Blog Post
A Comparative Overview of Social Media Sex Policy
Most social media platforms ban nudity and pornography, but what exactly does that mean?
Whose nipples are illegal? Is the Kama Sutra art or pornography? Do you allow a diagram illustrating how to put on a condom? What if it uses pictures of a real penis instead?
This is a complicated topic, and every platform deals with it slightly differently. I sat down to write a detailed comparative analysis of the big platforms’ policies around nudity and pornography, but I got 6 pages in and was only half done so for your sake I’ve condensed it into a chart.
I chose to include Facebook (& Instagram, by proxy) and Twitter as the biggest American players, TikTok as a new and younger-skewing platform, and Parler because it’s been in the news a lot lately.
A few caveats:
This is policy, NOT implementation.
Content moderation is hard, and what happens ‘on the ground’ never perfectly reflects the policy. This is ONLY looking at the official guidelines, all of which are linked below.
Lack of a ✔️ does not mean they don’t have a stance on an issue.
For example: TikTok doesn’t have an explicit policy against revenge porn but they do have an explicit policy against porn in general, so revenge porn would be disallowed under that wider rule. Facebook doesn’t allow porn in general, but also has a specific policy against revenge porn.
These are the policies as of 12/8/2020.
These platforms update their policies regularly. Parler in particular is changing rapidly as it booms in popularity after the 2020 election. (for example, until a few months ago they didn’t allow porn at all)
For more details on each platform’s policies, please read their full guidelines:
For more information on this publication:
Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation:
Bayley , Clare.“A Comparative Overview of Social Media Sex Policy .” Perspectives on Public Purpose, December 16, 2020, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/comparative-overview-social-media-sex-policy.
The Author
Clare Bayley
- 2020-21 Fellow, Technology and Public Purpose Project
Most social media platforms ban nudity and pornography, but what exactly does that mean?
Whose nipples are illegal? Is the Kama Sutra art or pornography? Do you allow a diagram illustrating how to put on a condom? What if it uses pictures of a real penis instead?
This is a complicated topic, and every platform deals with it slightly differently. I sat down to write a detailed comparative analysis of the big platforms’ policies around nudity and pornography, but I got 6 pages in and was only half done so for your sake I’ve condensed it into a chart.
I chose to include Facebook (& Instagram, by proxy) and Twitter as the biggest American players, TikTok as a new and younger-skewing platform, and Parler because it’s been in the news a lot lately.
A few caveats:
This is policy, NOT implementation.
Content moderation is hard, and what happens ‘on the ground’ never perfectly reflects the policy. This is ONLY looking at the official guidelines, all of which are linked below.
Lack of a ✔️ does not mean they don’t have a stance on an issue.
For example: TikTok doesn’t have an explicit policy against revenge porn but they do have an explicit policy against porn in general, so revenge porn would be disallowed under that wider rule. Facebook doesn’t allow porn in general, but also has a specific policy against revenge porn.
These are the policies as of 12/8/2020.
These platforms update their policies regularly. Parler in particular is changing rapidly as it booms in popularity after the 2020 election. (for example, until a few months ago they didn’t allow porn at all)
For more details on each platform’s policies, please read their full guidelines:
The Author
Clare Bayley
- 2020-21 Fellow, Technology and Public Purpose Project
