Facebook and Instagram censor 'sexual' emoji and stop links to private pornography sites
Aubergine and peach emoji can't be used in a sexual context
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Your support makes all the difference.Facebook and Instagram are cracking down on emojis that are "implicitly or indirectly" related to sex, such as aubergines and peaches.
Through its updated Community Standards, the social media giant is attempting to prevent online sexual solicitation, though it has been accused of censoring sexual expression.
The new rules, which were introduced in August but first spotted by adult industry news website XBiz, state that any "contextually specific and commonly used sexual emojis" will no longer be permitted alongside sexual statements.
The emojis can also not be used to censor nudity, while users are also forbidden from providing links to their followers that lead to pornographic content.
Facebook's states in the guidelines that its policy is to prevent any content that "facilitates, encourages or coordinates sexual encounters between adults".
A Facebook spokesperson told XBiz that the latest update to its guidelines were part of systematic changes to its platform.
"With this update, nothing changed in terms of the policy itself or how we enforce it, we simply updated the language to make it clearer for our community," the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson told The Independent that Facebook wasn't "taking action on simply the emoji".
They said: "Content will only be removed from Facebook and Instagram if it contains a sexual emoji alongside an implicit or indirect ask for nude imagery, sex or sexual partners, or sex chat conversations."
The updated Community Standards were criticised by some on social media, who claimed that it amounted to online censorship and unfairly targeted sex workers.
Their new policy is against sex workers overall, even if your pictures are clean and just hint at a fetish/position/act or has explicit use of emoji, they delete," one user wrote on Twitter.
"I hope they are gonna dig their own grave with this."
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