In the past few weeks, Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and other famous journalists have been involved in publishing Twitter file. With Elon Muskpermission, the reporters dug through the social media company’s internal records, exposing the censorship of New York Post Office reporter Emma Jo Morris’ reports Hunter Biden, Stanford professor of medicine, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, beliefs about COVID-19and other findings, sharing them via long tweets and Substack posts.
These revelations are especially frightening to me and my fellow porn stars and prostitutes because we know firsthand how tech giants censor our freedom of speech like how, often for reasons that are not clear. For years, we’ve faced platform after platform censorship, only to have critics yell at us that “social media isn’t a public place” and “you should” build your own adult platform.” When we succeeded—on adult sites like Only fans, for example—we had to deal with conservative groups trying to destroy those platforms. We are one of the most censored groups and depend on the spirit of free speech to survive; After all, free speech protects those you disagree with and/or dislike, and many people disagree with and dislike porn stars (even though they may masturbate with their content). I).
We’re the perfect team for File Twitter to analyze, but so far, File hasn’t revealed how the company handles prostitutes, although there are plenty of ways for these reporters to investigate. For one, Taibbi and Weiss were able to prove that Twitter committed a crime.”ban ball,” which prevents certain accounts and tweets from appearing in user feeds and searches. Other sex workers and I have complained about the shadow ban for years, just because liberals and conservatives alike consider us conspiracy theorists. I have been struggling to find the accounts of my sex workers. I’ve seen search results hiding my own account. Even if Musk buys Twitter, my account won’t appear in the search box for users who don’t follow me yet. By examining Twitter’s internal communications, reporters were able to determine how and why the company appears to be restricting legitimate adult stars.
For years, many porn stars felt that Twitter treated us like criminals—despite the fact that the law protected our professions—so these reporters were also able to examine how Twitter classifies porn stars. prostitution. Are we considered criminals? Are we grouped into a monolithic body? Do they treat some porn stars differently from others? Why do some porn stars have their platforms removed even though they don’t violate company policy? Twitter has given very little clarity on how it shapes its policy towards porn stars, and the public deserves to know how the company came to its conclusions.
“Free speech protects those you disagree with and/or dislike, and many people disagree with and dislike porn stars (although they may masturbate to our content).“
More than anything, I wanted to know if Twitter colluded with conservative groups to decide how to censor porn stars. So far, Twitter files has been revealed that the Biden administration lobbied Twitter to ban anti-vaxxer accounts. (I don’t agree with the anti-vaxxers, but it’s still worrisome that the government has directed a corporation over who to censor.) With such levels of surveillance and outside influence, Twitter has received information from one of the many conservative “anti-sex trafficking” groups. Over the past decade, Protestant groups such as Exodus Cry has combined sex trafficking with legal pornography as part of an effort to ban all pornography. Exodus Cry went so far as to launch the hashtag #TraffickingHub, confusing the public and leading to MasterCard stops processing payments on PornHub—a direct threat to my industry.
Much of the conversation about porn when it comes to sex trafficking originates on Twitter. We welcome a freedom of speech fighter to rush to our defense, but it’s not even clear that Musk’s Twitter rebuke won’t continue to censor porn stars. Since taking over the platform, Musk has been shouting about the importance of free speech, only to de-platform an account that tweeted about his plane. Most troubling for my industry, Musk posted fiery conversations with Eliza Bleu, a self-proclaimed survivor of human trafficking who sometimes lumps the porn industry with human trafficking. In one tweetshe highlights how convicted sex trafficker Ruben Andre Garcia calls the “porn industry a ‘evil business'” and she alludes to the conspiracy theory that porn is part of the sex trade. sell sex.
Bleu’s views are troubling enough, but they’re even scarier as Musk loves her account. The CEO remains vague about his internal policies; it seems that he usually makes his decisions through public polls on Twitter, and there is a chance he could get access to Twitter Files from reporters immediately. Because of its unpredictability, Musk’s newfound admiration for Bleu is unnerving and points to the problem the Twitter File has exposed: The social media giants decide what we can see. without much supervision.
It’s more important than ever to know how and why Twitter treats prostitutes the way they do. We need journalists with access to these records to cover it now before it’s too late.
