Who's The Real Enemy?

Author’s note: This was originally published on my, now-defunct, Substack page after being commissioned by an editor for a major publication, who then ghosted me. At the time, I just didn’t want to see my work die on the vine. In the time since, a (former) Substack executive openly mocked sex workers asking for a revision of the terms of service, the co-founder referred to the platform as “just like OnlyFans,” the platform was used to generate revenue for a right-wing…influencer targeting childrens’ hospitals and libraries, the CEO refused to answer a question regarding their moderation policies for hate speech, and The Atlantic (attempted to) explore just how big the white supremacy problem is on Substack. While my Substack was always free to access, and I only published 2 pieces in total, I am forced to acknowledge that I was contributing to the problem by allowing my intellectual output to live on a platform that profited from the hate and bigotry I have tried so hard to call out in my professional career. To that end, I have deleted my Substack in its entirety, and Tryst has been gracious enough to allow those two pieces to live on their blog. Below is an updated version of the original article.

More than five years later, it’s difficult to see the vision legislators had in mind when they dreamt up SESTA/FOSTA – unless the vision was a digital hellscape of censorship and hand wringing with devastating “irl” consequences. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (a Senate Bill) and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (a House Bill) were sold to voters as groundbreaking acts of legislation that would all but eradicate the presence of sex trafficking, both online and on the street. Celebrities, from Amy Schumer to Seth Meyers to Tony Shaloub chimed in on PSAs designed to sway the youth with claims that “buying a child is easier than buying a pizza.” Lobbyists took to social media with their government funded campaigns backed by misrepresented statistics on child trafficking. One part creative display, two parts moral panic, a dash of evangelical rebranding, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a new generation’s firestorm of “Protect the Children!”

More than five years later, it’s difficult to see the vision legislators had in mind when they dreamt up SESTA/FOSTA – unless the vision was a digital hellscape of censorship and hand wringing with devastating “irl” consequences.

As legislators debate investigating the well-documented impact of SESTA/FOSTA, virtual clones like EARN-IT and SISEA play round robin throughout both the House and the Senate. Even now, as HR2601 makes its way through committee, sex workers and trafficking survivor advocacy organisations are forced to band together in a rare show of solidarity to prevent law enforcement from being given unfettered access to the digital trail of trafficking victims asking for help. This political stalemate is just part of the nerve-wracking game that sex workers, or really any sex or sexuality inclined content creators, are forced to play as social media and tech giants scramble to anticipate their future liability.

And it appears that’s exactly how so-called anti-trafficking organisations want the digital playing field to stay. With the backing of both taxpayer dollars and legislative policy – directed largely by those government-funded lobbying efforts – these groups have launched a multi-pronged offensive they’ve taken to the courtroom. Unfortunately for NCOSE, and fortunately for those of us who appreciate Section 230, the case was dismissed, and then dismissed again on appeal. Directly citing SESTA/FOSTA in their filing, NCOSE accused Twitter of knowingly and wilfully participating in the spread of child sexual exploitation materials (CSEM). NCOSE claimed that because Twitter’s automated reporting process did not immediately flag and remove reported CSEM, the tech firm must be complicit in the exploitation of children.

With the backing of both taxpayer dollars and legislative policy – directed largely by those government-funded lobbying efforts – these groups have launched a multi-pronged offensive they’ve taken to the courtroom.

This argument strains credulity for most, but there’s something to be said for the vocal minority. With just enough people, making just enough noise, a few well-positioned organisations have leveraged an imperfect technology, intended to ease the path through an online world, into an algorithmic nightmare for anyone with dark enough skin or big enough thighs. And now it seems Twitter has begun quietly purging and suppressing sex workers and their content from its platform. If you’ve been on the internet long enough, you might remember the first shots fired when Yahoo bought Tumblr in 2013. Then CEO Marissa Meyer swore she wouldn’t “screw it up,” but rapid-fire implementation of algorithm-enforced content moderation policies put paid to those words within a year. Even then, Yahoo couldn’t make Tumblr an attractive prospect for monetization when all payment processors could see was errant nipples and something called a knot. Site users argued that Tumblr was the only (relatively) safe place for a virtual bazaar of content related to sex and sexuality, but to no avail. Within months of SESTA/FOSTA’s passage, Apple had banned the app from its store and Tumblr TOS was updated to ban all painstakingly defined “adult content,” including the now-infamous “female presenting nipple.”

