Answered Question (Patreon)

So, this question was asked a bit ago and got lost in my instagram inbox somewhere! 

So, here is the basic idea of the question: What are your rights to privacy with email in light of the new FOSTA/SESTA bills that have recently passed? What are some of the ramifications for sex workers?

In terms of our "rights to privacy," I'm not sure we have any at this point. Well, we have some semblance of a right to privacy, but even prior to the SESTA and FOSTA bills, our actual hold on privacy was tenuous at best if not just a facade.  After The Patriot Act, our privacy was not really a thing anyway. There have been happenings in recent history that demonstrate truly how little privacy you actually have. Your facebook is not private - so anything you say/write/look at there is tracked. You'll often notice, even if you aren't using facebook but have the messenger app downloaded on your phone, that certain ad placement will seem to have been done tracking the things you've even said. Email has never been as private as it seems.

I think recently, a huge issue that people have become aware of is Google invading user's privacy by deleting information or content that they have deemed "unacceptable." I know models (especially those that do more explicit content) who have had videos and photos simply deleted from their gmail drive. There are people who have had their whole email deleted entirely. Microsoft has stated that obscene content is not allowed - the obscenity referred to is almost ALWAYS associated with nudity. Though on Skype you can no longer curse either. They track certain things using bots online, so certain words or phrases are more likely to tip them off.

One of the biggest issues is that the bills hold all websites liable with fines and jail time for the content users post on those sites if it can be demonstrated they could have known what users were posting. This was going to go one of two ways - either the websites would increase moderation and start mass-deleting content or the websites would cease moderating altogether to try to escape the consequences by claiming they didn't know (this one would be very difficult to prove). Clearly we are seeing which way this has gone.

They stated the bill was being passed to curb sex trafficking, and sex trafficking, so far, seems to amount to anything of a sexual nature and is very poorly defined. What this means is that pornography is being affected. Dating sites are being affected. Anything sexual online can be affected. What is additionally troubling is that sites used by prostitutes to check references and screen clients have been deleted. Blacklists have been deleted. The sites where sex workers would go to try and work in the safest way possible are being deleted altogether making their jobs incredibly dangerous. Craigslist personal ads for example helped the overall homicide rate for women go down (that's how many sex workers were being killed prior to it being an option). There are certainly issues with the sites. But, overall, they made FSSWs (full service sex worker) much safer than they'd ever been before. It even helped those engaged in sex work without their consent safer as they weren't on the street where they can be easily targeted. In the wake of this legislation, sex workers - especially survival and FSSW - are dying more often once again.

One of my main issues with this legislation is that it attacks the wrong things and does absolutely nothing at all for sex trafficking victims. Before, law enforcement used to be able to track victims using the sites that no longer exist. The Justice Department advised against the legislation as it's counterproductive. 

There is a huge demand for sex work. And so there is a supply. This is basically how it works. You cannot cut off the supply and expect the demand to stop. And you can't expect the demand to even modify itself in a way. In anything like this, it's best to curb the demand altogether and then it will follow that the supply would limit itself naturally. If they want fewer sex workers, fewer sex trafficking victims, less pornography, etc, they could simply work in a way to decrease the demand for all of those things. But, as usual when it comes to sex work, they've chosen to demonize people engaged in normal activities and slapped the rightly horrifying issue of trafficking victims onto it to make everyone knee-jerk agree with it. It's dishonest and gross. And then they have used this to curtail our right to privacy even further while also limiting our first amendment right to free speech. 

And if you have additional comments, feel free to add them below!