
‘Sexual’ use of eggplant and peach emojis banned on Facebook, Instagram - specifications
https://nypost.com/2019/10/29/sexual-use-of-eggplant-and-peach-emojis-banned-on-facebook-instagram/
======
Cenk
> The Facebook Community Standards language is quite broad, not naming the
> emojis specifically but referring to “[commonly used] sexual emojis or emoji
> strings” as criteria which qualify as “Suggestive Elements.”

> “[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”

> “We aren’t taking action on simply the emojis.”

> Nude photos where emojis cover genitalia, butts or female nipples are also
> now formally not allowed

~~~
GuiA
Thank god nude photos where male nipples cover female nipples are still fine.

~~~
deftturtle
It’s a shame they don’t allow female nipples but allow male nipples. Clear cut
sexism, and is there no way to sue them?

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
I would guess that the key factor is whether or not a body part is
significantly erogenous. AFAIK, many more women than men find their nipples to
be a source of sexual arousal.

EDIT: I hope people reading my post understand the difference between
explaining vs. endorsing another party's reasoning.

~~~
kaffeemitsahne
The key factor is the arbitrary sexual moral of the country where FB is
headquartered.

~~~
rlt
I think it's more about the sexual morals of the countries where the majority
of users are located.

That said, I think it's silly. They're a technology company that should be
able to come up with a technical solution. Twitter handles nudity just fine.

------
jandrese
What if I use suggestive emoji for political purposes? Will they allow it
then?

~~~
excalibur
Yes, but only if you're paying them.

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dannykwells
Right because sexual innuendo is worse than untruthful political ads.

~~~
qnsi
this is everyone's reaction to this, and why this article is gaining traction
on HN

~~~
giarc
But it's true. It seems like this policy change would prevent a consenting
couple from "flirting" over Facebook by using emoji's but would allow a
politican to create false content for an ad.

------
Johnny555
How will they even police this? If I say "Hey come over for dinner tonight
:eggplant:", is that sexual innuendo or am I making my famous eggplant
parmigiana?

~~~
jschwartzi
Guess I can't make my peach baba ghanoush anymore.

~~~
klyrs
This isn't how I was expecting to be offended on HN today.

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cs702
Sexual use of eggplant and peach emojis is banned...but political propaganda
is still A-OK:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21407531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21407531)

------
kps
It's fine as long as they don't ban ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs like U+130BA.

~~~
frant-hartm
Pure gold. Keeping that one.

------
warent
I'm not really sure what group they're catering to here. Everyone who is at
least 12 years old knows what those emoji mean. My guess is they must be doing
this in order to help protect women from sexual harassment. What they're
really doing here is trying to ban an entire way of thinking. That's just not
going to happen.

~~~
fortran77
It would make sense to respond to a complaint for a direct message that
contained these emojis.

~~~
warent
For starters, the issue isn't remotely as rampant for men as it is for women
who _routinely_ (i.e. multiple times a day) receive unsolicited sexual
advances offline and online in the form of dick pics. It's also much easier
for a man to physically take advantage of a woman than vice versa, so women
would naturally feel much more threatened by this behavior. Men's inboxes just
aren't constantly getting filled with unsolicited nudes, and those that are
received rarely cause men to feel concerned that it could lead to real
aggravated sexual assault.

~~~
ryanmercer
Unslicited 'dick picks' are now a crime in Texas, I imagine other states will
adopt similar laws too.

>Men's inboxes just aren't constantly getting filled with unsolicited nudes,
and those that are received rarely cause men to feel concerned that it could
lead to real aggravated sexual assault.

I have several drag queen friends and friends that work/perform in gay clubs,
simply commenting on their posts causes me to get 1-2 unsolicited dick picks
(or worse, spread cheeks for example) a month on average from friends of
theirs or people that simply follow them. I am not gay, I am not interested in
penises, I did not ask for them. I report every single one.

------
jakelazaroff
There goes any argument that Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to uphold the
“ideal of free speech”.

~~~
wwweston
Certainly not Free Peach AMIRITE?

------
kangnkodos
I guess "an implicit or indirect ask for nude imagery, sex or sexual partners,
or sex chat conversations" is OK without an eggplant emoji.

But if you add an eggplant emoji... that's it! You crossed the line. Facebook
cannot tolerate that. Oh no. Not that.

------
wishinghand
Does this apply to private chats? Because I'll send these in a joking way to
my girlfriend and some of my other friends. I know that Facebook messenger
parses chats and won't allow porn site links and torrent magnet links to go
through.

~~~
abstractbarista
Woah wait, they're blocking magnet links too?? That's horrible. It's already
disgusting that they block porn links. Why are they censoring private speech
between friends?

~~~
wishinghand
I haven't torrented in a while but I shared a non-piracy one for downloading
creative commons game assets with someone about 5 years ago and it just
wouldn't go through. I forget the automated message Messenger would give me
but it was basically "We think this is illegal file sharing".

------
o09rdk
I think we've reached some singularity with regard to the obviousness of the
futility of large scale content moderation on social media.

~~~
Gibbon1
We can't talk about sex on the internet but we can still have civilized and
gentile conversations about the need for genocide.

------
rsanaie
Political ads to influence elections with money that have global impacts on
the entire world are fine, vegetable emojis... not acceptable!

