SEX WORK ONLINE

Only in the Shadows

Sex work is work…unless it’s happening online?

Remy Hellstern

September 21, 2022

Many of us heard about the rise of platforms like OnlyFans, among others in the early days of 2020. Alongside the global health pandemic, Covid-19 had massive impacts on the economy with the International Monetary Fund estimating the median global GDP fell by 3.9% from 2019-2020. Individuals found themselves without a job or precariously employed and turned to sites like OnlyFans as a way to make money from home. OnlyFans saw their user base grow from 2 million in 2016 to 20 million during the pandemic.

Working online offers a safer alternative to engaging in sex work outdoors. According to a systemic review of individuals engaging in sex work in San Francisco, 82% of adults experienced physical assault and 68% had been raped while working. When sex workers are client-seeking outdoors and in-person, the screening process of potential clients is more rushed and leaves them more vulnerable to violence.

Engaging in this work from behind a screen offers a level of safety and separation between the creator and the client. Simultaneously online platforms can act as a medium for younger sex workers and adult entertainers to connect and learn from more veteran individuals. Often, this takes place on platforms outside of OnlyFans, like TikTok and Instagram. However, these companies, like Meta (owner of Instagram), have recently come under fire for shadowbanning sex workers and adult entertainers on their platforms.

The Economist defines shadowbanning as the ability to reduce the ways users gain attention online without blocking the individual’s ability to post or use the network. These users are not told that they have been banned and can continue to receive new messages and followers. However, their username may become unsearchable or their replies and messages may become suppressed. Often, individuals have only discovered this happened because there is a dip in engagement with their content or they are informed of their disappearance on the platform.

Many sex workers have claimed that they have been shadowbanned by online platforms like Meta and argue that this has impacted their livelihood. This has real-world consequences as individuals can go from making $40-$60 USD per day to about $1 a day after getting shadowbanned. Sex workers and adult entertainers rely on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok to direct customers to their adult entertainment platforms like OnlyFans. However, many of these online platforms claim that there is no evidence of shadowbanning on their respective sites.

Recently, this tension between online platforms and adult entertainers has come to a head with three individuals suing Meta for taking bribes from OnlyFans to blacklist their content. The three plaintiffs argue that OnlyFans colluded with Meta to orchestrate a scheme to blacklist creators associated with OnlyFans competitors, like Fancentro. Subsequently, Fancentro also filed a lawsuit against OnlyFans and its owner. The plaintiffs claim that Meta tagged or assigned unique digital fingerprints to their images and shared these with an industry-wide database entitled, “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations”. This database is intended to flag and remove content produced by dangerous individuals or groups, including terrorist organizations, as a means to reduce the amount of violent content found on these platforms.  However, the plaintiffs argue that their content was flagged under the same system despite having no connections to terrorist or violent organizations. As a result of this designation on these platforms, the plaintiffs are essentially shadowbanned from these websites. 

Shadowbanning is a policy failure that often recreates the same institutionalized violence that sex workers experience daily. Often, these policies are based on arbitrary decisions made by individual content moderators or algorithms based on gender, race, and class. There needs to be careful consideration about the policies being implemented to ensure correct judgments are being made. One way to ensure this is to adopt and implement evidence-based frameworks like Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence, Abuse, and Harassment (TFGBV). According to the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, TFGBV: “refers to a spectrum of activities and behaviours that involve technology as a central aspect of perpetuating violent, abuse, or harassement against (both cis and trans) women and girls. This term also captures those who hold intersecting marginalized identities such as 2SLGBTQQIA, Black, Indigenous, and racialized women, women with disabilities, and women who are socioeconomically disadvantaged.”

By implementing this policy framework, in conjunction with collaborations from the community groups like Assembly Four, Hacking // Hustling, Global Network of Sex Work Projects, and Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Taskforce, content moderation policies can provide more nuanced perspective that respects the intersecting identities of sex workers. As the platforms become a more present aspect of everyday life, these decisions impact the lives of people both on and offline. There needs to be engagement with the community of adult entertainers and sex workers to discuss informed policy options and guidelines that are established with the consultation of the community most impacted by the regulatory decision.

Remy Hellstern (she/her) holds a Master’s in Public Policy and Global Affairs from the University of British Columbia, where she focused her research on social change, digital human rights, and the development of equitable policy to support grassroots organizations. She simultaneously earned a graduate-level certification in Information Systems Management from the School of Information at UBC. Her research focuses on the role of emerging technologies in supporting grassroots movements and digital human rights.