Social media platform Twitter recently updated its policies on child sexual exploitation, quietly adding that it was no longer acceptable to “promote or normalize sexual attraction to minors.”
Breitbart News reporter Allum Bokhari wrote in 2019 that Twitter’s official policies on child exploitation permitted the discussion of sexual attraction to minors, writing:
In the past week alone, it was reported that Twitter has suspended journalist Andy Ngo for tweeting inconvenient facts about the purported “epidemic” of transgender deaths, and undercover journalism organization Project Veritas from running recruitment ads. But if you’re a pedophile who wants to discuss your attraction to minors — Twitter’s just fine with that.
Big League Politics discovered a little-noticed, quietly enacted Twitter rule change from March, which says “Discussions related to child sexual exploitation as a phenomenon or attraction towards minors are permitted, provided they don’t promote or glorify child sexual exploitation in any way.”So, if you post politically inconvenient yet accurate statistical facts, as Ngo did, you get suspended. But if you discuss “attraction towards minors,” Twitter explicitly allows it.
Now, Twitter’s child sexual exploitation policy page which outlines the company’s official policy as of October 2020, states that the normalization of attraction to minors is no longer permitted on the platform.
The policy states that the following is not permitted:
- visual depictions of a child engaging in sexually explicit or sexually suggestive acts;
- illustrated, computer-generated or other forms of realistic depictions of a human child in a sexually explicit context, or engaging in sexually explicit acts;
- sexualized commentaries about or directed at a known or unknown minor; and
- links to third-party sites that host child sexual exploitation material.
Further down the list, Twitter notes that another banned behavior is:
- promoting or normalizing sexual attraction to minors as a form of identity or sexual orientation.
This appears to be a great improvement over Twitter’s previous stance on the topic that “Discussions related to child sexual exploitation as a phenomenon or attraction towards minors are permitted, provided they don’t promote or glorify child sexual exploitation in any way,” which gave individuals attempting to normalize this attraction free reign to discuss it across the platform, often referring to themselves as Minor Attracted People or “MAPS.”
Breitbart News will continue to follow Twitter’s enforcement of these policies closely.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com