The Vagina Museum has accused Twitter of censoring its attempts to raise money the charity needs to stay open.
It criticised the social media platform after Twitter attached sensitivity warnings to messages about the museum’s work.
It comes in the same week that the museum warned it will have to close in June unless it receives a “substantial cash injection” to help secure a new base in east London.
The Vagina Museum has been without a permanent home since January.
The charity has launched an appeal to try to raise just over £40,000 in the next few weeks. This morning, after a flurry of donations, it was about £15,000 short of its target.
But the museum tweeted yesterday: “We’re hearing from some of you that Twitter [is] sticking sensitive content warnings when you share our fundraising page.
“This is completely unacceptable – there is nothing dirty or shameful about vaginas.”
Tagging tweets as sensitive content means they are placed behind a warning before they can be read.
The charity added: “Twitter has (historically, at least) been pretty good on allowing discussion of vaginas and vulvas, but it looks like they’ve changed their mind on being a space for these crucial conversations.
“We’re very disappointed indeed that they’re censoring our fundraising campaign.”
Twitter’s policies state that, while it will mark content as ‘sensitive’ if it has concerns that a message is graphic or sexual, exceptions should be made for “artistic, medical, health or educational content”.
A museum spokesperson told Third Sector: “Social media censorship by automated algorithms has been a constant struggle since the Vagina Museum project first started.”
They said the museum had not been able to raise the issue with anyone working at Twitter or any of the other social media platforms where automated systems censor or remove their content.
They said: “Moderation is almost entirely done by what is essentially a robot. However, it’s a very human problem – humans made these algorithms and it is humans who think that these basic, neutral words are shameful, dirty and inherently sexual.”
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.