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Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

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Re: Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

#161

Similar to the recent actions by Twitter, Google, Apple and Amazon; Visa and Mastercard are private companies and can do whatever they want. Anyone who has an issue with what Visa/MC did must also take issue with the others.

Visa and Mastercard should not do whatever they want, because they are just middlemen in transactions and all their decisions affect their paying customers, much more than themselves. Visa/MC take the money of their customers, who use their cards, by promising to help them pay for anything they want. Visa/MC do not have any right to decide unilaterally what their customers might want to buy (as long as no illegal goo…

I'm only saying that what Visa/MC did is the same as what Twitter/Google/Apple/Amazon did. They all took private action against what they deemed as illegal acts without involving the state or any law enforcement.

I would much rather leave such things to the proper authorities instead of massive corporations that control so much without any accountability or transparency.

Re: Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ACH takes longer than 24 hours, so there's no goal post moving there. As I indicated below, I think it is pretty hard to get paid via Amex if Visa/MC have blocked you (3rd party payment processors such as paypal will likely block you too). I would agree about the "forward to the government" part if that was part of normal business to find the illegal actions. I read the Visa/MC - Pornhub thing as more as a case of of…

They wouldn't be complicit. The legal structure allows companies to operate with protection from their users engaging in illegal activities until it's explicitly proven or otherwise ordered by the state. The "we think it's clear" is the dangerous part, especially when applied outside of a few easy targets discussed here. MC/Visa have numerous examples of shutting down completely legitimate businesses, and so do Googl…

I don't care (much) about apps. Part of that is because I'm old, part of it is because I don't use a cell phone, part of it is because I do most of what people do on their cell phones from ... uhm ... more traditional computing devices.

If I did care, then perhaps I'd see Google/Apple store bans etc. as more equivalent to Visa/MC payment processing bans.

As it stands, I don't.

Re: Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same way you ensure any other person isn’t being exploited. Society provides resources allowing the person to have the opportunity to not be leveraged into exploitation as their only option.

Yeah, not so much. North American developed countries aren't shining examples of labor protection champions. I'd refer to parts of Europe [1] and New Zealand [2] on how to protect sex workers in a more substantial way. [1] https://www.nswp.org/sites/nswp.org/files/Declaration_bookle... [2] https://www.nzpc.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Model

As a NZer this is something I feel like we got very right. It has always just felt like an incredibly sensible and mature approach. It's a lot safer for everyone and it's not a big deal. The sky didn't fall down and the country didn't go astray. It all just got safer for everyone and things continued as normal.

Re: Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

#164
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're saying that if you go to them with a court order, they don't comply with it? No, I'm saying it's hard for sex abuse victims to get their videos off Pornhub. > How are they supposed to know it's the same video? If they can't even prevent re-uploads of known illegal videos, maybe they should never have allowed user uploads at all.

> No, I'm saying it's hard for sex abuse victims to get their videos off Pornhub. If they go to the police, who have the ability to get a court order, and they don't, isn't your issue with the police? > If they can't even prevent re-uploads of known illegal videos How do you propose that they know that it's the same video? Trivial checks like whether it's byte for byte identical are just as trivially bypassed by the…

> How do you propose that they know that it's the same video?

I'm not making money from user uploaded videos of young girls, so I don't need to have an answer to that question.

> This isn't a job for the platform. It's a job for the police.

No, it's not. It's the platforms job to ensure they don't distribute unlawful content. You don't want the police involved, since all they can really do is seize the domain and block the website altogether. (And that's exactly what they do for file sharing websites)

Re: Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks during the enlightenment were mostly illiterate peasants. Try keeping your sex life a secret when you, your brother, your wives, your parents and 6 kids/orphans all share 1 hut with a single room. Back in Rome, life was again one room, all share 1 bed etc for most people. Add to that a few examples from their public activity: The poisoner Locusta (the world's first serial killer supposedly) was executed by bein…

Most families had someone who could read during the enlightenment. It is a simple and useful skill. They probably were not as good as modern people, but the evidence is reading was not as uncommon as we think. Christans have always had the idea of sexual privacy, something they inherited from the Jews. We have plenty of writing from early Christians that make it clear that they objected to how open the Romans were. T…

"Christans have always had the idea of sexual privacy, something they inherited from the Jews. We have plenty of writing from early Christians that make it clear that they objected to how open the Romans were."

