According to Instagram, they made the decision to ban the hashtag because it violated the community guidelines around nudity – a.k.a. it was returning images you’d get super awkward about if you happened to be on public transport.
“We blocked the hashtag a few weeks back because it was being used to share content that violates our guidelines around nudity,” said a spokesman for Facebook. “Some people are trying to imply that we’re blocking it because it’s associated with plus-sized people. This is not the case. The decision to block this hashtag has nothing to do with the term “curvy” itself. We block (i.e. make unsearchable) certain hashtags when they are consistently being used to share images and videos that violate our Community Guidelines.”
Instagram has a history of banning certain hashtags: #
for 
reasons, and #boobs, #thighs, and #bum for more blatantly obvious ones.
Interestingly, #vaginas are still A-OK. Could be because it’s used to describe things that just look like vaginas, and hoooly dooly, there’s a lot of them out there. I mean, have you seen Airbnb’s logo?
Oh, and FYI, #freethenipple has been hijacked by hardcore porn. Search at your own risk.
As the term ‘curvy’ has long been associated with the pro-body image movement, the move by Instagram to ban it has attracted plenty of uproar.
I CANNOT BELIEVE @instagram HAVE REMOVED THE OPTION TO SEARCH THE WORD #CURVY. Is that not absolutely disgusting?
— Grace Victory (@GracieFrancesca) July 16, 2015
Some people are calling double standards – hashtags like #skinny and #thin are still allowed, albeit with a graphic content warning (due to the potential to display pro-anorexia images).
Can someone explain to me why @Instagram banned #curvy, but not #skinny? What the hell.
— Meaghan Dowling (@MeaghanDowling) July 15, 2015
You can hashtag skinny on Instagram but they banned #curvy?? The double standard is unreal pic.twitter.com/p0dveuzZAI
— Abby Morse (@abbymorse) July 15, 2015
Speaking to HuffPost Lifestyle, Sam Roddick, whose account was banned, she says, for posting an image of a cornice that hilariously looked like a vagina, said that it highlighted the inconsistency in which hashtags Instagram decided to ban.
“They have banned images of breast feeding, stretch marks, domestic images of menstruation and classical art works that respectfully portray nude women and now they ban the hashtag #curvy. While they allow bitch, fat slag, hookers, thin – this is not a safe platform for women and especially young girls (as we all know Instagram is populated with nude images of young women effectively selling themselves sexually).”
You can take the #curvy out of the girl, but not the girl out of curvy: Pro-body image users have already started using #curvee as both an alternative hashtag and to protest the ban.
In light of @instagram barring #curvy from their searches, tonight at 8pm I will be posting photos with hashtag #curvee… JOIN ME! 8pm!
— Katt Cupcake (@KattCupcake) July 15, 2015
The thing is, porn accounts crop up on Instagram on the reg, and courtesy of spam bots, if you get followed by one, you’ll get followed by a dozen. Controlling them feels like a #BLEEEEP in the #BLEEEEPNIG #BLEEP.