I’m not foolish enough to claim that the internet, specifically Twitter and TikTok, is the sole reserve of children or Gen Z and Millennials, which have apparently all become synonyms. But there is truth to the idea of the internet being younger than ever because the world, our extremely online world, is younger than ever. And because of ever restrictive content moderation policies, increasing attacks on Section 230 protections for sites, and the undue influence payment processors wield over both, the information provided to younger users is more one-sided than ever. Maybe more disturbing is the apparent weight and authority afforded to any claim levied on social media and rewarded with virality. Tiktok, an app already plagued by complaints regarding the content it promotes and suppresses, is overrun by videos claiming every Target and Walmart parking lot is a potential hot bed of human trafficking. Other videos have users terrified of drinking in bars for fear of being roofied, despite alcohol being the most dangerous “date rape drug.” This content is spread and consumed uncritically, not necessarily for malicious intent, but because a culture of information overload and a notion that you have to post about something to care have created an environment rife with misinformation.

This content is spread and consumed uncritically, not necessarily for malicious intent, but because a culture of information overload and a notion that you have to post about something to care have created an environment rife with misinformation.

“Well good,” you’re thinking. “Children don’t need to see porn online.” A perfectly crafted false dichotomy. Any attempt to contextualise the issue puts you in the unenviable position of having to prove that while you don’t think children should be watching porn, comprehensive sex ed is desperately needed for all ages. More than that, adolescents and young adults need safe opportunities to explore sexual expression amongst their peers as part of healthy development. Comprehensive sex ed is linked to lower rates of  teenage pregnancy, child abuse, and STI transmission but adopting common sense policy that gives children the tools to name harm done to them has become a partisan issue. The statement, “I don’t think children should be kept in a state of ignorant repression regarding their own bodies,” has apparently become the equivalent of declaring your support for global paedophile amnesty.

And so we come to the crux of the issue. The combination of government mandated (and evangelical defined) morality, and a bombardment of messaging carefully crafted to make any dissent seem irrefutably evil has created a hyper-charged landscape of politically motivated prudery. At the same time, young adults, forced to contend with unprecedented sociopolitical upheaval, are desperate to find names, thus cures, for social norms it has deemed deviant, even criminal. Puritan ideals regarding promiscuity, modest dress, and proper wifely behaviour are ubiquitous. Watching pornography has become a tacit admission to a fetish for the degradation and humiliation of women, despite being more popular with women than ever. And anyone advocating for the decriminalization of sex work must be a pimp.

...a bombardment of messaging carefully crafted to make any dissent seem irrefutably evil has created a hyper-charged landscape of politically motivated prudery.

And because so much of this ideological war takes place on social media – land of the hot take and home of where nuance went to die – these ideas reach a rapt audience without the information necessary to challenge it. When social media is incentivized to keep (and sometimes promote) misinformation that drives outrage clicks and the elusive yet desirable “engagement,” while systematically silencing, or outright eliminating, the content that seeks to correct it, the echo chamber forms. The same echo chamber that produces legislation defining the acknowledgement of the LGBT+ community’s existence as child abuse.
The easy answer, to roll one’s eyes and demand, “everyone log off,” seems obvious, but in a world more permanently online, it’s difficult if not impossible. Beyond the demands of even minor participation in daily life, online is shaping real life. The same misinformation that so many of us write off as minor annoyances has real, tangible effects on those outside of our localised circles. Besides that, there’s nothing better to do now that we’re chronically at home and realising how much work it is pretending to work.

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