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A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

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Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#271

Post by throwaway306744 »

justinator wrote: post #192
surge wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same crap as the ad-pocalypse. Journalists with an agenda use a disingenuous tactic, if they have a problem with a person or entity, they'll call up their sponsors, business partners, vendors, etc, and say "we're writing an article on X's platform which has been found to have (controversial material framed in a negative context), are we to believe that you're supportive and would your company care to comment…

That’s quite the axe to grind against journalists. Especially since their job is to ask questions. To think they’re a part of this mass conspiracy to take powerful entities down is laughable. My partner, a journalist, has gotten death threats just by being at peaceful protests against certain groups that have wealth and pull in the community - just because members of that org were certain the journalist was the main…

> My partner, a journalist, has gotten death threats

Sorry that happened to your partner.

I am surprised that death threats are still around. Is it not actually a crime or is anonymity so good that law enforcement can't trace them or do the recipients or police just not bother following up?

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#272

Post by twic »

afavour wrote: post #236
squeaky-clean wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with the article overall, but it is very sensationalized. Statements like this > It is monetizing video compilations with titles like “Screaming Teen,” “Degraded Teen” and “Extreme Choking.” Look at a choking video and it may suggest also searching for “She Can’t Breathe.” imply Pornhub is going out of it's way to specifically monetize rape or child videos, when the truth is they monetize every singl…

This all seems extremely hand-wavey to me. > the bit about related suggestions sort of implies to a non-techie that Pornhub employees are generating these suggestions They are, in a sense. They're not actively doing it in person but the code they wrote is generating those suggestions. Changing the code is within their power, yet they don't. If the code processing payments accidentally started charging everyone $0 you…

> Why not fix the code that suggests rape videos?

Deciding what is and isn't rape is an AI-hard problem.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#273

Post by twic »

crazygringo wrote: post #126
fouric wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "it's what happened here" and "But this particular one, because of the seriousness of the allegation combined with its plausibility, did in a big way" - but you haven't actually provided any evidence for it, just repeated assertions that it's true. Can you show anything aside from just speculation?

It's literally been all over the news, with journalists and analysts directly linking the column with the changes at both PornHub in December and at MasterCard in April -- and these are the people who follow this professionally. You can Google it yourself trivially, you don't need to ask someone on HN to get it. But if you somehow don't trust that and you're asking for someone to report on the confidential goings-on…

> It's literally been all over the news, with journalists and analysts directly linking the column with the changes at both PornHub in December and at MasterCard in April

This is not evidence of a link. What they have said might contain evidence of a link, in which case i'd be interested to hear it. But the job of talking heads on the news is to construct compelling narratives from facts they have to hand, regardless of whether those narratives are true, so the fact that they were talking about this is just noise.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#274

Post by hulitu »

daptaq wrote: post #256
vbezhenar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A generic argument: prostitution allows woman without any skills to earn plenty of money which might convince women do go this way even if they don't really enjoy it. The same argument could be made about IT. Prostitutes sell their private parts, programmers sell their brains.

One aspect I find frightening about interpreting prositution as a "real job" is that women could be denied unemployment benifits if they reject a job that would involve them selling their body and their consent. > The same argument could be made about IT. Prostitutes sell their private parts, programmers sell their brains. I don't think this works, because a brain is a "tool" used to "produce" a service, while a pros…

As an enginer you are sometimes reduced below human dignity.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#275

Post by brodouevencode »

zozbot234 wrote: post #36

The concern that various kinds of legal sex work might be a de-facto haven for human trafficking is at least many decades old, does not solely or even mainly originate from people identifying as Christians, and seems to have a pretty solid factual basis - at the very least, there is a consensus on the broad argument if not the details. The Twitter thread does not even attempt to fairly acknowledge these facts. Very s…

The author lost me when they started the Christian bashing. The author lumped all Christians in with the organization cited in the original NYT article, which is just as prejudice as those for which they're claiming to defend (prostitutes).

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#276

Post by bko »

colpabar wrote: post #266
bko wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised the post didn't mention Operation Choke Point, an Obama era regulation that put more restrictions on payment processing for certain categories. I think it's easy to point to "religious groups" and op-eds and not to the overall regulatory push into more aspects of the economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

from the same article > On August 17, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice, under the Trump Administration, announced that the Obama Administration's Operation Choke Point would officially end, stating that it was hurting legitimate businesses instead of preventing fraud as intended. maybe Biden has done something?

Or how NY Times framed it:

> Banks Tried to Curb Gun Sales. Now Republicans Are Trying to Stop Them. [0]

Corporations like predictability. When you see regulations going back and forth with administration to administration, companies just pick the worst case scenario and go by that. That's why you didn't see any cars lower fuel mileage just because limitations were lifted during the last administration. I imagine MC and Visa are definitely anticipating more restrictions and don't want to be caught flat footed.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/us/politics/banks-gun-sal...

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#277

Post by brodouevencode »

rattray wrote: post #20

I hadn't been aware of the onlyfans change: https://www.xbiz.com/news/261183/onlyfans-releases-official-... Sounds like they're still allowing nudity but disallowing "sexually explicit conduct" and will clarify what they mean by that soon...

Probably falls under "I know it when I see it" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#278

Post by _bfhp »

Vaslo wrote: post #147

It was informative and then it started stuff like this: > Almost the entire anti-trafficking movement is an Evangelical project to get liberal supporters to sign off on a laundry list of Christian anti-sex policies. It’s been one of their most successful propaganda projects. It’s also likely gotten a lot of sex workers killed. I'm libertarian, do what you want with your body or money but know the risks. That said, so…

It's also source-free. Love the flourish at the end with the typical third-wave male feminist line of "this has [probably] gotten sex workers killed" when what really kills sex workers is violent men and poverty/drugs.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#279

Post by afavour »

twic wrote: post #272
afavour wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all seems extremely hand-wavey to me. > the bit about related suggestions sort of implies to a non-techie that Pornhub employees are generating these suggestions They are, in a sense. They're not actively doing it in person but the code they wrote is generating those suggestions. Changing the code is within their power, yet they don't. If the code processing payments accidentally started charging everyone $0 you…

> Why not fix the code that suggests rape videos? Deciding what is and isn't rape is an AI-hard problem.

So it being difficult is enough to absolve the company of responsibility?

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#280

Post by profgerm »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #245
ehsankia wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tweet that comes right after is much more relevant imo: > One of the primary sources in Kristof’s article is Traffickinghub founder Laila Mickelwait. She also works for the group Exodus Cry, a Christian group that is among other things anti-sex, anti-homosexuality and, naturally, anti-semitic. While the article itself was a spark, this group has been lobbying for years and pushing from every imaginable direction,…

Are they anti-semitic, or is it just ad hominem?

I'm not terribly familiar with the group, but that whole list appears to be ad-hominems demanding absolute purity. Or at the very least should be taken with a large grain of salt.

I suspect the "anti-Semitic" bit comes from the founder comparing abortion to the Holocaust [0], which is... a deeply stretched interpretation.

As far as anti-LGBT goes... yeah, they're a conservative Christian organization, they're not likely to have a Pride float. But it's not a common "anti-" group that goes out of their way to have a Statement of Inclusion [1] included in their FAQs, in my opinion.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_Cry

[1]: https://exoduscry.com/downloads/Statement-of-Inclusion.pdf

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