~~~
J5892
fruit emojis

------
sschueller
Why not also ban the gun emoji? Oh wait this is an American company where
violence is OK but sex is taboo.

~~~
geddy
Yeah let's pretend guns don't exist. Knives exist too, those are weapons,
better ban them. You could throw apples at someone for long enough and
probably hurt them a good bit, better ban them too.

The sterilized world you want to live in is not necessarily the one that
everyone else wants to live in.

~~~
journalctl
I don’t know, the rest of the developed world doesn’t want to live with gun
violence, and they... don’t. Your argument is absurd, though, because most
knives and apples aren’t designed to kill people, and serve other purposes.
You can prevent access to one thing (like pipe bombs) without preventing
access to other things (like knives). As always, intent and purpose matter,
and it’s not all-or-nothing.

~~~
perl4ever
"the rest of the developed world"

This phrase is commonly used as though it were most of the global population
or economy or something.

~~~
perl4ever
That was a glib comment based on my gut reaction, but in fact, I later looked
up figures and the US plus all the countries outside the OECD or "high income"
countries (which appear to be pretty similar) are >60% of global GDP and about
87% of world population. So maybe it is a little presumptuous to always speak
as though the remainder is the only part that really matters?

------
mrfredward
If Facebook really wanted to stop this they could make the eggplant less
phallic looking or remove it entirely. Almost no one is going on Facebook to
actually talk about eggplant.

They don't want users to have the same plausible deniability when sharing a
cartoon wiener that they had when adding a cartoon wiener as an option. And
honestly, it is probably for the better that sexual harassment via eggplant is
now explicitly called out in the TOS.

I don't expect much enforcement of this.

Edit: Wow, the eggplant lobby found my post. To be clear, I'm not against the
eggplant emoji, or its sexual connotations, but I am convinced that it gets
used exactly the way its designers expected it to be used.

~~~
elliekelly
This is what I find most confusing. If Facebook’s goal is to decrease the
frequency of the eggplant & peach emojis being used as sexual references there
are a million ways to “nudge” users in that direction. Make the eggplant &
peach emojis sliced and I bet they’d just about disappear.

Why police content, especially _this_ content that seems like a total non-
issue, when they’re in the middle of a giant PR campaign trying to convince
users they shouldn’t police content _any_ content?

I’ve never once heard someone complain about emoji sexual innuendo and if
Facebook’s motives are to stop sexual harassment that might be the most half-
hearted attempt in history. Someone who wants to sexually harass a person via
Facebook isn’t going to be deterred because they _might_ get reported (and
then... presumably nothing?) for sending an emoji.

No matter Facebook’s end goal, it seems like an odd strategy.

~~~
mic47
" Someone who wants to sexually harass a person via Facebook isn’t going to be
deterred because they might get reported (and then... presumably nothing?) for
sending an emoji." No, but person reviewing such reported content now have in
their guideline that emojis count too and know what to do.

------
buboard
What about bananas and carrots?

~~~
TallGuyShort
And cherries and water droplets.

~~~
paganel
And hammers and plums.

~~~
MrMorden
Captain Hammer approves of this message.

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dopamean
Zuckerberg is a clown.

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sergiomattei
The conversation in this thread is incredibly toxic and unhelpful, almost
Reddit-like. @dang?

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thrower123
The endless cycle continues... Sex sells, and has always been a big, if
unspoken or understated, factor in the rise of these social media platforms.
But then they reach critical mass, and the puritanical purges start...

------
cityzen
Political ads? Sure! Eggplant meaning wiener? NO WAY! Mark is way to pure for
that kind of stuff. He is busy saving free speech with political ads!

Zuck is quite the eggplant head.

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GaryNumanVevo
Emoji use is just the latest step in the "Language Game", Facebook seems to be
quite reactionary these days.

------
vchak1
Allowing eggplants and peaches to find each other easily was why thefacebook
spread around college campuses.

------
coldtea
Makes sense. FB and Instagram reflect the sensitivities towards sexuality of
its host country's culture.

------
meed
Yes to alt-right propaganda, no to boobs. Sounds about right.

------
ape4
Good luck with that

------
knolax
Seems very contradictory given that Instagram is 50% bikini photos.

------
ratsimihah
News these days.

------
klyrs
I'm so impressed at Zuckerberg's commitment to free speech. Such bravery in
the face of adversity! /s

------
ryanmercer
Can't use eggplant emoji sexually, can post completely topless photo/video
breastfeeding as a woman, can not post completely topless photo/video as a
woman, sexually suggestive cartoon still images are arbitrarily
allowed/removed, sexually suggestive art or art depicting nudity you made is
often removed unless the genitals and female nipples are covered (including
tattoos that depict nudity), sexually explicit art from a world famous artist
like a famous painting or sculpture is fine...

In a former life I've even seen but I've seen friends' burlesque
posters/flyers with cartoon nudity be removed if they don't have pasties drawn
on nipples or the nipples airbrushed (yet throw a baroque painting with far
more detail/realism up and it's ok) out and numerous performers that have had
actual photographs of them removed even when they DID have pasties on.

Seriously, women wearing amply sized pasties has been a no-go "violating
community standards" but you could post something like Reubens' The Judgement
of Paris and that's fine because it's a 17th century painting worth mind
boggling amounts of money and is tasteful art.

Facebook reaaalllly needs to get consistent with what they do or do not allow.

