Escalating Censorship, Discrimination Sparks Sex-Positive Activism (XBIZ)

Read the full article by Ariana Rodriguez at XBIZ.com 

Today’s generation of sex toy lovers has been lucky enough to have the most access to pleasure products and sex education than ever before. Innovative toy designs and tech — along with the millennial-driven, business-savvy entrepreneurs behind them — have been featured in highbrow publications like The New York Times, Forbes and Bloomberg, seemingly normalizing the use of sex toys and legitimizing the business of marketing them. It’s sparked hope and the refreshing feeling of validation for a lot of us in the industry, however it seems that as soon as we start to feel confident in our rise to acceptance, it isn’t long until we’re back to where we started — battling against unjust discrimination and censorship.

What started with the shady burying of several sex-positive Instagram posts and profiles — widely known as shadow-banning — became official last month when Instagram introduced more policy designed to ensure that the content they recommend to people “is both safe and appropriate for the community.”

Instagram announced that it would no longer recommend “borderline” material to its community at large. “For example,” the company said, “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.”

According to TechCrunch, the new policy means is that “if a post is sexually suggestive, but doesn’t depict a sex act or nudity, it could still get demoted. Similarly, if a meme doesn’t constitute hate speech or harassment, but is considered in bad taste, lewd, violent or hurtful, it could get fewer views.”