The Real Reason Mia Khalifa Was Removed From Instagram
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- Mia Khalifa Changed Her Career After Being Banned On Instagram
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1993, Mia Khalifa is a media personality. A former adult film star, Mia began performing in adult movies in October 2014. Although she was only in the industry for a few months before leaving in early 2015, she became the most-viewed performer on adult sites due to a controversial scene she filmed in which she performed intimate acts while wearing a hijab.
Following the scene, Mia received death threats from the public, was widely condemned by the Lebanese press, and was publicly disowned by her parents. After leaving the adult industry, Mia worked as a webcam performer before being offered a job as a sports host; it is estimated that she currently has a net worth of around $4 million.
There are countless adult performers on social media, but Mia Khalifa was shadowbanned by Instagram in 2020 — something TikTok has also been known to do to certain celebrities who use the platform. Here's what really happened and why Mia Khalifa was kicked off Instagram.
UPDATE: 2023/05/20 21:57 EST BY LANE VASQUEZ
Mia Khalifa Changed Her Career After Being Banned On Instagram
After one misstep in her adult film career caused her to become infamous online, Mia Khalifa was kicked off Instagram and dealt with public derision for a while. Now, she's back on social media (this time TikTok) with an enthusiastic fan following.
Why Was Mia Khalifa Shadowbanned On Instagram?
In a 2020 interview, Mia Khalifa opened up to A Conversation With Clips about why she was shadowbanned on Instagram. She explained that people who didn’t follow her would struggle to find her on the platform, even after searching her name in full, thanks to the ban.
Mia revealed that she wasn’t surprised to learn that she’d been shadowbanned or that photos in which she appeared in other people’s Instagram feeds had been taken down by the site, as it happened often.
She explained that she’d posted a photo in which she was wearing lingerie to the platform, and was then used as an example by the company of types of accounts to shadowban.
“I think that Instagram cracks down on me extra-hard,” Mia said in the interview. She then added that she has wholesome, age-appropriate content on her YouTube channel which she has had to demonetize to avoid having it taken down by the site.
The interviewer pointed out that shadowbanning her was a way for Instagram to remove Mia from the platform without actually banning her.
While some YouTube users commented on the video claiming that they could always find Mia on Instagram easily, others believe that Instagram took this approach with her because of the controversy caused by her infamous hijab video.
Mia Received Harassing Messages On Social Media
Like other former and current adult film stars, Mia Khalifa was subject to bullying and harassment when she first opened her social media account.
In an interview with Mashable, Mia revealed that she always hated Instagram because of the way people would treat her, which led her to disable her comment function.
"I've never really enjoyed social media," she explained, adding that the hate she received on Instagram was “awful.” Mia also admitted that the harassment negatively impacted her relationship with her husband, who would read the toxic comments as well.
"It really affected me, even if I put a brave face forward to the public.”
The publication also reports that Mia received criticism online, not just from the public, but from other adult film stars, who accused her of vilifying the sex industry.
"I feel like women in the industry tend to kind of glorify it, and it's incredible and I'm so thankful that that is their experience," she said of her former co-stars, "but I think that they need to be responsible and remember that they're the outlier, they're the exception not the rule."
However, Mia has since opened an account on TikTok, and is finding the experience there better than that on Instagram: As soon as I joined TikTok I found this whole new world where I can actually read the comments, and not feel like I should have them turned off," she said, "and actually want to engage with the people commenting … they feel like my friends."
Eventually, Mia learned to put her trust in others again after fostering genuine friendships.
Mia Khalifa Received Death Threats And Was Hacked
It wasn’t just hate and bullying that Mia received after her videos received global attention; she also received death threats. Islamic State allegedly threatened her by photo-shopping her face onto someone else’s body in a video that showed the photo-shopped Mia being beheaded.
Not long after, Mia received a photo of her apartment attached to a death threat. She then revealed that her Instagram account was hacked by ISIS, who began pushing propaganda on it.
The publication also reveals that Mia first got into the adult entertainment industry after a man approached her following a breast surgery she had for health reasons. She explained that she never dreamed of being in the industry, but she was suffering from low self-esteem after being overweight in her teenage years and was seeking validation.
One Of Mia's TikToks plainly pointed out that she struggled with people's perceptions of her, writing, "That hourly dissociative attack from remembering hundreds of millions of people's only impression of you is solely based on the lowest, most toxic, most uncharacteristic 3 months of your life when you were 21."
Mia has clearly moved on, but she's hoping her followers can, too—all 37 million+ of them.
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