gone into a black hole with no responses from Meta. Even though I already had a verified account as a public figure, I upgraded to Meta Verified in hopes that speaking to $14.99/month of “enhanced support” would help clear up what was obviously a mistake. I found the term “enhanced support” ironic as before there was literally no support. An issue I shared with CNBC when Meta decided to lay off thousands of workers, leaving creators with absolutely no one to contact. Nonetheless, I reached out to this new version of support four days in a row. I escalated the shadow ban problem to a supervisor. I received no answers as to what was wrong with my content nor any explanation as to how it didn’t meet guidelines. Instead, support repeatedly and robotically told me that it met neither. Their solution? Delete the content.
I continued to see accounts being recommended sharing the same exact content as me, but the models were thin and had smaller busts. Then it hit me, the only difference in our content is our body type and AI is not a person, it doesn’t know the nuance between s*xual and sensual and AI routinely s*xualizes a woman’s body, making a woman far more likely to even be flagged in the first place.

So here I am, sharing the message of overcoming body dysmorphia and finding body confidence on a platform that is digitally discriminating against me because of my body. The same body I spent so many years learning to love, the feminine curves I learned to embrace, and the sensuality that I learned to celebrate…it was no longer welcome on Instagram because of “community guidelines and policies.” My actual body is not acceptable to be shared. Can you imagine the crushing blow of that? Not only for my livelihood, where it damages my reputation and career as a creator working with brands to show their products on a curvy body, but for my own mental and physical health? I felt the anxiety and depression I struggled with before starting to creep back, and the stress of losing everything I had worked for was causing my chronic endo pain to flare up. After everything I’d overcome, I couldn’t believe this was really happening to me. I reached out to Meta support to share my concerns that the AI was mistakenly flagging me because of my body type and assuming my content was s*xual because I had curves and a fuller bust. Clearly and succinctly writing out my entire history with Instagram, even sharing screenshots of the flagged content and my Google knowledge panel to prove I don’t make s*xual content, anything they needed to see to prove this can’t be right. Sadly, as before, there was no response to my questions or concerns.

This isn’t just about censorship that doesn’t make the platform safe for women; this is about how some mega corporations treat women, and the answer is dismissively and appallingly. Why can Meta can essentially target, suppress, and ban women, body-positive models, s*x educators, and women’s health awareness advocates on their platform? And why do we allow them to ignore appeals or address their actions through customer support? If a company with the power of Meta to make or break hundreds of thousands of creator careers and livelihoods won’t answer for their actions, then who can? Who can keep media conglomerates accountable?

Unfortunately, I and many creators like me are still fighting this very unexpected battle, but while we cannot control what happens to us, we can control how we respond. Even when we feel utterly powerless, we aren’t, because we always have the power to choose how we respond. We can choose to respond by using our voices to raise awareness of what is happening and advocate for change. If enough of us find the courage to tell our story and say “this isn’t OK” then we can stop digital discrimination.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I shared a lot of this is my previous question, I started out with an entire summary about how I started in this business and what motivated me, hopefully that can be used!

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

In my opinion, as I shared before, we need to be very careful when it comes to censorship and using artificial intelligence, both are right now really negatively affecting creatives- from models to photographers to artists, etc Transparently, I think we have implemented AI in many places without thinking through the potential ramifications and negative consequences. Also, as creatives, we need to have the freedom to create and I see censorship on social media platforms under the guise of keeping the community “safe” but when AI is responsible for policing the community, historically disadvantaged groups like women are often affected.
I sense that these two things will continue to be really big themes and issues we debate as a community of creatives. I could get into it more but I think my initial answer on where I stand regarding this issue was pretty vocal!

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Yes, for me it’s wanting to share my story with others so that it will hopefully inspire and empower others to find the courage to go outside their comfort zones, realize it’s never too late, pursue their dreams, learn to love their bodies, develop confidence in themselves and find out that they are much more resilient than they ever could have known!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.katyabkarlova.com/
• Instagram: @katya.b.karlova
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/official.katya.b.karlova
• Twitter: https://x.com/katya_b_karlova

Image Credits

@viggo_obscura