2020 Wrap-up and future improvements

Before we dive into what we've been up to over the last 12 months and address some of the rumours and concerns circulating on social media, we'd like to take a moment to give you some background on how Tryst.link came to be.

Assembly Four launched Tryst back in 2018 to financially support our free, sex worker-friendly social platform, Switter.at, which was built in response to the systemic erasure of sex workers from social media platforms and major advertising platforms prior to the introduction of the FOSTA/SESTA package. Switter ensured the community had a place to connect with peers, allies and clients - however that doesn't pay the bills.

We wanted to ensure that however we financially supported Switter, we stayed true to our values and supported the community we serve - this included ensuring that external advertisers, investors and third parties couldn't potentially influence important decisions such as pricing or who is allowed to advertise with us.

And that's why, after many arguments about the name, we created Tryst.

What we got up to in 2020

Throughout 2020 we expanded the team while ensuring we maintained our commitment to a flexible working environment. Unlike many of our competitors, we made the decision to hire ethically and locally, and provide opportunities to those in under-employed communities, prioritising sex workers, lgbtqia+ and the disability community. You can find out more about how we hire in our affirmative action policy. We believe this is vital to ensuring that Assembly Four is building products that support and reflect our diverse community.

In the last year, we focused on:

• Expanding the development, product and support teams so we can continue to support the growth of the platform while maintaining a good experience for the existing user base.
• Improving our processes and tooling to make it easier for our growing support team to individually review and approve profiles and photos in a timely matter.
• Overhauling the browsing interface to enable us to improve SEO as well as pave the way for plenty of upcoming features and improvements.
• Creating a new category to help discover existing providers who have turned to online work during the pandemic.
• Supporting sex worker, harm reduction, and educational organisations through donations and our BLM and SW Covid Relief donation matching program.
• Building out the community blog and resources to help draw focus to issues workers are facing globally and how non-sex workers can help.

Web traffic stats update

Since we last shared some stats in November 2018, our traffic numbers have "fuckin' gone off chops, aye!" (Australian for "increased a lot!"). The numbers below compare the 4 week period in November 2018 to a 4 week period in January 2021.

• Thumbnail impressions have increased from 849,288 to 281,661,634, a 33,000% rise.
• Page views have increased from 160,181 to 69,045,637, a 43,000% rise. (nice!)
• 5,714,885 impressions on Google, up from 234,790, up by 2,400%.

In the last 4 weeks, there's been:

• 20,077 messages sent using the Tryst Message System.
• 1,812 new profiles created.
• 22,420 photos processed by the support team, averaging 800 a day!

Since we launched Tryst, there's have been 327,529 photos uploaded to 51,700 profiles, over half of which were rejected during the assessment process.

2021 onwards

We would like to acknowledge that as a platform, we are in a position of power which has historically been abused by other platforms. From Assembly Four's inception, we have always been willing to engage with the wider community and peer organisations to design and improve our features and processes. The community includes a diverse range of experiences and backgrounds that result in different needs and requirements.

So while we try to build our products in direct consultation with providers and peer organisations from these different marginalised groups, it does mean that occasionally someone's voice or opinion is missed.

We as an organisation are always keen to engage with constructive criticism and feedback. The most effective way to get in touch with us is through our support team.

Clarification around the proposed reputation system

The reputation system is something that is not even on the drawing board yet and is still just an idea being fleshed out in consultation with members of the community.

This idea has been on hold since the start of the pandemic as we had to shift our focus elsewhere. We have only completed the initial round of community consultation and our priorities have changed.

The hesitation and concern that some members of the community have expressed towards this proposed system is valid and while we're still very much in the early planning stages, we are certain of the following things:

• It will be opt in, rather than opt out. Providers will be able to choose whether or not to use the reputation system.
• There will be no ability for clients to enter free text.
• There will be mechanisms in place to ensure providers are given adequate control and protection over their profile.
• We will be evaluating a number of different verification methods to ensure client accounts will not be used by others.
• This system will be for both provider and clients, which will help assist both parties in creating and finding better matches.

We are hoping that by creating a thoughtful, opt-in reputation system we are able to find a middle ground for people who rely on this type of feature to find work and those who are able to work without it.

The actions we're taking

In response to the concerns raised on Twitter, we will be taking the following actions:

• We have updated our photo guidelines and platform policies to specifically include clauses against weapons and illicit substances in photos.
• We will be assessing older profiles that do not meet, our current policies and requirements. These profiles will not be re-approved unless they come into compliance.
• If you see a profile that you believe breaks our terms or policies, please let us know.
• We will be re-assessing and updating our support processes to ensure we have clearer guidelines that ensure greater consistency across the platform. This will include the content of all emails you will receive regarding the state of your profile.
• We are inviting all Tryst users to join our Community Consultation Group. If you would like to be apart of this  process please let us know with the subject "Community Consultation Group".
• We will be clarifying how the search and placement algorithm works and why we didn't adopt a paid boost model.

We will also not tolerate abuse to workers on our platform. As stated in our Code of Conduct, harassment directed at members of the community will not be tolerated and will result in a permanent suspension from all Assembly Four products, including future platforms.

We will be continuing to consult with the community on this feature set and other feature sets going forward. If you have any concerns or feedback, please feel free to reach out to us at any time.

Signing off

We're sincerely sorry for the anxiety we caused, it honestly wasn't our intention to cause stress and upset in the community.

We're grateful to be able to have open and honest conversations with our members. We're going to focus on building some awesome improvements at Tryst in 2021 and we're stoked to share this journey with you.