creatureofgrimm:I don’t think people understand

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/3073STE

creatureofgrimm:

I don’t think people understand that the NSFW ban on tumblr was due to SESTA/FOSTA and if you want your tiddies back on tumblr or whatever you have to start caring about sex workers and the legislation that effects them

Comments

[krait]

I am not a lawyer, but somehow I doubt that SESTA/FOSTA contain anything about "female-presenting nipples"...

[dragonlady7]

No but there was a lot of extremely harsh and also extremely nebulous language that meant that any website that allowed sex workers to use it to get/perform business would be held liable, so Tumblr had to do something, and being themselves, of course they chose to do something absolutely nonsensical-- but it wasn't something they would have done spontaneously and it wasn't something they did just to be boneheads. Of course they did it as ineffectually and nonsensically as possible, but they did it because of SESTA/FOSTA, there is absolutely zero doubt about this. And yet, it's much funnier to just dunk on them without paying the slightest attention to context.

[krait]

Half of the outrage and the "dunking" was definitely about how Tumblr carried out its crusade, not the cause. Banning Female Presenting Nipples, doubling down on their insulting terminology after being called on it, unfairly targeting LGBT content for removal, expecting users to train their algorithm for free, refusing to make the judging process transparent... those angered and upset a lot of people who otherwise would have been okay with tighter content restrictions as a general concept. If they had wanted to comply with local laws, protect minors, and/or support sex workers, they could have said as much instead of mocking trans people and deleting LGBT blogs.

But, yes, absolutely, the language of the bill was nebulous and had serious ramifications for sex workers. My main quibble is that I feel phrasing it as an issue of "caring about sex workers" misses the main focus. As I understand it, most (or many) voluntary sex workers oppose SESTA/FOSTA, but it wasn't aimed at them; it was aimed at human trafficking, and a number of agencies concerned with trafficking supported it. Lawmakers didn't care that voluntary sex workers were also affected.

Which is not ideal, no, but I don't see that 'caring about sex workers' would have made a huge difference in a law like that; it was voted in with an overwhelming majority in both houses. While I'm certainly not convinced FOSTA/SESTA was the right way to go about what they were trying to do, I can definitely see that "if you care about sex workers you'll oppose a bill reducing human trafficking" is a hard line to sell.

For me, I could agree with: if we want T&A back on Tumblr, we need to care about human trafficking. Because do I want voluntary sex workers to have safe working conditions? Yes. But do I want that more than I want there not to be involuntary sex workers? Nope. And as much as I think SESTA/FOSTA is flawed, it's hard to argue with the NCMEP seeing a 800% rise in child trafficking over five years strongly tied to online classified ads, or in the Childsafe report noting a decrease in trafficked children and trafficking profit after the largest ad site was shut down.

Sites should absolutely be responsible for concealing or abetting users in breaking the law. But drawings of kissing ninjas and photos of sand dunes are not illegal, and Tumblr never gave an impression of seriously trying to follow the law, prevent trafficking, or protect exploited persons. Bad enforcement isn't the same as a bad law. (Though, again, I do think it's flawed and dangerously vague/broad!) SESTA/FOSTA told them they had to fight trafficking, but Tumblr wasn't willing to address the problem in any serious (read: costly) way, so instead they blocked a few tags and set up an unmanned censorship algorithm. That isn't a useful reflection on the needs of sex workers, the protection of trafficking victims, or the effectiveness of SESTA/FOSTA; if anything, it could argue for more stringent laws, to prevent boneheaded faux-compliance like Tumblr's.

[krait]

...Okay, did not mean for that to get so long! Sorry.

TL;DR version = "yall gotta start carin about sex workers" is just as context-free and mocking as "haha Tumblr blockin ur tiddies," because it is a deep issue and there's a lot to unpack on every level.

[dragonlady7]

Yeah but it's the only post I'd seen mentioning it at all. Nobody else seems to remember the slightest bit *why* Tumblr did that, and it is extremely important to remember why it happened.
You're the first person I've seen who had even the slightest positive opinion of the bill, though, so that's interesting. I've mostly only seen examples of how devastating it's been across the board to all kinds of sex workers, and how it's actually made it much more difficult to aid trafficking victims at all.

[krait]

I thought there was a big initial round of SESTA discussion, back when all the sites from Craigslist to furry personals (fursonals?) were shutting down their Personal Ads sections? Though it was probably buried under the succeeding waves of "wait where's the porn going" and "algorithm, wut?" that came afterward. I know I remember reading about specific personals sites that sex workers used because of certain safety-enhancing features; from descriptions of Backpage, that may have been the site they were talking about.

