Hyderabad: Social media users cannot use Facebook for sexting or even vaguely talking about sex because of its “sexual solicitation” policy. It means using statements such as ‘looking for a good time tonight’ could throw you out of the platform. The updated content policy forbids ‘sexual slang’, hints of sexual roles, positions or fetish scenarios and erotic art when mentioned with a sexual act.
Even though the social media platform added the new “sexual solicitation” policy on October15, it was only over the past week that netizens began to take cognizance of it. Several users raised apprehensions, as Facebook may take down the content at the sheer mention of the word “sex”, writing about kink, boobs or butt, preferences in sexual partners, sexualised slang. This applies to all groups, pages, messenger chats. All this despite the fact that Facebook acknowledged that people used its site for dating.
Facebook has banned porn and sexual solicitation. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), “Discussion of sexual exploitation is allowed, but discussion of consensual, adult sex is taboo. That’s a classic censorship model: speech about sexuality being permitted only when sex is presented as dangerous and shameful. It’s especially concerning since healthy, non-obscene discussion about sex — even about enjoying or wanting to have sex — has been a component of online communities for as long as the Internet has existed and has for almost as long been the target of governmental censorship efforts.”
Experts said that Facebook’s moderation has been so flawed that these rules would amount to nothing. Facebook has a bad record in content moderation as it continuously fails to pull down inappropriate content and takes down legitimate posts from real users.
Mr Karthik Srinivasan, an independent communications consultant, said, “If you see the rules under violence and criminal behaviour and think of the amount of crimes that have been shared as rumours on Whatsapp (that belongs to Facebook) in India, then you can be sure that these rules don’t really amount to much. Such content first needs to be reported before it is taken down or reviewed and we all know how reporting works on any social platform.”
Some netizens have raised apprehensions that the easiest targets would be people who discuss issues related to sex, LGBTQ and sex workers.
Tinu Cherian, a social media expert, said, “Adult discourse should be consensual. Considering how the platform is misused otherwise, some checks and balances are required keeping in mind the amount of cyber stalking and sexual predators on the platform. Also there are many underage children using the platform.”