I would like to add more to this. With the fall of Roman Empire, the early Dark and Middle Ages changed perspectives on nudity because of paganism. Most ruins and statues were seen as symbols of idolatry. This view slowly changed with the Renaissance period, as the Catholic Church embraced perspective that man is the image of God. Many famous sculptures and paintings were made in this period.

These artistic works then became censored because of the Council of Trent. The Catholic Church had to implement changes because of Protestant Reformation. This is why many classical works of art have fig leaves. Michelangelo had to come back to his Sistine Chapel painting to censor it, for example.

Re: Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

#166
post #73

How do you ensure that the person performing sex work is being compensated for sex work, versus some form of exploitation (whether that's the platform or an individual exploiting)? A sex worker union [1] who can negotiate with distribution companies and platforms, lobby legislators and payment facilitators (who should not be prohibiting payments for legal business transactions), and ensure quality working conditions…

This is an important question in terms of all work. But even without being able to answer it, restricting sex workers' choices via deplatforming and criminalisation invariably makes them less safe, so I'd argue that we should stop doing that anyway . Letting them actually report exploitation to the police would be a start (and no, swedish model bullshit doesn't achieve that, if you criminalise any part of the transac…

Completely agree with both you and gp.

IMHO, the "right" way to fix these issues is to make sure people have a choice.

Many girls get into sex work because it's either sex or starve. We need to (as a society), give these people a third alternative. Ideally, this would result in only people who WANT to be sex workers to go down that path (pretty much like only people who WANT to be CEOs are CEOs).

Re: Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

#167
post #57

sex work should be legalized and regulated, just like marijuana. sex work and porn has been a reality since the beginning of time, and making it "illegal" and letting it fester in dark corners is unhealthy. without proper education, acceptance, and oversight, it encourages predatory behavior and other mental health issues like porn addiction. you don't have to think "porn is good" or "prostitution is good" to acknowl…

> you don't have to think "porn is good" or "prostitution is good" to acknowledge that it is something that a large % of men consume and protect workers and consumers.

Exactly. Law making isn't about philosophical discussions of good vs evil. It should be about "what's the best way to improve life for people in the real world".

Re: Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

#168
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but that ceases to work once that entity is too large. I personally think the limit is around 50 or so, but I don't see the need for union in a 50-head company. I've literally never seen a functioning union anywhere I went (I live in Europe). Everyone I met in my life, in a bar, etc is angry at their unions.

> I personally think the limit is around 50 Incidentally, I personally think the limit for communist societies is around 50 people or so.

Agreed! My experience from (adult) summer camps etc is that after 50 or so it becomes impossible to know what's everyone up to, and distrust starts rooting.

Another issue is that people have unrealistic idea about what can and should be done in a day/week/month. They don't care about their own work nearly that much, and will forgive themselves a lot, but will expect others to upheld that unrealistic standard.

Re: Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would really be ideal if some of these sex workers could get their own platform. Then they'll go after the platform infrastructure (AWS), or any other fundamental aspect. Peer pressure. We've been warning for ages: the Cancel Everyone game the NYT and others with very loud voices are playing is a dangerous one.

OnlyFans seems to be having no issues. I do find it funny how "this site is filled with a lot of rape and child porn" is being framed as "it's being cancelled for no reason." No, there is a reason and other sites with better policies aren't being targeted.

Not only "It's filled with rape and child porn" but "It's filled with rape and child porn and revenge porn that pornhub tacitly tolerates by ignoring removal requests"

Re: Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk

#170
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the NY Times article, what you suggest is exactly what people have tried to do. However, according to the article, it was really hard to get Pornhub to remove illegal videos. And since videos could be downloaded and uploaded by anyone, removed videos quickly showed up on the website again and again. Sex abuse victims have been fighting for years to keep their videos off Pornhub, yet they show up again an…

> However, according to the article, it was really hard to get Pornhub to remove illegal videos. You're saying that if you go to them with a court order, they don't comply with it? So then have the court find them in contempt. This requires no involvement from Visa or Mastercard. > And since videos could be downloaded and uploaded by anyone, removed videos quickly showed up on the website again and again. How are the…

If it takes a court order to get pornhub to remove content they have failed.
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