How to support your favourite erotic content creators in the shadowban era
By Maria Prendeville
If you’re a consumer of adult or erotic content, you’ve likely been seeing less of your fave creator on social media over the last year or so.
And that would be due to the latest efforts of the patriarchy controlling women’s bodies: through shadowbanning.
This is a delicate topic for many in the erotic industry because there are no proper rules or guidelines around how shadowbanning takes place. And once you are in the doghouse, there’s no knowing how long creators are stuck in there, or if they’ll even get their account back.
Ok ok, you’re probably asking, what even is a shadowban?!
Shadowbanning and social media censorship: the tea
Shadowbanning is when someone’s content and profile is not shown to new potential followers and your reach to current followers is greatly reduced. This can occur for several reasons, including posting “explicit” images, using words and hashtags that social media platforms deem inappropriate, and having links in the bio that lead to Only Fans. You get the gist.
But here’s the catch; creators don’t receive notifications alerting that they are shadowbanned. Hence the term “shadow,” because it’s not like creators are outrightly banned from the platform. They can still post to their feed and message people, but their reach is impacted.
This increase in censorship has instant ramifications for creators, such as loss of income and growth. But there is a huge knock-on effect such as the increase in shame and further stigmatisation of these already taboo subjects due to lack of education. Reports also state that body-positive and LGBTQIA+ people and accounts are further censored, especially in the adult industry.
There are other subtle knock-on effects, particularly around the language of sex, or seggs, as you’ve probably seen scattered like broken eggs across the internet. This censorship is forcing creators to share their content in more nuanced ways so they don’t get flagged.
These unfortunate events are occurring across the board, and it’s super important that not only creators speak up about these issues, but their followers and consumers of this type of content as well.
Why the sudden clamp down on explicit posts?
While this has been an ongoing issue for people in the adult industry for a few years now, Meta and TikTok have recently clamped down big time due to the SESTA/FOSTA Act amendment in the US in 2018. The FOSTA/SESTA Act is a mix of the US Senate bill SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) and House bill FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act).
The S230 bill has protected internet platforms and services from being liable for user-generated content. FOSTA/SESTA Act changed the bill by ‘broadly expanding civil and criminal liability for websites with user-generated content,’ meaning the likes of X, Meta and TikTok clamped down on what their users, including erotic content creators, could post.
Ironically, this act has not only stopped sex workers from being able to share their work online and also be in safe spaces and forums, but it has also prevented criminal investigators from properly finding sex trafficking rings like they previously could. Sex trafficking has had to go further underground where it is even more difficult for the authorities to intercept.
Make it make sense!
Some say this intense shadowbanning and censorship comes from the pushing and shoving of big advertisers on social media networks. Think Nike or Walmart. These huge corporates come in and want to advertise on a so-called “clean” platform, and not have their ads show up in between stories of explicit content.
Yawn.
There’s enough space on these platforms for everyone.
No one group of people should feel marginalised or less than.
However, shadowban and censorship struggles extend beyond solely explicit content.
Bodyform, a UK and US period product company, carried out a campaign last year on 40 words that face social media censorship. Among them were words such as endometriosis, PMS, infertility, and dysmenorrhea, words that are not erotic in nature but still relate to women’s bodies
I mean, Meta and TikTok use incredibly intelligent algorithms to clamp down on content. Surely they can distinguish between something that is more adult in nature and content that is purely educational?
Many femtech companies across the spectrum, from menstrual health products to fertility and breastfeeding, have faced severe shadowban and censorship issues when advertising their products and services, which leads us to believe there is a much bigger problem at play.
An issue as old as time; the policing of women’s bodies.
How to support your fave creator
You might be thinking, let’s build a new platform! Screw the Big Tech giants and let’s set up shop elsewhere!
People both inside and outside the industry have called for a new platform to be made, or to migrate to existing erotic content platforms. But this further perpetuates the idea that sex is taboo, that it is “othered” and doesn’t deserve the right to exist alongside “normal” content on Big Tech platforms. Sex workers and erotic content deserve to exist on mainstream platforms just as much as any other line of work or topic of conversation.
To continue supporting creators and ensure they stay on these platforms, here is a non-exhaustive list of ways you can show support:
- Listen to their podcast (and rate & review),
- Pay for your porn,
- Like & share their content,
- Turn on notifications for their posts,
- Subscribe to their newsletters and forward newsletters and sign-up pages to your friends,
- Read, comment and share their blogs,
- Talk about it with your friends,
- Buy them a coffee if you can’t support them on a monthly basis,
- Who you vote for makes a difference too!
Wanna learn more about censorship and shadowbanning online, whether you consume erotic content or are in the industry yourself? Check out the following campaigns and researchers who are doing the work and spreading the good word.
- Sex Tech EU hosts monthly calls and often discusses censorship on a wider level.
- CensHERship runs a shadowban and social media campaign and is looking for people to fill out their survey to lobby Meta and the government.
- @bloggeronpole does amazing educational work around social censorship and in academia.
- @caseymurphy’s video on how to possibly fix your Insta account if you’re shadowbanned
- @adminbyamari also shares sex-positive advice and tips for shadowbanning.
- @stripperwriter on Insta is an excellent resource for neurodivergent sex workers, particularly in the US. Check her highlights reel for lots of informative content around sesta-fosta and the ramifications of this act.
While this might seem like an isolated event for solely sex workers and erotic content creators, the wider ramifications will affect all of us in some way. Changing our language to get around posting barriers, being forced to work on new platforms to make way for advertising giants, not having access to important educational content and communities all affect us as a whole!
Get sharing, start talking with your friends, lobby governments and take part in campaigns where you can. We can all make a difference, no matter how seemingly small it is. :)
About Maria Prendeville:
🤘 Hi, I'm Maria and I'm a great listener, in fact, I'm an open book!
🖤 I provide content writing and email marketing for femtech companies, women's health coaches and erotic content creators to beat social media censorship.
Photography by Chantal Convertini (@pauelini)
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