On Thursday we reported on a troubling shift in Facebook’s content moderation policy. The social media giant says the new clampdown on sexual and sexually suggestive language is an effort to cut down on content that “facilitates, encourages or coordinates sexual encounters between adults” and bars “sexually explicit language that may lead to solicitation.”
Sounds like a party.
One high profile LGBTQ Facebooker has already said ‘enough is enough’ to the new rules.
Related: Facebook bans users from saying if they’re a ‘top’ or ‘bottom’
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
On Twitter, Chris Crocker announced he’d deleted his Facebook fan page, along with the four million followers it had attracted over the years.
The social media personality and sometimes adult film star, and, yes, the “Leave Britney alone” guy from 2007, maintains his one million followers on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, as well as 258k Twitter followers.
“I had 4 million+ followers on @facebook and I deleted,” Crocker wrote on Twitter, adding, “I will never contribute content to a site that demonizes sexuality.”
I had 4 million+ followers on @facebook and I deleted.
I will never contribute content to a site that demonizes sexuality:
— Chris Crocker XXX (@ChrisCrocker) December 7, 2018
In a separate Twitter post, Crocker wrote:
“The internet is becoming Anti-Sex.
Corporations are cracking down on the promotion of LEGAL Sex Work;
Porn Actors are losing their ability to promote their work.
Yet millionaires pay for prostitutes with NDA’s.”
Related: Chris Crocker Tells All, Describes His Weird Fame, Gender Transition And Porn Plans
Fans were largely supportive of the move:
You inspired me to delete my Facebook. I’ve grown a MASSIVE following there. But it’s gone now. Good riddance!
— Topher Drew (@topherdrewxxx) December 7, 2018
We should all do that! Good job ???
— Spicy Nelly ?? (@spicy_nelly) December 7, 2018
— ???Spoiled Babygirl??? (@SpoiledBabygir1) December 7, 2018
But not everyone was thrilled:
Wish you didn’t delete and directed your enormous followers/power on FB platform to fight back.
— Paul Leary (@paulleary) December 7, 2018
If Facebook opts to enforce its new guidelines with a heavy hand, we expect more public deletions to come down the pipeline.
Perhaps the company can use the public’s reaction — especially from its LGBTQ users — as fuel to reconsider its course of action.
From the disappearance of Craigslist personals to the impending Tumblr ban on adult content to Facebook’s new guidelines, the internet is becoming a less and less welcome place for marginalized queer communities.
In 2015, Crocker also deleted his account on YouTube, citing a different sort of internet hell:
For now (and hopefully forever), you can still enjoy Crocker’s vitally important content on his Instagram:
HereIAm
Gays who have deleted or plan to delete your Facebook account, don’t flatter yourself and think that you have the power to change a sound policy update. The vast majority of Facebook users agree with or are indifferent to the new policy and will happily continue to post their stuff on FB. If you are so offended by what’s happening to FB and Tumblr, why don’t you create a new platform that caters to people of your sort?
Larry
And just what is your sort? Were you created without sex?
BShade77
why don’t you piss off?
Doug
HereIAm is either a straight troll or a gay Trumpster.
PinkoOfTheGange
Not even the pretense of being a community member any longer? Well that is a silver lining I’d say.
GetOffMyInternets
Awww CastleSF, Windchime, here you are. Back to moralize because church isn’t doing it for you. Your trolling comments and uppity garbage are so mechanical and SO PREDICTABLE. It’s obvious you’re not a real account.
paulmodibe
HERE I AM, 1,000,000 THUMBS DOWN ON YOUR DISGRACEFUL SUPPORT FOR THE SUPRESSION OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. BOTH FB AND TUMBLR AND CATORING TO THE FRINGE FASCISM OF THE GOP, AND THEIR FASCIST REGIME. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED
Crystix
Why are people still using facebook? its nothing but propaganda and privacy theft. For god’s sake, they’re responsible for Trump becoming president through cambridge analytica. Looking forward to the day when facebook is no longer a thing. It died when the baby boomers took it over.
Wicked Dickie
Ironically, I’ve seen videos of Crocker on Tumblr where he’s getting plowed BB. Funny.
Brian
That’s not what irony is, Alanis.
Kangol
Uh, he’s defending his and others’ rights to do that, not the opposite, which would be ironic.
PinkoOfTheGange
HereIAm’s gay “other”
Crystix
Chris Crocker’s porns are HOT AF.
JED08
I would have never guessed that was Chris Crocker in that photo.
Raymundo
I remember when he was thinking and blond.
Polaro
@mr guy bitter?
Polaro
@HereIAm The 1950’s called, they’d like you back.
anthony_d22
Id say good for him but I find chris crocker insufferable
sfhairy
And just like that, no one cares.
DarkZephyr
And just like that, you’re wrong.
Crystix
I care
GetOffMyInternets
I can’t believe anyone found Chris Crocker worthy of attention to begin with.
Crystix
You sound like an old man complaining kids are on your lawn.
Geeker
I agree what Facebook is doing is wrong but please don’t make that attention seeking skank the face of the cause…Please!
GetOffMyInternets
He’s only getting coverage here because one of the writers wants to bone him, so therefor he has “worth” here.
Prax07
Good for him, Tumblr & FB are becoming puritanical, which isn’t good for anyone with any sexuality. Plus his porn is frickin hot. Sexy boy.
bambamboom777
The moralizers are determined to push us back to the Victorian era. We’re becoming more like the society depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale every day. Don’t be surprised if they start going after sites like this. Just look at what happened in Russia. The right-wingers have declared on anything that is sex-positive and it’s inevitable that homophobia is going to increase with this as well.
Lacuevaman
who cares?
djmcgamester
I deleted my FB profile over a year ago for other reasons (politics) and I don’t miss it. FB continues to make poor decisions regarding its consumers. It’s getting sued by nations and growing numbers of users are becoming dissatisfied with it. Can you imagine the “college students-only” site that it started as censoring anything at all? As someone who used it back when a college ID was required, I can tell you that it did not monitor posts.
People are now losing interest in FB and Tumblr. Ads on Instagram (every fifth post) are getting out of control. Even Twitter bars free speech in some areas. I wonder what all of this means for social media as a whole.
Crystix
Exactly – torched mine over a year ago when Cambridge Analytica stories came out. Why are people still using this toxic platform?! Is it really worth it to be connected with Susan, the girl who you graduated wtih but would never talk to otherwise, while being pummeled with propaganda, misinformation and inadvertently divulging your privacy?
LET THE FACEBOOK EMPIRE FALL.
Sam6969
It’s great there are people like (the excellent) Chris Crocker to counterbalance the growing uber-moralistic and radical attitudes. Mentalities are getting so rigid those days; some people feeling entitled to point the finger at others, trying to rule over their lifestyle by terrorizing them with uncompromising attitudes and a threatening atmosphere.
Kangol
And very often these same moralizing people are hot messes in their own lives. Just look at the Catholic Church and its endlessly moralizing priests and bishops! Or all the evangelical blowhard ministers and “youth counselors” who are constantly get busted for misbehavior. Usually if people are obsessed with what other people are up to, it’s because they don’t have their own houses in order.
sydboy007
The Jeffy washed a safe curated social media. High priest Cook had declared it a sin, the silicon valley hive mind elite are now working tirelessly to give you the safe bland homogeneous digital media experience you wanted.
Dissent will likely be classified as hate speech. It’s all good. Private companies can have their own rules and standards.
Censorship sticks when it’s aimed at you eh.
Ashke113
Boohoo no one can post if they’re top or bottom on FB anylonger, guess we fags will have to do it the old fashioned way and actually TALK TO EACH OTHER