Parler’s got a porn problem: Adult businesses target pro-Trump social network

Hashtags like #keepamericasexy proliferate alongside conspiracy theories and conservative politics

By Craig Timberg, Drew Harwell and Rachel Lerman
12/2/2020, 7:57:47 p.m.

Anyone following the #sexytrumpgirl hashtag on Parler, a social media site increasingly popular with conservatives, got an eyeful one recent Thursday evening as images of topless women and links to hardcore pornography websites appeared at a rapid-fire rate, often more than one per minute.

The surge of #sexytrumpgirl posts highlighted a broader dilemma for Parler: The site’s lax moderation policies, in keeping with its claims to being a bastion of free speech, could make it a magnet for pornographers, escort services and online sex merchants using hashtags targeting conservatives, such as #keepamericasexy and #milfsfortrump2020.

The pornography threatens to intrude on users not seeking sexual material and has the potential to complicate hopes the site may have to expand advertising, which is now limited. Experts on the impact of pornography say major companies typically avoid having their sales pitches appear alongside controversial imagery.

Purveyors of sexually explicit material have thrived online since the early days of the Internet, and determining what to allow — and how to block what’s not allowed — has been a challenge for most social media sites. Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, for example, prohibit sexually explicit images and videos, while Twitter generally allows them so long as they show the images or actions of consenting adults.

Parler once banned all pornography but in recent months revised its terms of service to permit essentially anything that’s legal, making its policy close to Twitter’s, if slightly more permissive. Twitter, however, also has automated systems that prevent excessively rapid posting, as well as other spammy behavior, and employs human moderators to enforce its policies.

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