When I started working as a photographer, which was also around the time Instagram blew up, it used to anger me to see posts where the photographer, artist or model weren't credited or tagged. To me it was not just bad form but blatant plagiarism, so I made sure that when I started publishing my own work I'd always give credit where credit was due. However, after three years working for Elska Magazine and after posting many hundreds of my images on Instagram, I've changed my stance.

an Insta post of a page from Elska 02 (Berlin, Germany), showing Colin C

I think that a big reason why Instagram is so popular is because it gives many users the sense that they're able to communicate with celebrities. They can comment, tag, or DM and sometimes get a response, be it a reply or just a 'like heart' or a read receipt. It's powerful stuff that even I can relate to— "OMG Ginger Minj follows me " or "Margaret Cho liked my post". If you are a celebrity, particularly in this age of authenticity, then having a platform that so intimately can engage with 'clients' is a boon. And if you've got no platform other than being a narcissist, then the ego-stroking potential from such apps is the new meth. But if you're not a model or actor or singer or whatever, which isn't what the participants in Elska tend to be, then should we encourage invasions of privacy even if the user doesn't necessarily feel vulnerable?

It's perhaps human nature that if something can be abused, it will be abused, and I'm tired of hearing about people using Instagram to hurt others. The false intimacy perceived by many users can empower some to verbally harass users. We call them 'trolls' or 'haters', who live all over the internet but perhaps especially inhabit Instgram. Then there's the technological ability to locate people through location tagging or simply by being able to recognise settings in real-time Instagram Stories, which strengthens stalkers. I wish people would stop using Instagram to harass and stalk people, but since I can't stop them, I can at least try to make it a little harder for them.

an Insta post of a page from Elska 06 (Istanbul, Turkey), showing Şahin C

When Elska Magazine was new, I used to tag everyone. It seemed right and fair. But then I started hearing horror stories, like from one Elska participant who was contacted by a stranger who slut-shamed him until he had to delete his account. This person had seen him in one of our issues naked and decided to find him online and harass him about it being disgusting and shameful to do a nude photoshoot. I wondered if by tagging him it was our fault, because this helped the person find him, but I chalked it down to an unfortunate and unusual occurrence. Unfortunately these occurrences have become more usual.

Soon enough another Elska participant got in touch to say that he was stalked. Someone who saw him in the magazine started following his account and eventually via Instagram Stories discovered that he was having brunch at a particular nearby restaurant (the Story image was a shot of his food on the table, with the restaurant tagged). This stalker actually popped over to the restaurant and DM'd a note to the guy saying, "You look so hot today". He blocked him and nothing further happened, but it understandably freaked him out. Probably it was harmless, and maybe he felt that this was acceptable behaviour in this social media era, but it scares me to imagine what could have transpired.

an Insta post of a page from Elska 01 (Lviv, Ukraine), showing Dima S

I should mention here that none of the participants published in the actual Elska Magazine issues are ever revealed with any more information than their first name and initial. We do this to preserve anonymity for those who want it (the exception was in our Elska Los Angeles issue where all but one wanted to have their full names shown — take what you will from that), so it's perhaps paradoxical to tag them on social media later. I decided to stop tagging people unless they specifically said that they wanted to be tagged. But most people still wanted to be tagged, so I carried on.

The final straw came when another Elska participant got in touch with a next-level horror story. A so-called sketch artist wrote him to say that he saw him in Elska, loved his look, and wanted to draw him. They decided to meet, but during the session, this 'artist' put the moves on him and became sexually aggressive. After hearing this, I removed all tags from posts showing him, but wondered if I should remove all tags from everyone. I decided to chat to a few other participants from that issue, and two of them confirmed that the same 'artist' contacted them, but they declined his offer.

an Insta post of a page from Elska 19 (London, England), showing Wellie Y

I've also experienced Instastalking. One especially memorable instance was of a person who wrote to tell me that the only reason I became a photographer was because I'm too ugly to get someone attractive to spend time with me otherwise. The person then told me he knew I was ugly because he was watching me from the Clapham High Street branch of Starbucks where I was, having found me via the Instagram Story post I put on proudly showing me in the act of editing.

Perhaps today we should accept that abuse will happen and just shrug it off, but how many times should abuse occur before we start caring? Is it asking too much that photographers and artists and models and anyone can use social media without attracting danger? I certainly won't stop my work but I can try to make it a little bit harder to facilitate harassment by cutting down on tagging. I know there are other ways for stalkers and haters to find people, that we are all vulnerable, but I just don't know what else to do. I don't even know if I should be writing this, but I do know that keeping quiet won't help either.

Liam Campbell is editor and chief photographer of Elska Magazine, a publication dedicated to sharing the bodies and voices of gay communities around the world, but not as a matchmaking service or platform for haters to hate and abusers to abuse.