Developers making mods and plugins for hentai games and sex toys say Github recently unleashed a wave of suspensions and bans against their repositories, and the platform hasn\u2019t explained why.Developers I spoke to said the community estimated around 80 to 90 repositories containing the work of 40 to 50 people went down recently, with many becoming inaccessible around late November and early December. Many of the affected accounts are part of the modding community for games made by the now-defunct Japanese video game studio Illusion, which made popular games with varying degrees of erotic content. One of the accounts Github banned contained the work of more than 30 contributors in more than 40 repositories, according to members of the modding community that I spoke to. Github didn\u2019t tell most suspended users what terms they broke to earn a suspension or ban, and developers told me they have no idea why their accounts went down without notice. They said they thought they were within Github\u2019s acceptable use guidelines; even though they make mods for hentai games and things like interactive vibrator plugins, they took care to not host anything explicit directly in their repositories.\ud83d\udca1Do you have something to share about what’s going on at Github? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at sam.404. Otherwise, send me an email at sam@404media.co.\u201cAmongst my repositories there were no explicitly sexual names or images anywhere in the code or the readme, the most suggestive naming would be on the level of referencing the dick as \u2018the men thing\u2019 or referencing the sex as \u2018huffing puffing,\u2019\u201d one developer, Danil Zverev, told me. He makes plugins for an Illusion game called Koikatsu. Zverev said he\u2019s been using Github for this purpose since 2024, but on November 18, his Github page was \u201ccompletely deleted,\u201d he said. \u201cNo notifications anywhere, simply a 404 error when accessing the page and inability to log in on the web or in the mobile app. Also it does not allow me to register a new account with the same name or email.\u201d\u00a0Github updated its acceptable use policies in October 2025 to forbid \u201csexually themed or suggestive content that serves little or no purpose other than to solicit an erotic or shocking response, particularly where that content is amplified by its placement in profiles or other social contexts.\u201d This include pornographic content and \u201cgraphic depictions of sexual acts including photographs, video, animation, drawings, computer-generated images, or text-based content,\u201d according to the terms.\u201cWe recognize that not all nudity or content related to sexuality is obscene. We may allow visual and\/or textual depictions in artistic, educational, historical or journalistic contexts, or as it relates to victim advocacy,\u201d Github’s terms of use state. \u201cIn some cases a disclaimer can help communicate the context of the project. However, please understand that we may choose to limit the content by giving users the option to opt in before viewing.\u201dThe Anti-Porn Crusade That Censored Steam and Itch.io Started 30 Years AgoKeywords and tags have never been a useful metric for distilling nuance. Pushing for regulations based on them is repeating a 30-year history of porn panic online.404 MediaSamantha ColeZverev said he didn\u2019t write to support because he sees \u201csuch effort as fruitless and would rather move on to a different platform instead.\u201d But even Github users who did try to get help from the platform\u2019s support hit dead ends.A developer who goes by VerDevin, who makes Blender modding guides, utility tools and plugins for a game called Custom Order Maid 3D2, told me in an email that users of his mods started reporting difficulty accessing his repositories starting in late October. At that point, he could still access their account while logged in, but not when logged out.\u00a0\u201cTurned out, as you already know, that my account was \u2018signaled\u2019 and I had to purposefully go to the report section of Github to learn about it. I never received any notifications, by mail or otherwise,\u201d VerDevin told me. \u201cAt that point I sent a ticket asking politely for clarifications and the proceedings for reinstatement.\u201dGithub Trust & Safety replied with a generic message: \u201cIf you agree to abide by our Terms of Service going forward, please reply to this email and provide us more information on how you hope to use GitHub in the future. At that time we will continue our review of your request for reinstatement.\u201d\u00a0VerDevin said they replied the following day, agreeing to the terms and promising to remove whatever Github deemed inappropriate\u2014information the platform still hadn\u2019t given them. \u201cI did not take actual steps toward it as at that point I still didn’t know what was reproach of me,\u201d they said.A month passed before Github replied. \u201cYour account was actioned due to violation of the following prohibition found in our Acceptable Use Policies: Specifically, the content or activity that was reported included multiple sexually explicit content in repositories, which we found to be in violation of our Acceptable Use Policies,\u201d Github wrote to VerDevin.\u201cAt that point I took down several repositories that might qualify as an attempt to show good faith (like a plugin named COM3D2.Interlewd),\u201d they said. Github restored his account on December 17\u2014several weeks later, the day after I sent them a link to his account asking why it was banned\u2014but they still haven\u2019t heard anything about what specific content caused it to be \u201cactioned.\u201d\u00a0Github did not respond to my multiple requests for comment about why these accounts were banned. I sent Github\u2019s press team links to several banned accounts, and they reinstated a few, but didn\u2019t provide a reason or reply when I asked what caused the bans in the first place.<\/p>\n
The situation is illustrative of a longstanding problem on almost every platform: the terms of use, especially when it comes to adult content, are applied confusingly and sporadically. The affected repositories represent tools used by potentially hundreds of thousands of gamers; the English Koikatsu modding Discord community alone has more than 350,000 members. A developer who goes by Sauceke, who Github suspended in mid-November without explanation, said their open-source adult toy mod users are now encountering broken links or simply can\u2019t find any of their work.\u201cPerhaps most frustratingly, all of the tickets, pull requests, past release builds and changelogs are gone, because those things are not part of Git (the version control system),\u201d Sauceke told me. \u201cSo even if someone had the foresight to make mirrors before the ban (as I did), those mirrors would only keep up with the code changes, not these \u2018extra\u2019 things that are pretty much vital to our work.\u201d\u00a0Github reinstated Sauceke\u2019s account on Tuesday, following another request for comment from me asking why anyone was banned\u2014seven weeks after initially suspending them. Github support sent them a message: \u201cThank you for the information you have provided. Sorry for the time taken to get back to you. We really do appreciate your patience. Sometimes our abuse detecting systems highlight accounts that need to be manually reviewed. We’ve cleared the restrictions from your account, so you have full access to GitHub again.\u201dBut even as Github reinstates accounts, pieces of users\u2019 repos are missing. In Sauceke\u2019s account and others, including in the IllusionMods repo, all releases are hidden. \u201cThis makes the releases both inaccessible to users and impossible to migrate to other sites without some tedious work,\u201d Sauceke said.Github is the biggest open-source platform for developers, and especially for adult content creators who are often censored or marginalized elsewhere, discoverability on that platform is important. \u201cIt’s the best place to build a community, to find like-minded people who dig your stuff and want to collaborate,\u201d Sauceke said. If the banning spree goes beyond hentai game and toy modders, they said, it might push developers to explore other platforms. Some have already migrated their repos to GitGoon, an open-source platform specifically for adult developers, or Codeberg,\u00a0 Berlin-based nonprofit-run site similar to Github.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"