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Censorship is not at all a new concept. Considering book burning was a common practice dating back to Ancient Rome, it is clear powerful institutions have long created limits on types of allowable media consumption. In fact, many of these censorship practices revolved and continue to revolve around provocative images and knowledge. But in order to understand how to work with censorship practices, we first need to understand what they intend to protect the public from.
As we have seen with many Supreme Court decisions, especially recently, the notion that nine legal professionals have the ability to dictate what others can do with their bodies and protected freedoms is not always what it seems. The Potter Stewart test refers to a Supreme Court opinion that classified hard-core porn as “hard to describe” but “I know it when I see it.” This very definition indicates that what “should” be censored is incredibly subjective. Further, the distinctions between what constitutes artistic expression and pornography are almost indistinguishable. Nudity in art culture has also existed since Ancient Rome, but these figures are often praised instead of being seen as taboo, although this does vary based on location and governing body (i.e., religious power associations).
The intentions behind censorship policies and the reality of their functioning are thus wildly different. Censorship policies are intended to protect people, specifically children, from obscene content, but in reality, censorship policies can be sexist, racist, and discriminatory to sex workers and sexual education content. This points to the performance of policy within society; often the creation of the rule is much different than its implementation. Additionally, there becomes a strict distinction between the public and private spheres. This binary is complex because, while you can generally access social media platforms from anywhere including the comfort of your own home, your created content is then accessible to large networks of people. Therefore, digital surveillance and rights to privacy rely on each other, potentially in a detrimental way, in the modern-day creation of online presence.
Do these surveillance policies erase or undermine personal choice and freedoms? Potentially. Although having completely unmoderated online platforms is likely not recommendable, over-censorship can be just as harmful, not only to content creators but to anyone accessing online spaces. The Sexual Health Alliance strongly believes in safe access to a culturally-informed and accurate knowledge of everything sex-positive, but many other online spaces do not feel this is appropriate. When adult individuals decide to engage with the media in sexually-explicit ways with other consenting adults, it seems there would be few negative results so long as the platforms could ensure audiences were age-appropriate. Additionally, sex work can be a freedom-enhancing way for women and non-binary individuals to become and remain economically independent. But, again, the problems lie in policy implementation rooted in societal stigma.
Demonstrating these potential pitfalls to traditional censorship includes the misidentification of sexual content. Particularly, sexual-based information can be “shadow-banned” which limits the audience reach of helpful knowledge. This can range from information on sexual and reproductive health to self-identifying as LGBTQ+. Targetting these certain marginalized communities does more harm than good in media representation of positive sexual experiences. Especially relevant to this algorithmic discrimination is Hollywood’s mis-representation of sexual experiences in contrast to real sexual experiences. For example, when movies and television promote unprotected sex alongside the many states that require abstinence-only sex education in schools, adolescents might have negatively skewed and performance-based views of what sex is. Therefore, misrepresentation of sexual experiences is more harmful than it seems and requires more work than simply relearning what sex means through real exploration either solo or with partners. Exposure to this misrepresented content when young is correlated with stigmatic attitudes about gender and earlier sexual activity, pregnancy, and STI rates.
Building on these stereotypical sex-negative attitudes of Hollywood and Conservative values, various social media platforms censor certain sexual content. With sexually explicit material more easily accessible than ever via online spaces, platforms have created policies that significantly undercut what can and cannot be posted. Instagram, specifically, does not allow for pornographic content (which we have established as difficult to discern), genitalia, or female nipples. For the past few years, the #FreeTheNipple campaign on Instagram has pushed back on this policy in particular on the basis that the policy only applies to female bodies and many artists must urate their works in ways artists of the past have not had to before. On the other end of the scale, OnlyFans, a platform made successful by sex workers, is still limiting. Last year, due to pressure from banking partners and financial backers, OnlyFans updated its policy to reflect that sexually explicit conduct on the website will no longer be allowed. This greatly affects many people’s incomes, particularly since COVID-19’s economic recession during stay-at-home orders. Focusing on Instagram and OnlyFans shows the wide-reaching effects of these censorship values as well as the power differential specific institutions have over individual creators.
Because of the potential negative effects on younger generations and marginalized communities, sex content creators who provide useful information on healthy and safe experiences should be instead promoted by social media platforms in order to expand knowledge accessibility without academic elitism. However, until this becomes the case on a large scale, what can you do to work WITH censorship policies in building your online presence? Here are some SHA tips:
Censor your own content but to a certain extent. Listen, if you can’t beat them, join them, right? Even though this is a less-than-ideal “solution,” as we wait for better and equal social media guidelines, an effective way to make sure your content is seen is to block out “obscene” words or parts of images (e.g., “s*x work,” “0rg@sm,” “p-rn,” “m~sturbation”).
Engage your followers on multiple social media platforms. Expanding your networks will allow you to post different types of content in different spaces and diversify your portfolio.
Utilize newsletters. Promoting your work via email blasts will help reach audiences in a more personalized way and allow them to stay connected with you should something happen to your social media account(s).
Proactively request reviews of your work. The personalized touch goes a long way and helps others find your work. Also, while you’re at it, perform reviews of your own content analytics at least monthly.
Be intentional with your hashtags. Tags are a great way to boost engagement, but this comes with some risk so make sure you are using hashtags that are not just representative of your work but adhere to platform guidelines.
Make your content accessible. Easily understandable and navigable content is best.
Uplift similar content creators, especially those from marginalized communities. Those doing similar work to you are not necessarily your competition, they might have great insight into some social media challenges you’ve been experiencing and they might turn some of their audience onto your work.
Encourage your networks to advocate for de-censorship! There really is power in numbers.
By Emily Carriere
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