Social Media and the Censoring of Sex Ed

I recently came across an article written by Amber Madison, titled "When Social-Media Companies Censor Sex Education", and thought it was an interesting tie in to what we've learned so far about sex education and the Internet.

As we read in the Brown, Keller & Stern article, the Internet makes available sexual health information, which "44% report using the Internet to find". In addition, the Internet is a good source for adolescents to "explore and find themselves sexually", to "express feelings openly", and generally engage with the information in a relatively safe space. So, we know that the Internet can facilitate a really great learning space for young users to get the information they need about sex education. But what happens with social media, a huge part of the modern Internet experience, is censored to stop educational information regarding sex?

The Madison article refers to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy's "Bedsider" social media accounts. Bedsider wanted to "create the "cool kid" of sexual health and contraceptive information" to reach an audience that needs this kind of information. It seems like a great idea in theory, especially since enjoyment of and identification with a particular media voice can lead to greater efficacy in learning (Joyce & Harwood, 2014).

But Twitter prohibits language referring to sex. In order for sex education to be allowed onto the platform, it needs to "not contain sexual content and not link to sexual content". A Bedsider tweet was deleted for "paint[ing] sex in a recreational/positive light versus being neutral and dry". Madison brings up a great comparison: that valid sex education organizations cannot possibly compete with Kim Kardashian's butt (which was allowed all over Twitter and other social media) when they are forced to "speak like doctors" and "show stale pictures of people who look like they're shopping for car insurance".

Facebook is no better. A link to a Bedsider article with the tagline "you'er so sexy when you're well" wasn't allowed because its language was deemed "profane, vulgar, threatening, or [as generating] high negative feedback".

Assuming adolescents are learning about sex through their use of social media, they're clearly going to gravitate more towards posts like Kim K's bare butt rather than a boring, purely informational tweet about sex education. But why are oversexualized images deemed acceptable (allegedly not profane, vulgar, threatening, containing sexual content) on these platforms but educational information about how to be safe and healthy unacceptable?

Social media is a platform that allows information to be instantly accessible to a huge amount of people, which could be extremely beneficial to educational organizations. However, there's a ridiculous double standard surrounding sexual content online. One of the current arguments is that sexual health information could be potentially offensive to some users, which holds absolutely no weight, not when there are other sexual images freely floating around on social media that are deemed acceptable to be posted. Ultimately, sex education is extremely important, and the way our culture treats sexual health information needs to be changed.

References:

Brown J., Keller S., & Stern, S. (2009). Sex, Sexuality, Sexting, and SexEd: Adolescents and the Media. The Prevention Researcher, 16(4), 12-16.

Joyce, N. & Harwood, J. (2014). Context and Identification in Persuasive Mass Communication. Journal of Media Psychology, 26(1), 50-57.

Madison, A.  (2015). When Social Media Censors Sex Education. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/when-social-media-censors-sex-education/385576/