We've all got a favourite online service or platform that started off great until one day it went downhill. It’s so often the case that the Silicon Valley tech bro who took a huge venture capital investment now has to take orders from a Wall Street jerk whose only focus is a return on their investment. Maybe it's not a financial thing, but a legal situation due to a backwards government trying to "pRotEcT cHILdreN", not caring about the collateral damage caused by their brain-dead decisions.
The best way to insure yourself against the moronic decisions of others is to take matters in your own hands and run the damn website yourself. That was the original premise of the internet and it's still good advice today. By doing more ourselves instead of relying on a platform with different aims and goals than us, we have more control over our own destiny.
DIY Your WWW
A website can be the core of your online life, a permanent home on the internet that you own, where even the slimiest landlord can't kick you out or jack up the rent. There are websites on the internet over 30 years old still operating like the day they were launched. The world wide web is a fundamental part of the internet and even though social media and big tech likes to pretend it doesn't exist so you stay in their walled gardens, the good ol' WWW isn't going anywhere and is incredibly flexible with the type of content you can put up there.
On your website you can put up any images or videos you like without being censored. You can write any text you want without it being modified to suit the sensibilities of a culture you aren't part of or care about. You're in control of what changes impact you, not a business that decides it wants to focus on a different market or sector and stop supporting features you relied on or simply cut you off entirely without explanation.
All-in-One Website Builders & Hosts
Wordpress.com, Wix and Squarespace are popular website builders and hosts that don't require much technical knowledge beyond being familiar with a word processor, so naturally they're the first choice for many people looking to get started with running their own website. For a single monthly fee they do everything for you, all you do is pick a theme, slap in some words, upload some pics and you're set.
While it is your website and you can control most of what happens there, you're still under someone's thumb. When laws like SESTA/FOSTA roll around, these companies simply drop sex workers or any other "controversial" content, taking with it the website you worked so hard to build. For this reason it's not recommended to waste time building your website using someone else's platform and instead, go directly to building your own platform by self-hosting a website.
Self-Host Your Website For Ultimate Control
By skipping the gatekeepers like Wix or Squarespace and renting your own web server, you have the flexibility to put whatever you like on your website. The downside is that you need some technical knowledge, or to pay someone with technical knowledge to do it for you. You've probably seen many sex workers with websites, so it's not like it's impossible!
In a nutshell, you pay a domain registrar a few bucks a year for a domain name (e.g: mycoolsite.com or awesomewebsite.net or anything that isn't already taken) that tells the rest of the internet where your website is. You then pay a web hosting company a fee per month to borrow one of their computers in a datacentre that's connected to the internet. You then whip up some code (aka HTML & CSS), or run a software package like Wordpress with a suitable theme and plugins. Now you've got a website all of your own!
This is the kind of thing you pay Squarespace or Wix to handle for you, but by doing it yourself you aren't at the mercy of their business decisions. Doing so comes at a higher expense, be it the cost of paying a web designer to assist or the time and effort to learn and build your own website, but like the saying goes, freedom isn't free.
Self-Hosted Website Price Guide
While Squarespace or Wix charge a flat A$25-$60/m for an all-in-one service, self-hosting means paying for each thing separately. The prices listed here are simply a guide so you don't get ripped off by someone trying to take advantage of the fact you're in the adult industry.
Domain name: a .com domain name can be had for as low as A$10-$15 per year. Some of the more esoteric domain names like .xxx, .porn or .sex can be in the A$100-$150 per year range.
Web hosting: Basic web hosting starts at around A$10/m and can scale up to hundreds of dollars a month depending on how popular your website is. For the vast majority of sex workers, a website on a basic web hosting plan to support Wordpress or similar should be well under A$25/m and handle thousands of visitors a month and tens of thousands of images.
Web design: Depending on your level of technical knowledge you may want to outsource everything, which could be a flat rate or an hourly fee for the initial setup, then an ongoing fee for maintenance. If you're a bit computer savvy, you might simply purchase a suitable Wordpress theme in the hundreds of dollars range as a one-off and customise it for your needs.
Tips For Selecting a Safe Web Host
Self-hosting sounds great if you're comfortable with the extra responsibility, but you still need to worry about the web hosting company you rent a server from. They are also businesses and while less touchy than platforms like Wix or Squarespace, they are still bound by laws and are operated by humans, who have various biases and prejudices. This makes it important to do a bit of research about who you're entrusting your online life to.
- Where is the business and/or server located? Avoid countries where sex work is criminalised. Many web hosts operating servers in the US may have their business located somewhere else.
- What's in their terms of service? The web host might explicitly ban adult content or allow adult content but not full-service sex work realted content.
- Choose a service that specifically advertises themselves as being for adult content. Keep in mind many of these may still prohibit full-service sex workers even if they are okay with adult content in general.
Regardless which web host you select, back up your data regularly and have a plan on what to do if you are banned. There are no guarantees that companies who seem sensible now won’t change their policies later. Even if you follow all these steps, you could still be refused service. It's one of the reasons we don't recommend any particular services - things can easily change. And it’s why it’s so important to regularly back up your data!
Got a tech question for Ada? She wants to hear from you!
Ada answers all your questions about tech, the online world, and staying safe in it. No question is too silly, no hypothetical is too far-fetched! Learn to leverage devices, systems, and platforms to your benefit.
){kind=link}
