FOSTA/SESTA, Sex Trafficking, Sex Work and Censorship
I wanted to discuss the passage of FOSTA/SESTA a little bit more. In part because of the flaws that keep them from doing what they allege they will do, but also because of all of the consequences (intended and otherwise) that we can expect.
First a few basics. FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act introduced by Ann Wagner, R) comes from the House of Representatives, SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act introduced by Rob Portman, R) comes from the Senate. Combined, they have a very noble and important stated purpose; protecting victims of sex trafficking from being sold online and to allow them legal recourse if a site is proven to have facilitated their trafficking.
Additionally, FOSTA updates the Mann Act to make illegal “using or operating “a means of interstate or foreign commerce with the intent to promote or facilitate the prostitution of another person.”
FOSTA/SESTA targets online platforms like Backpage with the assertion that it and similar sites allow sex trafficking to flourish. However, they make no distinction between sex work and sex trafficking. There are big and important differences and a failure to understand those differences puts lives of both at risk
Advocates for trafficking victims and survivors of sex trafficking have spoken out against FOSTA/SESTA because for all it’s stated purpose, it does little to actually combat sex trafficking. Simply shutting down online platforms does nothing to stop the demand for sex trafficking, nor does it stop traffickers from simply seeking other venues. The laws fail to understand how sex trafficking works and that failure harms everyone.
How Victims/Survivors of Sex Trafficking are hurt by FOSTA/SESTA:
As online platforms close (you can see a running list here that includes Microsoft , Craigslist, Google Play, Instagram, Gmail etc), those who traffick will seek other means to sell their victims, as stated above. These other means are very often harder to identify and track, hampering investigations and allowing sex trafficking to flourish in the shadows.
Sex workers rely on the same online platforms mentioned in FOSTA/SESTA not only to advertise their services , but to screen clients and to communicate lists of dangerous clients with other sex workers. This is VITAL to their livelihoods and safety. In the days since the law passed, I’ve watched my sex worker friends and loved ones scramble- they are wondering how they are going to make rent, how they are going to afford to eat, how they are going to avoid being the next dead sex worker that people will ignore because society views sex workers as disposable and morally repugnant.
Because of its far reach, it leads to internet censorship. If you are fond of #MeToo, if you’ve been pleased to see people being held accountable instead of warned about in whispers via private lists, if you enjoy the fact that public outing of sexual predators is happening en masse right now or if you have told your own story as a survivor (or hope to do so in the future), you should be outraged, because these are the very things that will be censored.
So to summarize: FOSTA/SESTA does NOT stop sex trafficking, nor does it protect victims in any meaningful way. It puts their lives at further risk by forcing trafficking further underground.
FOSTA/SESTA actively endangers consensual sex workers, who make up the vast majority of sex advertising on the sites it attacks. It puts THEIR lives at risk by taking away all of the safety nets they have, forcing their work underground.
It also hurts you by allowing for censorship of the most disenfranchised voices, including yours. And it chips away at basic internet information freedom, which is crucial in fighting rape culture and keeping information available .
Educate yourself as much as you can about FOSTA/SESTA and then share that knowledge with other people. You can listen to those most harmed by FOSTA/SESTA by following Twitter hashtags #LetUsSurvive and #SurvivorsAgainstSESTA, both of which feature sex trafficking survivors and sex workers currently dealing with the fallout.
Sex trafficking is a problem that needs to be addressed, but FOSTA/SESTA is not the way.
Apparently my blog has been marked as “explicit” (not sure where to see this status) so if I vanish come the 17th go ham on Tumblr. Just go absolutely buck wild. Destroy everything.
I’ll be back before new years with a strongly worded appeal.
Oh- Fox! this is ridiculous and makes no sense.
for those of you still wondering why many of us are Very Angry (because “Oath is doing the right thing-getting rid of porn- think of the children!”).
This. Is. Why.
Witch-hunts do not discern important context- they just slash and burn it all.
Verizon will keep coming at users with crappy tools and bad policy, until even totally ‘harmless’ blogs are shut down.
