Inconvenient Comments on social media

[Yuli]

Hello, first of all I must excuse myself for my English, it's not my first language so I may have some grammar or context mistakes.
There is a legal question haunting me and many other women and men that I know. So I finally thought I might ask people that know better.
I'm 23 years old, a law student and, as many of us, have an Instagram page. Just for the point, I'll remind some facts. Instagram is a very popular social media platform for uploading pictures.
I, for instance, upload my personal photos, like many others do. I have more than 20 thousand followers, and it pretty much became a work platform, through which I get paid for advertising products.
Instagram allows you to choose whether you'd like to make the profile private, but then only people that you personally accept can view your profile, or you can choose a public profile, that everyone can view and get into its page.
As I said, I advertise products for money, so I can't make my profile private, as it will breach my agreements/contracts with the companies that pay me.
Now we start getting to the point: having a public profile on Instagram means that anyone can see my posts, like them, comment on them, etc.. My problem is with the comments I receive on my pictures, specifically from men I don't know, that some of the time, write harassing things. It can be from a mean intent, or it can be from a good one, that still makes me uncomfortable.
I'm talking about comments that in reality would've been a sexual harassment cause. For example, if a guy I study with, or someone way older than me, like 40 years older, will be contacting in a sexual way towards me every time he sees me, I'm pretty sure it would be a justified reason to go to the authorities, trying to make him stop. It would fill me with fear, embarrassment and inconvenience every time I'd see him.
Currently, I'm dealing with the problem by deleting all those comments, that can be hundreds of comments, but it takes a lot of time, I have other work to do!
I even wrote to Instagram, explaining my problem, and advised them to think about creating an option in which we could choose whether we wanted anyone to comment our posts or only people we follow back, like they have on Facebook. Obviously, I haven't heard back from them.
These comments are very time-consuming, and in the personal aspect, most of the time they are embarrassing me and hurt my feelings. I'll add again, that if someone would tell me things like they comment on posts, I'd call the police that instance.
So my legal question is: are repeating harassing comments on social media a legal cause for police or law intervention, compared to a regular life situation of sexual harassment?
Thank you for your time!

 

[mightymoose]

No.
Even if made in person comments would not necessarily be sexual harassment since a major element of the offense depends on the offender's relationship to you- whether the person is a co-worker, employer, or person in a position of authority over you. If a random and unknown individual makes such a comment it is just a nuisance.

You choose to put you pictures on social media on a platform you can't control. If you want control them you might build and advertise your own website.

 

[army judge]

Hello, first of all I must excuse myself for my English, it's not my first language so I may have some grammar or context mistakes.
There is a legal question haunting me and many other women and men that I know. So I finally thought I might ask people that know better.
I'm 23 years old, a law student and, as many of us, have an Instagram page. Just for the point, I'll remind some facts. Instagram is a very popular social media platform for uploading pictures.
I, for instance, upload my personal photos, like many others do. I have more than 20 thousand followers, and it pretty much became a work platform, through which I get paid for advertising products.
Instagram allows you to choose whether you'd like to make the profile private, but then only people that you personally accept can view your profile, or you can choose a public profile, that everyone can view and get into its page.
As I said, I advertise products for money, so I can't make my profile private, as it will breach my agreements/contracts with the companies that pay me.
Now we start getting to the point: having a public profile on Instagram means that anyone can see my posts, like them, comment on them, etc.. My problem is with the comments I receive on my pictures, specifically from men I don't know, that some of the time, write harassing things. It can be from a mean intent, or it can be from a good one, that still makes me uncomfortable.
I'm talking about comments that in reality would've been a sexual harassment cause. For example, if a guy I study with, or someone way older than me, like 40 years older, will be contacting in a sexual way towards me every time he sees me, I'm pretty sure it would be a justified reason to go to the authorities, trying to make him stop. It would fill me with fear, embarrassment and inconvenience every time I'd see him.
Currently, I'm dealing with the problem by deleting all those comments, that can be hundreds of comments, but it takes a lot of time, I have other work to do!
I even wrote to Instagram, explaining my problem, and advised them to think about creating an option in which we could choose whether we wanted anyone to comment our posts or only people we follow back, like they have on Facebook. Obviously, I haven't heard back from them.
These comments are very time-consuming, and in the personal aspect, most of the time they are embarrassing me and hurt my feelings. I'll add again, that if someone would tell me things like they comment on posts, I'd call the police that instance.
So my legal question is: are repeating harassing comments on social media a legal cause for police or law intervention, compared to a regular life situation of sexual harassment?
Thank you for your time!

You're posting from Israel.

I'm a lawyer knowledgeable about US laws, as well as Australian laws.

I have no knowledge of Israeli law.

You need to pose your questions to your Israeli law professors, or Israeli licensed attorneys.

As a practical matter you would best protect yourself, as well as insulate yourself from any inappropriate comments by NOT posting sensitive photos on the Internet.

Beyond the immediate disparaging comments you could receive, you potentially impact employment prospects negatively.

Many employers these days scour the Internet as they make hiring decisions, and in the US people have not been offered professional positions because of what those efforts revealed.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

It's a cost of doing business and you're using someone else's platform, subject to their terms and conditions. If someone is harassing you whereby they have violated Instagram's legal terms of use or community guidelines for interaction, perhaps Instagram may ban the users. But if you're a celebrity and enjoy the publicity, that's the heat you're going to have to manage in order to stay in the kitchen. As long as the comments are within terms and conditions of use, clean up will likely be required. And unlike a system you manage, you don't have rights to demand Instagram make changes. Good luck.