Petition against online censorship - sign now!
May 26, 2025
To Meta & Co.: We demand an end to the algorithmic censorship of text and image content that deals with sexuality in the broadest sense.
This includes contraception and disease prevention, menstruation and cycles, protection against sexual assault and abuse, meno- and andropause, general sex education, showing the entire body, destigmatization of sex and body topics, and much more…
On social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or YouTube, such content is made invisible and the work of sex educators, medical professionals, journalists and therapists is significantly impaired – through shadow banning, reduced reach or deletion of individual posts or entire accounts. In particular, (multiply) marginalized people (BIPoC, disabled, queer and trans people) are affected.
While hate is promoted, education is censored
While hate, incitement, misinformation and disinformation on such platforms can take place almost unhindered or is even promoted, more and more hurdles are being created for people who provide sex education.
Many of the above topics cannot even be named without creators facing consequences. Terms like menstruation, penis, condom, breasts, vulva or sex have to be made "unrecognizable" – e.g. with asterisks, to avoid being detected by the algorithm. How is education supposed to work if you can't even use the right words? What does this do to our perception of sex and sexuality?
Content for destigmatization and breaking taboos around sex topics is also made significantly harder or impossible (example terms: kinky, fetish, pubic hair, orgasm, gender).
Even content about violence prevention is affected. Words like abuse, transphobia, sexualization or rape also have to be made unrecognizable.
Image material is also affected by the arbitrariness and discriminatory "logic" of the algorithm. While there is the option to appeal such censorship measures, this often leads nowhere or the reasoning is still not accepted. And the algorithm keeps learning. Even the asterisks and xx are now recognized through certain contexts and censored anyway.
Our Demands
- Clear, transparent and non-discriminatory guidelines for text and image content – medically correct terms must no longer be considered "offensive" or "inappropriate"
- Involvement of experts from medicine, journalism and sex education in the development and review of platform rules
- Political frameworks that oblige platforms to fairness, transparency and genuine education
We say: Stop the digital censorship of (sexual) education and information.
Why is this petition important?
Because education matters. And because silence and censorship are dangerous. Especially in times when right-wing and far-right ideologies are becoming increasingly normalized.
When content about menstruation, medical care, sexual health, violence prevention or sex education is censored online, it doesn't just affect individuals – it affects us as a society. We all need free access to knowledge about our bodies, our rights and our health. And we need this knowledge directly from the experts – not the misinformation from haters and trolls.
This petition is important because:
- Education is not a violation of "Community Guidelines" – it is a human right
- Young people have a right to honest, uncensored information
- Survivors of abuse or illness must not be additionally stigmatized through language bans
- Medical, sexual and mental health can only be promoted through visibility and openness
Let's work together to ensure that education remains visible – in every language, in every format, for every person.