Shutterstock’s Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

At Shutterstock, seeking diversity and inclusion is one of our core principles. We strive to create and maintain a collection that supports diversity and inclusion as we believe it brings true value to our business and better serves our global network of customers and contributors.

We support this principle by providing our contributor community with blog articles that focus on the topic of diversity and by adding safeguards to our review process to help ensure published content depicts and describes people of all backgrounds accurately and respectfully.

Our goal is to allow content to share the stories of all communities with accuracy, integrity, and without causing harm.

Contributor Commitment to Shutterstock Policies

As a contributor, you must do your part to learn about the individuals who are represented in the content you are submitting. Always describe people in a way that is fair and free of bias, judgment, and offensive language. By doing this, you’ll know that the people in your content are represented in a way that is respectful to them and to the group they are representing.

General Guidelines for Submitting D&I Content

When submitting content that relates to race, ethnicities, disabilities, age, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, it is vitally important that the members of these groups are depicted and/or described in ways that accurately and respectfully represent their identities. Suitable subject matter and metadata for Shutterstock’s collection will generally:

Cause no harm to any particular person or group of people.
Portray people of various backgrounds in ways that humanize them and do not reduce their identity.
Use current, non-offensive terminology in titles or keywords or in the content itself.
Use neutral/positive and culturally appropriate language to describe individuals.
Use adjectives and not nouns when referring to a person’s race or ethnicity.
- e.g., say “a Hispanic person” (adj.) rather than “a Hispanic” (n.)
Use people-first language when describing people with disabilities.
- e.g., rather than saying “a diabetic,” say “a person who has diabetes,”
- People-first language is Shutterstock’s preferred language style of choice. When this language style is not used, submissions will run the risk of being rejected for either Objectionable or Explicit or Inappropriate Representation. Identity-first language is reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

By submitting diverse and inclusive content that accurately and respectfully represents people's identities, you’ll help Shutterstock’s collection continue to provide the best experience for customers, contributors, and people of all backgrounds, today and in the future.

Content Requirements

Commercial

Commercial content and/or metadata submissions that can be interpreted as being offensive, hateful, racist, derogatory, discriminatory, or disrespectful to any particular group is strictly prohibited and will be rejected as Objectionable or Explicit or Inappropriate Representation.

Editorial

Documentary editorial content (i.e., content that documents actual real-life events as a factual record) will be considered because it is used to chronicle an event or environment which is relevant to life and history (e.g., a demonstrator holding an offensive protest sign at a rally, etc.). Editorial captions or keywords that contain offensive or inappropriate terms will be rejected as Objectionable or Explicit or Inappropriate Representation.
For Illustrative Editorial, Editorial Vectors, Editorial Illustrations, and Editorial Animations, the commercial content and/or metadata standards apply (i.e., offensive subject matter and metadata are strictly prohibited).
Editorial captions that include hateful or offensive personal statements or opinions of the contributor are prohibited and will be rejected for Objectionable or Explicit.

NOTE: Previously approved content that does not meet the current D&I guidelines and requirements can be removed from publication on our site at Shutterstock’s discretion.

Examples of Acceptable Concepts and Metadata

Image by Monkey Business Images

Title: Portrait of multi-cultural children hanging out with friends in the countryside together.
Keywords: african american, asian, boy, casual, caucasian, child, children, countryside, diversity, female, friends, friendship, front view, fun, game, girl, group, hanging out, happy, multi-cultural, outdoors, outside, people, playing

Image by LightField Studios
Title: Smiling young African American couple holding cups and looking away at home.
Keywords: african american, at home, attractive, beautiful, beverage, black man, black woman, blanket, boyfriend, casual, coffee, couple, cups, drink, female, girlfriend, handsome, happy, holding, husband, indoors, love, male, man, mugs, people, relationship, smile, tea, together, wife, woman, young adults

Image by wavebreakmedia
Title: Portrait of a transgender woman standing against a white background.
Keywords: attitude, black, carefree, confidence, hairstyle, jacket, pride, standing, staring, thinking, transgender, well dressed

Image by Ermolaeva Olga 84
Title: A girl with down syndrome sits next to her mother and is engaged in creativity, drawing a picture in an album.
Keywords: education, care, caucasian, child, childhood, down syndrome, female, girl, learn, mother, school, smart, smile, teacher, youth

We Recommend

Use online resources and style guides, like the ones below, to help craft appropriate titles for D&I content and to find relevant terms for keywords.
Learn about using people-first language to describe people with disabilities. See here for more information on this topic.
Avoid guessing a model’s race, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, or gender. Ideally, the model will provide you with this information when shooting so you can create titles and keywords that are accurate and reflect how they self-identify. If they don’t provide this information, you may want to respectfully ask them for it. Make sure you have the model's informed consent before submitting this information along with their image/clip. Refrain from making assumptions about an individual’s identity so you do not misidentify them.
Use good judgment when creating concepts that explain or shed light on sensitive topics such as discrimination, racism, etc. Be careful not to depict or describe individuals in ways that can be interpreted as being hateful or offensive.