Automating whorephobia: sex, technology and the violence of deplatforming

Abstract

Increasingly, academic researchers are documenting the real-world impacts of deplatforming sex. For sex workers, deplatforming is a result of a range of factors, including automated content moderation practices, lack of transparency, and insufficient oversight. But at its core, the deplatforming of sex workers can be attributed to a structural and pervasive whore stigma at the heart of tech design, law, and policy. Despite the proactive role of sexual commerce in building the capacity and infrastructure of the internet, whore stigma is now coded into algorithms, community standards, and terms of service. In consequence, these operate to gentrify and sanitize online space, excluding sexual expression, communication, and representation, at the same time as extracting maximum value by monetizing the data and content of sex worker users. Indeed, as Gabriella Garcia has argued, ‘to Big Tech, the sex worker is as indispensable as they are disposable’. Sex workers – treated on the one hand as a source of profit and data, and on the other as collateral damage in an online gentrification project – face isolation, barriers to access and the closure of vital spaces for peer education, safety information, and community support. The devastating impacts of deplatforming upon sex workers ought to implore technologists, lawmakers, and policy-makers to re-think how safety, risk, and sex are conceptualized in regulating online space. In the midst of heated public policy debate, Hacking//Hustling – a New York-based sex worker collective – has emerged as a unique actor, placing sex workers at the forefront of conversations on tech regulation. An autonomous, peer-led, community-run collective with on-the-ground, embodied knowledge of the social impacts of poor policy design, Hacking//Hustling brings together community, researchers, and industry to change the conversation. Since their inception in 2018, they have run events, produced resources, lobbied politicians, distributed funds, mobilized sex workers, and infiltrated a range of institutional, industry, academic, and political spaces to centre sex worker lenses on technology. In this interview with Hacking//Hustling co-founder Danielle Blunt, we argue that internet studies scholars engaged in the field of platform governance ought to actively listen to the voices and experiences of sex workers. We outline some of the cornerstones of genuine and meaningful engagement, including hiring and paying sex workers as research partners, and illustrate how current debates on internet regulation miss opportunities to learn from the security and safety concerns of sex workers. Our conversation begins with a herstory of Hacking//Hustling, outlining their motivations and missions for ending state violence and surveillance. We then discuss their ethics, strategies, and activities, including distributing funds, producing community resources and intervening in academic institutions. We showcase some of their community research on the impacts of deplatforming and raise foundational problems with current law reform efforts. Finally, we argue for integrating sex on social media platforms and make provocations for holding Big Tech accountable for whorephobia.