Deplatforming does not make sex work safer, new research finds

We don’t need a formal study to know that taking away sex workers’ ability to communicate online makes their lives worse. Sex workers have been saying that for a decade, ever since the federal government started taking down websites where they advertised (RIP MyRedBook, Rentboy, The Review Board, Backpage, etc.). But here’s a (different) study that says exactly that.

For the study, published in the journal Social sciencesIn , researcher Melissa Ditmore and her team conducted a national survey of 440 sex workers, asking them how they used online platforms, how their use of these platforms affected their working conditions, and how laws like the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) — which led to platforms removing and restricting sex worker accounts — affected their work lives. Survey respondents included people who had done webcam work, phone sex work, strip club work, pornography, independent escorting, street sex work, brothel work, massage parlor work, BDSM/fetish work, agency work, and other types of sex work.

Ditmore’s team found, unsurprisingly, that “platform policies and practices often limit sex workers’ access to these platforms, which in turn limits their ability to earn income and compromises their ability to live and work safely.”

78 percent of sex workers have been removed from the platform

The researchers first sought to understand which online platforms sex workers use. Payment processing platforms (65.7 percent), cam/phone sex/sexting/video calling platforms (60 percent), chat and communication platforms (56.6 percent), and social media (55.2 percent) were the most common, while advertising platforms were cited as the most useful.

Ditmore and team then asked about deplatforming, and found that 78.2 percent of the sex workers they surveyed had lost access to a platform (and sometimes more than one). This most commonly happened with social media (32 percent), dating or hookup apps (24.4 percent), payment processors (22.1 percent), and advertising platforms (19.2 percent).

The loss of access to online platforms had a strong negative impact on those who were removed from the platform.

“Of the 344 respondents who reported being deplatformed, 88.4% reported that their income had decreased as a result,” the study found. A significant portion reported that their income had never been restored. Many platforms (such as payment processors) kept the money they had stored there. “Nearly 60% of sex workers in our study were unable to recover their funds from these platforms. These findings align with those of The Free Speech Coalition, which found that 63% of sex workers in their sample lost access to financial services from a bank or other payment platform such as Venmo, PayPal, or CashApp,” the study found.

The researchers point out that platform policies do not only affect sex workers who engage in illegal activities such as prostitution. “Many sex workers affected by these measures are not engaged in criminal activities. To name a few, creating and sharing sexual content such as pornography online is legal for adults; communicating work schedules in legal sex work venues such as strip clubs is legal; and interpersonal communication of a sexual nature between consenting adults (e.g., sexting and chatting) is legal.”

The difficulties they experienced after deplatforming weren’t limited to loss of income. In Ditmore’s survey, 270 sex workers answered a question about how deplatforming had affected them. Nearly two-thirds (64.1 percent) said it had led to a loss of clients, and more than a third said it had made them feel anxious about doing things online. Around a quarter (23.3 percent) said it had made them feel less safe, and around a fifth (19.6 percent) said it had made them reluctant to talk online.

For some the consequences were even more dramatic:

• Approximately 14 percent (respectively) reported that this made their housing situation unstable, they had difficulty finding alternative employment, and they lost access to colleagues who could help them check client references (an important tool for screening potential clients and avoiding clients with a history of violence or exploitation).
• Ten percent said deplatforming led to more interactions with law enforcement, and 11.5 percent said it led to more interactions with social services.
• About 9 percent indicated that deplatforming led to more interactions with brothel owners/agencies/managers/pimps.
• About 8 percent said they faced “exploitative working conditions” after deplatforming, and 6.7 percent said they faced “abusive working conditions.”

Pushing back against the pro-FOSTA narrative

These results contradict the narrative of proponents of FOSTA and similar laws, who argue that sex workers on platforms where sex work is advertised are more likely to be victims of exploitation and abuse.

It’s a classic case of false causality, where people gain more visibility to them for a general increased prevalence.

Before the Internet, it was rare for the average person to witness each evidence of sex work, let alone exploitation, abuse, and/or minors. But with sex workers migrating online to find clients, it was suddenly visible—to law enforcement, politicians, activists, and anyone else who cared to look for it—in a way it had never been before. Some concluded that the online platforms were therefore refuel exploitation and abuse.

