The censorship of vegetables feels pretty dystopian, yet here we are. In an attempt to prevent online sexual solicitation, Facebook and Instagram are censoring horny emojis – AKA the peach, aubergines, and water droplets – when used to implicity or indirectly ask for anything sexual.
The new guidelines warn that an account can be flagged if users ask for or offer content related to sex, nude imagery, or sex chat. Though the platform asserts it isn’t “taking action on simply the emojis”.
The new rules form part of Facebook’s updated Community Standards, but a spokesperson for Facebook told adult industry news website XBIZ: “Nothing has changed in terms of the policy itself or how we enforce it, we simply updated the language to make it clearer for our community.”
This censorship adds to the growing limitations of our online landscape, which makes it increasingly difficult to navigate for creatives, sexual minority voices, and sex workers to express themselves. It seems Twitter is the last remaining huge platform which allows the promotion of sexuality related content.