This sort of aggressive banning over sexual content seems to have really taken off since the passage of FOSTA/SESTA a couple years ago. Social media sites were

This sort of aggressive banning over sexual content seems to have really taken off since the passage of FOSTA/SESTA a couple years ago. Social media sites were never libertine, but they were at least more relaxed about sexual content before anything that might turn out to be linked to sex trafficking was carved out of the section 230 safe harbor. They're dealing with a wildly asymmetric risk profile. It would be almost impossible for them to reliably distinguish legitimate sexual content from illegal content related to trafficking in a way that scales to the size of their platforms. But even one slip-up in doing so could expose them to serious criminal liability. So, while I agree that these policies are wildly non-linear, I don't see them having any realistic choice in the matter. A puritanical value system has effectively been forced upon them by federal legislation.