Facebook Clarifies Revised Sex Rules: It’s OK to Say You’re Gay

Facebook has now expanded its restrictions on discussion of sexuality and sexual issues on the world’s largest social media platform, as AVN.com reported earlier this week, now banning an exhaustive list of phrases and expressions that even obliquely refer to sexual habits, practices—or anything. The now-banned content includes ”Vague suggestive statements such as 'looking for a good time tonight’; sexualized slang; sexual hints such as mention of sexual roles, positions or fetish scenarios,” as well as “sexually explicit language that goes beyond mere naming or mentioning a state of sexual arousal or an act of sexual intercourse.” According to some media reports, under the new Facebook rules, “You can’t even state what your sexual orientation is.” But the company now says that the rules don’t go quite that far. In a statement to the news site The Verge on Thursday, the global social media  corporation clarified the restrictions, stating that the company will not be looking to penalize any of its 2.27 billion active users worldwide for such simple statements as, “I’m gay.”  However, Facebook users won’t be allowed to go much further than that. For example, as The Verge reported, “if someone says, ‘I’m a straight man looking for a beautiful girl to lick. Call me,’ that would count as solicitation and be subject to a takedown.” In a statement to the Verge, a Facebook spokesperson said that the new rules were prompted by the perceived need to prevent “sexual solicitation” on Facebook.  “This change was prompted, in large part, by conversations with our content reviewers, who told us that the sexual exploitation policy did not adequately distinguish between exploitation (e.g. “My ex was a slut. Look at the photos she sent me.”) and solicitation (e.g. “Looking for swingers. Friday at 8 PM, [name of bar]. Wear pink.”), leading to confusion among reviewers, as well as the perception that we treat sexual exploitation and solicitation the same.” The spokesperson also told The Verge that Facebook will rely on informants to identify content that breaks the new rules. Sexual discussions in Facebook groups, or on Facebook Messenger, for example, would likely not be affected—unless Facebook receives a complaint about the offending material. As AVN.com reported earlier this year, the FOSTA/SESTA law passed overwhelmingly by congress and signed in April by Donald Trump hold sites responsible for posts by third-party users that promote “sex trafficking.” At the time, online civil liberties advocates warned that the law would lead to more extensive “self-censorship” by sites who would rather bar sexual content altogether than risk being accused of promoting “sex trafficking,” and with the new Facebook rules, that warning appears to be borne out. Photo By Alexey Malgavko / Wikimedia Commons