If you use Instagram, you may have noticed many women changing their gender to male in their bios.
The trend has arisen as women try to cheat a potentially sexist algorithm change that took place back in April.
The change means that some posts are being demoted, and appears to affect women more than men, according to a HuffPost report.
At the time, Instagram explained: “We have begun reducing the spread of posts that are inappropriate but do not go against Instagram’s Community Guidelines, limiting those types of posts from being recommended on our Explore and hashtag pages.
"For example, a sexually suggestive post will still appear in Feed if you follow the account that posts it, but this type of content may not appear for the broader community in Explore or hashtag pages.”
While Instagram claimed that the change was an attempt to ‘keep people safe’ on the app, many frustrated women found that the change drastically affected their engagement levels.
In response, Instagram account Everybodyvisible suggested that changing the gender from female to male could improve this engagement.
Everybodyvisible wrote: “Several women dancers with access to Instagram business/creator account analytics have reported better engagement and visibility and less ban-action - by simply editing their profile & changing their bio to ‘MALE’ instead of ‘FEMALE’ (or ‘prefer not to say’)? And then continuing to post their usual content.
“Is it bizarrely less ‘inappropriate’ for a ‘male’ owned account to post ‘borderline’ content of women and femme-presenting bodies than the actual owner of the body THEMSELVES?”
Many women have tested the change, with surprising results.
One user wrote: “Changed mine a week ago and engagement has definitely gone up, gained lots of followers quite quickly even though I haven’t really posted in a while. Lots of my old videos seem to suddenly be showing in the explore page. This is so ridiculous and makes me so sad.”
Another added: “So I just changed mine to male on Saturday.. and my last post, although it’s stretching and not pole dancing, and it is now my #1 post and 76% of reach does not follow me..”
Speaking to Mirror Online, a Facebook company spokesperson said: "We want to make sure the content we recommend to people on Instagram is safe and appropriate for everyone. Ensuring women feel heard is an essential part of that effort. Gender information from profiles has no impact on content we filter from hashtags or the Explore page."