Edmonton Griesbach MP Kerry Diotte has threatened a young writer and former constituent with a defamation lawsuit for tweeting critical comments about his appearance in photos with Faith Goldy, an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Toronto who is widely viewed as a white nationalist.
The Nov. 5 letter from Arthur Hamilton, a prominent lawyer long associated with the Conservative Party of Canada, calls statements made on Twitter by Mr. Mohamed “inflammatory and untrue” and says “Mr. Diotte requires an immediate retraction of this tweet, and any similar statements which you have published or broadcast.”
“In the absence of your immediate action to remedy this circumstance, and effect a full retraction on or before 5:00 p.m. MST, Wednesday November 7, 2018, Mr. Diotte will initiate proceedings without notice to you.”
“Govern yourself accordingly,” the letter concluded.
Three other young people from Edmonton who retweeted or commented on Mr. Mohamed’s original tweet have reported receiving similar letters from Mr. Diotte’s legal counsel, Mr. Mohamed said.
Whilst attempting to look up something else entirely, I discovered this old LJ community that came about in the wake of the 2007 Strikethrough that many pro-ship journals have referenced in the past.
There’s just so much to cover here, and I post this so as people can see from the eye of those who lived through it the absolute foolishness we put up with and why we are so defensive against anything near this kind of purity crusade ever again.
And this here is a post, which covers the FanLib fiasco, but most interestingly in comments is the earliest ruminations over the creation of AO3 (in fact, one comment specifically states “I’m gonna go see if that archive still needs some help”) because no one believed the Six Apart staffer who said “oh no, we aren’t coming for you guys, I promise!”
A timeline of events/an open letter to Warriors of Innocence, which includes the following line that I’ll lift here for antis who won’t read the link before inevitably shitting over this post: “Let me make something clear, I don’t like child predation or pedophilia or child abuse or incest any better than most human beings. Hell, I won’t touch any story that doesn’t treat these themes seriously with a 10-foot pole, and the more “titillating” those stories are, the more likely I’m going to complain about them. Loudly. And in public. However, I can tell the difference between “real life” and fiction. The fiction tells you nothing at all about the person writing it. Just because they like writing about a subject you find distasteful, it doesn’t mean that they actually condone said actions in a real-life situation.”
If there are more links I’ve missed from this time, feel free to add in a future reblogs.
I cannot stress to young fandom how far reaching this was. You are lucky that AO3 and hell, even Tumblr exists the way it does.
I’ve tagged multiple people so as to get this out to the most possible folks and people can read this stuff for themselves. This wasn’t bullshit that pro-shippers have pulled out of our arses for the fun of it.
You would think I would have seen this in my activity page, but in fact, I spotted it first by obsessively stalking the fandom history tag. So predictable, self! So predictable!
Students at Ryerson University are holding an emergency protest TOMORROW (Oct. 2) at 4:30 PM outside the Ryerson Senate meeting, which will be held in ROOM 250 of the POD building, 350 O’Keefe Lane (accessible also through the Ryerson library building at 350 Victoria St.).
This meeting will be voting on a draft “free speech” policy as mandated by the Ford government. In reality, this policy has nothing to do with free speech, but instead limits the rights of students to engage in civil disobedience against far right agitators on campus, thus violating our own right to freedom of speech and assembly. The policy being voted on outlaws “obstructing” or “interfering” with any views expressed on campus, which leaves the door open to students being disciplined for protesting religious fundamentalists with displays of dead fetuses, or neo-Nazi supporters like Faith Goldy who was invited to speak at Ryerson just last year.
Doug Ford is using Ryerson University as a testing ground for his new anti-protest law, which will soon be introduced at all Ontario universities as mandated by the government. We unequivocally denounce this attack on the democratic rights of students, which hides behind the hypocritical banner of “free speech.” What happens at Ryerson will soon be repeated at other universities in Ontario. That is why this draft policy must be defeated at all costs. Ryerson students need your support tomorrow. JOIN THEM!
