Censorship on Social Media: Every day, people fight for the right to get access on information about contraception, menstruation, sexual health, victim protection, dealing with cases of abuse and preventing violence. And every day, online knowledge about these topics is taken away from them or being forced into the shadows. Platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube censor well-founded information about sex education and sexual health – they hide it, restrict its reach or delete it altogether.
What are they preventing? It’s not violence. It’s not suffering. But education and harm reduction.
I’m Nike Wessel and I’ve been campaigning for sexual education and digital visibility for years. Together with strong partners like Cheex and Einhorn, I’m fighting to ensure that knowledge about the body, health and sexual rights remains freely accessible.
That is why we are calling on Dr. Stefanie Hubig, Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, to protect digital sex education. Put an end to censorship that endangers lives. Put an end to the censorship of knowledge! Put an end to dangerous double standards!
We want a digital space in which knowledge can flow freely. Instead, we see this: Medically correct terms such as penis, vulva, menstruation or abuse are punished – just because algorithms mark them as “offensive”. Posts about consent or safe contraception disappear – while sexualized content is waved through for clicks and commerce.
Our information gets caught in the filter – and that costs trust. It costs security. Sometimes it costs lives.
This censorship doesn’t just affect individual creators. It affects us all:
- Young people who want to be informed
- Parents who are looking for answers
- Teachers, doctors and nursing staff
- Those affected by sexualized violence
Blocking information encourages silence. And silence doesn’t protect anyone – it makes you vulnerable. Every piece of information that is deleted leaves a gap. Every missing answer costs people their self-determination.
And censorship does not affect everyone equally:
Women*, non-binary people, queer people, black people and people of color are censored at an above-average rate. “Female” body hair? Deleted. “Female” nipples? Deleted. At the same time, content that caters to the male gaze remains untouched. And misanthropic content is sometimes even promoted by the algorithm (e.g. accounts that glorify violence or trans-hostile posts). These double standards show: It’s not about protection – it’s about control.
We say: Stop it. Information is a human right.
That is why we are calling on Dr. Stefanie Hubig, Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, to advocate for a political framework that commits digital platforms to fairness, transparency and genuine freedom of information.
Specifically, we demand:
- Clear and comprehensible guidelines that differentiate between sexualized violence and sex education.
- Approval of medically correct terms in text and images – without range restrictions or deletions.
- Involvement of experts from the fields of medicine, sexuality education and trauma work in the development and review of platform rules.
- Mandatory transparency: platforms must disclose how their algorithms moderate content.
Why this petition is urgently needed now:
If we don’t act, we’ll lose more than posts or followers. We lose free spaces for education, self-determination and protection. And we give hate and agitation the stage. Education about contraception, consent, abuse or sexual identity is not breaking the rules – it is essential for survival.
Support us in making digital education visible and accessible – for every person, in every language, in every format.
