August 21, 2022
THIS WEEK IN HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS
Research finds that ICTs make sex work safer, but legislation & online harassment hinders improvements
Sources: The Conversation, Vice, The Independent, Buzzfeed News, ResearchGate, Hypebae, The Guardian, Axios
In the past decade, research has indicated that information and communication technologies (ICTs) have helped increase safety for sex workers. However, online harassment, legislation and even private company policies can quickly counteract the impact of these improvements in safety.
ICTs have allowed sex workers to increase their safety through methods such as screening clients online before meeting in-person. Workers have also established online communities where they can distribute ‘bad date’ lists amongst themselves (previous customers who were abusive or untrustworthy).
Research notes that the internet has helped sex workers increase their profits through increased marketing tools. It provides more direct control over their business without having to rely on third parties. This, in turn, minimises harm from in-person street based sex work, where the risk of ‘arrest, violence from bystanders or targeted hostility from perpetrators’ is much higher, accordng to the research from 2018.
Despite the affordances of being safer, harassment has followed sex workers online. Stalking, abusive language, and death threats are a huge issue plaguing sex work both on and offline. Sex workers have to be extra careful about location metadata in online content to protect their safety and identity.
Legislation can also hinder any improvements in safety. In the United States, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) was passed in 2018, with the intent of curbing human trafficking. Despite the good intention, the design of the bill has had direct, harmful impacts on sex workers as it holds online platforms responsible for user content.
VICE reported that the harmful consequences has even increased cases of human trafficking due to ‘increased vulnerabilties of sex workers’ and new difficulties for the police to track traffickers.
In the UK, a proposed online safety bill announced in July 2022 is set to mirror the harmful impacts of FOSTA in the US. The bill is poised to similarly inhibit sex workers’ ability to work online.
Lydia, a worker based in the UK, told Hypebae: ‘I’m terrified. We have to understand this bill in the context of a sustained, brutal attack on sex workers’ rights over several years. Me and most of my friends are burnt out and exhausted: we have been fighting proposals, inquiries, bills and amendments, with no breaks.’
Even the private sector can quickly impact the safety of sex workers online. OnlyFans, a content sharing site popular among many online workers, tried to scrub explicit content in 2021 but then quickly reversed course.
However, sex workers on the platform told BuzzFeed that the site only highlights content from yoga teachers or singers and that they are wary they will eventually be kicked off, despite helping the company pull in $1.2 billion in revenue in 2021.