I'm less positive about the law than invested in its purported cause, really. People reducing a discussion of modern slavery versus content-host liability to "porn versus sex workers, pick one" are not doing any of these causes any favours.

I'm not at all convinced SESTA/FOSTA made a significant impact in human trafficking nationally, nor even that it wasn't worded over-broadly on purpose with the aim of driving greater restrictions into the gap down the road. (Such as media piracy.) There's a pretty extensive body of precedents by now for what Section 230 does not cover; it seems most judges are pretty good at interpreting it, but if we needed to add a definition of 'participation', create an incentive for sites to monitor and report federally criminal content, or clarify what constitutes 'publishing,' that could have been done with a much neater and narrower law than S/F.

On the other hand, it's hard to read about the Backpage victims, or the convicted users, and not feel that the site perhaps had some responsibility not to let its users prostitute 14-year-olds beyond reminding them that their ad couldn't use the word "teen." (Yes, they also claim to have turned over user information to law enforcement; I don't know how frequently that occurred, or how many convictions it led to.)

>This article has some very interesting discussion of the fallout, too; it notes the shift in trafficking from a centralised single website to scattered smaller sites in the wake of Backpage's destruction. And while it ultimately doesn't conclude that S/F was useful, there are some thought-provoking quotes in there: “We’re seeing a greater number of victims saying they have been abandoned by their trafficker and traffickers saying, ‘I’m getting out of the game, I’m going back to selling drugs,” struck me, along with While many sex classified websites, mostly run by small-time operators, have tried to fill the gap left by Backpage’s demise, they each only draw about 5-8 percent of the unique visitors Backpage was earning at its height in 2016. (Both of these resonated with me in part because of the uncanny parallels to fandom: I have certainly seen fandoms splinter and disperse to smaller, harder-to-find platforms after the Tumblr debacle; and I have also seen a lot of "fandom feels smaller, where is everyone?" sentiments, as well.)

In the end, it was a badly written law with unfortunate consequences, but I still feel it should be discussed accurately. I highly doubt most Tumblr users voted for SESTA/FOSTA; Tumblr support for sex workers really isn't the issue. It affected sex workers, but wasn't about (voluntary) sex work; it passed both Houses with landslide bipartisan support (388-25 and 98-2!) despite strong grassroots opposition; and perhaps most important of all, several plaintiffs contested the law for the second time as of February of this year, and if people want to see a change in their Tumblr content, they should be aware, spread the word, get involved. Maybe more people would support getting a bad law repealed than will reblog guilt-trippy soundbites about how they don't love sex workers enough. Considering how much opposition I saw back when the law was still under consideration, a large part of Tumblr did their best to shoot it down, but they aren't legislators and don't deserve to be blamed that it passed.

[krait]

Arrgh, TL;DR again! I should stop posting after midnight.

TL;DR version: SESTA/FOSTA wasn't helpful, but telling Tumblrites their porn went away because they don't love sex workers enough doesn't seem to give an accurate or useful overview to anyone who is interested in changing it.

[dragonlady7]

I reblogged the post because it felt appropriate to remind Tumblr in general that the porn went away for a reason. Sorry it seemed so chiding to you, but I'd seen about a hundred "LOL Verizon lost a billion dollars for banning tiddies!" and nobody even seems to remember that YAHOO bought Tumblr in the first place, and then Verizon bought Yahoo.
it's a little terrifying to realize how few current events actually make it into anyone's recollection.

[krait]

Oh, yeah, no, I didn't mean to seem chiding, either! Just thinking on the 'it's the only post I've seen' thing. I know Tumblr often chooses soundbites over solid discussion, but I have definitely seen people balk before over that sort of thing ('quirky' posts that phrase an issue as the fault of people who should nonetheless reblog it) in other contexts, and I'm sympathetic.

And yeah, it's totally terrifying how things get swallowed up! There was a LOT of discussion buzzing around the place about SESTA/FOSTA, sex worker safety, and the sale of Tumblr, back when those things were happening, but because Tumblr is pants at making anything on its site searchable or permalinkable, three weeks later it's gone forever. (Which is the sort of site architecture that feels downright malevolent rather than incompetent, in situations like this.)

I remember some speculation that part of the content ban motive was partly influenced by Tumblr's removal from ApplePay, too, which does kinda make sense when you consider what content Tumblr made moves to remove. Apple is notoriously in favour of censorship and tight content restriction for any service that wants to work with ApplePay or be featured in the App store... but of course, try finding any of that discussion, either. :/

(Steve Jobs, in reference to topless photos of women in a newspaper: "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone ... Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone.")

Apparently he also felt a moral responsibility to suppress political criticism, censor products that mention Android phones, and enable China's human rights violations.