Anti-Porn ‘NoFap’ Twitter Account’s ‘Blue Checkmark’ Questioned

A researcher for the media watchdog site Media Matters wants to know why Twitter awarded its coveted “blue checkmark” to NoFap—an account claiming to represent an anti-porn movement that believes quitting masturbation can cure diseases and increase intelligence. The NoFap web site describes itself as a “comprehensive community-based porn recovery site.”  The Daily Dot site reported that after rapper Kanye West announced that he was  “addicted” to porn, the NoFap Twitter account fired off about a half-dozen tweets lauding the hip-hop megastar—who served as “creative director” for the PornHub Awards only last year—for his supposed forthrightness. That drew the attention of Media Matters researcher Brendan Klaret, who took to his own Twitter feed to ask, “Why is there a verified NoFap account?” On its own site, Twitter explains that the blue checkmark indicating “verified” status is reserved for accounts of “public interest.” “Typically this includes accounts maintained by users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas,” Twitter says on the site.  But Twitter also notes that the blue checkmark “does not imply an endorsement by Twitter.” Though Twitter, then, is not “endorsing” the NoFap account, it also by its own standards does believe that a movement which holds that abstaining from masturbation can cure acne is “of public interest.” Perhaps more importantly, the premise of NoFap, that “porn addiction” is a real and debilitating affliction, is not supported by evidence. As The Daily Beast reported, the largest ever clinical study of “porn addiction,” conducted in 2017, found that the neurological systems even of people who said that their porn habits caused them “major problems” bore none of the biological characteristics seen in other, more genuine addictions, such as an addiction to cocaine. The American Psychological Association also rejects “porn addiction” is a legitimate diagnosis, and has refused to include the alleged malady in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—the bible of clinical psychotherapy. The founder of NoFap, which originated on the internet forum Reddit, is Alexander Rhodes, a web developer from Pittsburgh with no medical or scientific training. Photo By Yoshimasa Niwa / Wikimedia Commons