Adult Sexual Exploitation
Policy Rationale
W e recognize the importance of our services as a place to discuss and draw attention to sexual violence and exploitation. We believe this is an important part of building common understanding and community. In an effort to create space for this conversation and promote a safe environment, we allow survivors to share their experiences, but we remove content that depicts, threatens or promotes sexual violence, sexual assault or sexual exploitation. We also remove content that displays, advocates for or coordinates sexual acts with non-consenting parties to avoid facilitating non-consensual sexual acts. Further, if we become aware of any content that threatens or advocates rape, we may disable the posting account and work with law enforcement, in addition to removing the content.
To protect survivors, we remove images that depict incidents of sexual violence and intimate images shared without the consent of the person(s) pictured. As noted in the introduction, we also work with external safety experts to discuss and improve our policies and enforcement around online safety issues, and we may remove content when we receive information that content is linked to harmful activity. We have written about the technology we use to protect against non-consensual intimate images and the research that has informed our work. Weve also put together a guide to reporting and removing intimate images shared without your consent.
We do not allow:
Content depicting, advocating for, or mocking non-consensual sexual touching, including:
- Imagery depicting non-consensual sexual touching (except in real-world art depicting non-real people, with a condemning or neutral caption)
- Statements attempting or threatening to share, offering, or asking for imagery depicting non-consensual sexual touching
- Descriptions of non-consensual sexual touching, unless shared by or in support of the survivor
- Advocacy (including aspirational and conditional statements) for, threats to commit, or admission of participation in non-consensual sexual touching
- Content mocking survivors or the concept of non-consensual sexual touching
- Content shared by a third party that identifies survivors of sexual assault when reported by the survivor
Content, activity or interactions that attempts to exploit people by:
- Coercing money, favors or intimate imagery from people with threats to expose their intimate imagery or intimate information (sextortion)
- Sharing, threatening, stating an intent to share, offering or asking for non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) that fulfills all of the three following conditions:
- Imagery is non-commercial and produced in a private setting.
- Person in the imagery is (near) nude, engaged in sexual activity or in a sexually suggestive pose.
- Lack of consent to share the imagery is indicated by meeting any of the signals:
- Vengeful context (such as, caption, comments or page title).
- Independent sources such as law enforcement records, media reports (such as, leak of images confirmed by media) or representatives of a survivor of NCII
- Report from a person depicted in the image or who shares the same name as the person depicted in the image.
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- Promoting, threatening to share, or offering to make non-real non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) either by applications, services, or instructions, even if there is no (near) nude commercial or non-commercial imagery shared in the content
- Secretly taking non-commercial imagery of a person's commonly sexualized body parts (breasts, groin, buttocks, or thighs) or of a person engaged in sexual activity. This imagery is commonly known as "creepshots" or "upskirts" and includes photos or videos that mock, sexualize or expose the person depicted in the imagery.
- Sharing, threatening to share or stating an intent to share private sexual conversations where a lack of consent to share is indicated by by any of the following:
- Vengeful context and/or threatening context,
- Independent sources such as media coverage or law enforcement records, or
- Report from a person depicted in the image or who shares the same name as the person depicted in the image
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Content relating to necrophilia or forced stripping, including:
- Imagery depicting necrophilia or forced stripping (except in real-world art depicting non-real people, with a condemning or neutral caption
- Statements attempting to share, offer, ask, or threatening to share the imagery of necrophilia or forced stripping
- Statements that contain descriptions, advocacy for, aspirational or conditional statements about, statements of intent or calls for action to commit, admission of participation in, or mocking of survivors of necrophilia or forced stripping
For the following content, we include a sensitivity screen so that people are aware the content may be upsetting to some:
Narratives and statements that contain a description of non-consensual sexual touching (written or verbal) that includes details beyond mere naming or mentioning the act if:
- Shared by the survivor, or
- Shared by a third party (other than the survivor) in support of the survivor or condemnation of the act or for general awareness to be determined by context/caption.
For the following Community Standards, we require additional information and/or context to enforce:
We may restrict visibility to people over the age of 18 and include a warning label on certain content including:
- Content depicting non-consensual sexual touching when:
- Shared to raise awareness (without entertainment or sensational context),
- The survivor is not identifiable, and
- The content does not involve nudity
- Content depicting fictional non-consensual sexual touching (movie trailers, etc.) when shared by trusted partners to raise awareness and without sensational context
We may restrict visibility to people over the age of 18 and include a warning label on certain content depicting non-consensual sexual touching, when it is shared to raise awareness and without entertainment or sensational context, where the victim or survivor is not identifiable and where the content does not involve nudity.
In addition to our at-scale policy of removing content that threatens or advocates rape or other non-consensual sexual touching, we may also disable the posting account.
We may also enforce on content shared by a third party that identifies survivors of sexual assault when reported by an authorized representative or Trusted Partner.
