Online sex education resource Beducated has revealed it has been removed from social platform TikTok for a violation of its community guidelines. The move came after Beducated shared a link to its New Year’s sale featuring the headline ‘Less Squats, More Squ*rts’.
The company says the ban has resulted in the loss of 19,000 followers and a significant amount of educational content on sexual health and wellness.
Like many operating in this space, Beducated has encountered such challenges before: it had an Instagram ban in 2021, a shadow ban on its current Instagram account, and restrictions on running ads on Meta and Google. “These incidents highlight the ongoing struggle against big tech’s censorship of sexual wellness content,” the company said.
Beducated cites a 2022 Miracare survey which concluded that 90% of respondents felt unprepared by their sex education for real-life sexual experiences, with almost half turning to online sources for information. With platforms censoring sources, Beducated has resorted to using ‘algospeak’ to avoid algorithmic bans, a tactic that is not always successful and complicates the search for quality sex education content.
“This is a health crisis,” said Mariah Freya, founder of Beducated. “Big tech’s restrictions on sex education are not just passive observation but active obstruction. Our work is constantly minimised by these companies who fail to distinguish between sexual wellness content and pornography. It’s 2024, yet sex and intimacy remain taboo topics.”
Beducated is calling for a reevaluation of content policies to allow responsible and informative discussions about sexual wellness, urging social media platforms and search engines to differentiate between pornographic content and educational material focused on sexual wellness.
“Our mission is to dismantle the barriers around sexual wellness education, but current social media policies are making it incredibly difficult,” says Freya. “We’re advocating for policy changes to let sexual education reach everyone. It’s vital for our overall wellbeing.”
