LAS VEGAS (CBS Local) — If you are partial to using the eggplant, peach or sweat drops emojis in a sexual context on Facebook and Instagram, you might want to find a workaround.
Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by the same company and share the same community standards, quietly released updates to their guidelines over the summer, stating that using an eggplant, peach or sweat drops emoji in a sexual manner could get a user banned, CBS affiliate KLAS reported.
To be removed, the content must “implicitly or indirectly (typically through providing a method of contact) offer or ask for nude imagery, or sex or sexual partners, or sex chat conversations,” Facebook’s Community Standards said.
#EMOJI CHECK: #Facebook and #Instagram ban ”sexual” use of peach and eggplant emojis https://t.co/bSDDUDd683 #8NN
— 8 News NOW (@8NewsNow) November 5, 2019
So if you post about your roasted eggplant or peach cobbler recipes or your workout at the gym, you should be OK to use those emojis.
“We aren’t taking action on simply the emojis,” Instagram officials told the New York Post. 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.”
The new standards for the popular social media platforms were updated in July but didn’t go into effect until September, according to the Post.