Here’s a bit of 1950s art photography that’s chock full of fetish fuel, completely harmless, and utterly banned from Twitter. I could lose my Twitter account for posting it there, just as if it were revenge porn or concealed locker room video:

This upskirt photo dates from 1954 and is by photographer Vivian Maier. It appears to show a fancy display of clothing for women, with skirt and petticoat and hosiery and shoes on a display mannequin set on a glass base over a mirrored floor for the express purpose of showing off the hose and petticoats to better effect.

Twitter’s policy on “upskirts” photos, to be strictly fair, is that they ban them — and accounts posting them — because they might be examples of non-consensual nudity, with a human victim. In this “life-in-plastic, it’s fantastic” no-humans-involved scenario, Twitter’s policy against upskirt photography shouldn’t come into play. It ought to be fine, posting this photo to Twitter.

{hollow laughter}

How much do you want to bet that actual upskirt bans happen because of a cheap filter that detects the word “upskirt” (and variants) and (I’m less than certain about this part) feeds it to a hasty human review layer by somebody who might or might not look with an eye discerning enough to tell that the legs in question are plastic?

I don’t propose to try the experiment. Chilling effect, thy name is Twitter. The problem isn’t the perfectly-reasonable policy; it’s Twitter’s demonstrated failure to implement its policies in any sort of fair or reasonable way.

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