But sex workers have long told a different story. They say that online advertising gives them more power, allowing them to find and communicate with clients directly rather than relying on intermediaries (thus reducing the likelihood of abusive “pimps” and “traffickers”) and better filter out bad clients.

And when abuse occurred, online ads and chats left a paper trail that could be used by law enforcement.

Building on a research body

“Given the challenges of sampling sex workers, we cannot confirm that these data are representative of all sex workers in the U.S.,” Ditmore and her team emphasize. But their findings are consistent with previous reporting and research on the topic.

Since the government cracked down on advertising platforms where sex workers advertised, both sex workers and law enforcement have spoken out about how it has negatively impacted their work. This has come in the form of many anecdotes, government reports, and research, often conducted by or in collaboration with sex workers.

Several studies on this effect have been led by the sex worker rights group Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics Rhode Island (COYOTE RI). “The loss of advertising and increased financial hardship following FOSTA forced many sex workers onto the streets,” according to a COYOTE RI report. The same report also found that 11 percent “of participants who had not previously engaged in street work turned to it following FOSTA,” and “those numbers were much higher for vulnerable populations—17 percent of trafficking survivors, 24 percent of those who entered the industry as minors, and 21 percent of people with disabilities turned to street work.”

The group’s research also found that FOSTA “increased sex trafficking and recruitment by pimps,” diminished their ability to screen clients, and “made working conditions more dangerous in other ways as well; largely because of increased financial hardship and difficulty finding reliable clients, 35% of participants had to reduce their rates (44% of trafficking survivors and 46% of people with disabilities) and 41% began
offering services they did not feel comfortable with (47% of victims of human trafficking and 52% of people with disabilities).”

Research has also found that the introduction of erotic service ads on Craigslist was associated with a decrease in murder and rape among women in the cities where the ads were introduced.

Follow-up

Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey was sentenced last week to five years in federal prison and a $3 million fine. Lacey was ordered to report to federal marshals within two weeks.

A five-year sentence is better than it might have been: prosecutors were asking for a 20-year sentence. But it’s still a hefty sentence for a 76-year-old man convicted of a single victimless financial crime, and one that makes little sense. After a jury trial, Lacey was convicted of international money laundering cover-up, but not of any underlying illegal conduct.

“After an 11-week trial in 2023, a jury convicted Lacey of 84 counts involving conspiracy, money laundering and violations of the U.S. Travel Act, a federal law that makes it illegal to use a means of interstate commerce to facilitate a business engaged in violating state laws against prostitution,” Stephen Lemons noted. “After the trial, Humetewa acquitted Lacey of 50 of those 84 counts, leaving 34 outstanding. Prosecutors said they will await the outcome of the appeals process before retrying Lacey on the remaining charges.”

More sex and technology news

• “The Third Circuit’s decision in Anderson v. TikTok under Section 230 is nonsense,” writes Corbin K. Barthold.

• The Democratic National Convention “showed us how Democrats continue to fail Stormy Daniels and sex workers,” writes Ro White. “The Democrats’ transgressions paint a grim picture for sex workers under any administration, whether led by Harris” or Trump, he suggests.

• A federal judge has temporarily barred New York from cracking down on crisis pregnancy centers that promote abortion reversal. “The First Amendment protects plaintiffs’ right to speak freely about the protocol (abortion pill reversal) and, more specifically, to say that it is safe and effective for a pregnant woman to use in consultation with her physician,” the judge’s decision said.

• Democrats want the Federal Electoral Commission to censor Grok.

• “Did the U.S. government outsmart an international drug trafficking ring by creating a Trojan horse phone company to spy on them? Or did the government cross a line and encourage criminal behavior itself?” asks Courthouse News Service.

• Tech platforms want to impose age verification requirements on app stores; app stores want to impose age verification requirements on tech platforms.

• A federal judge has partially blocked Texas from enforcing its Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act, which was set to go into effect on September 1. “The ruling did not find that all of HB 18 threatened First Amendment-protected speech, and some of its provisions — such as the data collection rules and age verification requirements for sites with large amounts of adult content — remain in place,” it notes The EdgeBut the judge “was highly critical of the oversight and filtering rules” that require certain major platforms to prevent minors from being exposed to “harmful material.”

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