Fiverr Community Forum

Does written erotica violate the Terms of Service or not?

Your Fiverr Experience Conversations
#1

UPDATE:

No, it does not violate the ToS! My mind is put at ease.

I have just got an email back from customer service. I’m quoting an excerpt here:

"To answer your inquiry, erotic writing is indeed allowed on our site. So as long as this content is in written form as you have mentioned, there should be nothing to worry about.

I hope this information helps and I am here if you have any other concerns."

Wonderful!

My original post (for anyone else wondering the same thing):

My Fiverr gigs are all erotic fiction writing. I thought when I started out that this was fine. I did some research and saw that there were many others offering this service on Fiverr, many of them Level 2 sellers with hundreds of completed erotic fiction gigs. The search term, “erotica” returns almost 400 gigs, and there are additional suggested search terms that pop up suggesting, “nsfw”, “bdsm”, and “smut”. That made me assume it was okay. But maybe those sellers have just “gotten away with it” so far?

I have seen some people on the forum saying that this is NOT allowed and that my account could be suspended for this.

The only thing I could find in the Terms of Service is:

“Adult Services & Pornography - Fiverr does not allow any exchange of adult-oriented or pornographic materials and services.”

This seems like it could be broadly open to interpretation. I know any sort of visual adult material is completely against the TOS, but what about written stuff?

I have written a message to the Fiverr Customer Support team including a link to one of my open gigs, and who knows, maybe by this time tomorrow my account will be suspended? I HOPE not, but I thought it would be better to actually seek clarification from them, and make sure what I am doing doesn’t violate the terms of service, sooner rather than later. I think it would be a lot worse for me if I did this for months or years, building up a solid customer base and then got my account suspended. I want to do the right thing here, and I don’t like to break the rules.

I may have been really naive in assuming that just because so many others do what I’m doing that it’s okay.

Any thoughts?

2 Likes
#2

No, It will not be okay!
I don’t think so that you should do it

#3

Okay. Why do you think that there are so many other sellers who offer this service, though? I am waiting for clarification from Customer Support. Obviously, if they tell me this isn’t allowed, I won’t, but it seems like a really common service that many other sellers provide.

#4

I contacted CS when I found two (very explicit) buyer’s requests a week or so ago, mostly to check in as the ToS does say writing erotica (or anything NSFW really) is forbidden.
Lo and behold CS said that the BRs were allowed which makes me assume that erotica is fine as well.
(The issue here is that fiverr has sellers and buyers age 13 and up so without all of the gigs / BRs that request such services being monitored it can be pretty dangerous to younger people.).
That being said I’d definitely double (and maybe triple) check with CA and screenshot whatever they tell you so you can use it as proof in case anything happens!

1 Like
#5

Thank you! That is really helpful. I will.

#6

Great! If you don’t mind, could you let me know what they say? I’m quite curious (and as a writer I recognise it as a pretty popular genre.)

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#7

Yes! I will certainly update everyone (provided that they don’t suspend my account because I’ve done a no-no and I can’t post anymore!)

#8

I just got an email back. She clarified that erotic writing is allowed, and I have absolutely nothing to worry about. (I have updated the original post with an excerpt of the CS email.)

Hurrah!

#9

I guess Fiverr should further clarify their ToS as to what does or doesn’t qualify as “adult-oriented.”

3 Likes
#10

Pretty much. Didn’t know anything broadly describable as NSFW like what OP specified could be allowed.

#11

It seems so far that:

Pictures = bad
Drawings = bad
Videos = bad
Writing = acceptable?

There’s still a multitude of gigs out there that sell nsfw drawings; wonder if that is also in the grey zone.

1 Like
#12

This is a while ago, but I was asked to translate a website which was NSFW.
I personally didn’t have any problems with it because it’s translation I’m offering but
I went ahead and checked with the CS just in case.
That particular CS staff told me that it is OK if I translate adult websites because again,
it’s the “translation” I am offering, I myself am not offering adult related services.
So I went ahead and worked on the gig.

As long as you check with the CS and save the reply as backup I am
assuming you will be OK.

#13

Yep, thanks! Checked with CS and they confirmed erotic writing is totally allowed.

1 Like
#14

That’s what I wanted to say, but I saw your update. You are allowed to write erotic content. What’s not allowed is explicit content, such as images or video that are 18+. Erotic writing is fine, there was another topic with the same question a while ago.

2 Likes