Rallies and meetings are being held across Ontario in opposition to Doug Ford’s new anti-protest law. The so-called “free speech on campus” policy will effectively ban student protests against racist and fascist speakers on campus. Students who refuse may face disciplinary action including expulsion. Universities unwilling to participate will have their funding stripped. This is an attack on freedom of speech, and must be resisted by all means necessary.
For more information on the anti-protest law, you can read our in-depth analysis of it here.
Public Meeting in Oshawa Tuesday, Nov. 6 Location TBD Contact: 289.356.4576
Meetings are also being planned for Waterloo. Be sure to follow marxist.ca or our Facebook page for updates. If you would like to organize a meeting in your town, please contact us at fightback@marxist.ca.
List of Supporters:
Socialist Fightback Students
Canadian Federation of Students – Ontario
CUPE Ontario
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Fightback
Centre for Women and Trans People
Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network
*Please contact us if your organization would like to be added to the list of supporters.
*If you would like to organize an event in your town, please contact us at fightback@marxist.ca
We the undersigned oppose Doug Ford’s Orwellian “free speech on campus” policy.
This policy is an attack on freedom of speech and aims to crack down on student protests.
This directive will strip funding from universities unwilling to police dissent.
It will remove funding and recognition from student unions who do not wish to be complicit.
Student clubs protesting hateful groups can be defunded and dissolved.
Individual students will face discipline and possible expulsion.
Ford’s directive cites the University of Chicago statement that prohibits “ongoing disruptive protesting”. But such vague criteria leaves the road open to prohibit all protests. Who decides what period is too long? Who decides how big a protest can become before it qualifies as “disruptive”?
Ford is promoting this policy as payback to the far right and social conservatives who helped him win the PC leadership race. It will provide a police-protected “safe space” to anti-abortionists holding obscene displays, alt-right racists, and those denying the Holocaust.
This policy is a direct attack on the time-honoured tradition of civil disobedience on campus. We encourage universities and student unions to refuse to participate in this anti-protest policy, especially the anti-free speech, University of Chicago-inspired statement.
If universities do not comply with this anti-protest law, their funding will be cut. If student clubs do not comply their funding will be cut and the club will be de-chartered. Students who do not comply may be expelled. This will directly affect the group I am organized with, Socialist Fightback.
Ford’s policy is designed to benefit bigots and fascists like Jordan Peterson and Faith Goldy, whose events have been shut down by student protests in the past.
This is a serious threat to democratic rights in Ontario. We have to fight back.
freedom of speech means that the government is not allowed to tell you to shut the fuck up. it doesn’t mean that i am not allowed to tell you to shut the fuck up.
it is responsible, and the mark of a good audience, to critique problematic elements in the media we consume. For example, I love gothic lit – but a lot of it is incredibly sexist and racist. I can acknowledge that these elements are a problem and objectionable while still enjoying the piece for a multitude of other reasons. I can also say to myself “if I ever want to write my own gothic lit, here are some elements I should avoid.” Or, if I do want to tackle the issues of racism and sexism in my future gothic lit, then I can say “I will avoid writing in a way which implicitly or explicitly condones racism or sexism, while still emulating the praiseworthy elements of gothic lit.”
In essence, the fundamentals of intersectional media critique is this: “these elements of [x media] are problematic and we should rethink them in future media, both as audiences and as creators.” By rethinking these elements, I don’t mean utterly doing away with them, but rethinking how we approach them and how we read them.
We enter purity culture when our statement moves from “these elements of [x media] are problematic and we should rethink them in future media, both as audiences and as creators,” and becomes “these elements of [x media] are problematic and therefore anyone who consumes or creates [x media] is condoning everything about [x media].” The implication here is that, if one wants to be a good person, one should avoid [x media], because to do otherwise is to either implicitly or explicitly condone everything in [x media]. This type of attitude towards media is very common in conservative religious circles.
It moves fully into censorship when the statement moves from “these elements of [x media] are problematic and therefore anyone who consumes or creates [x media] is condoning everything about [x media]” and becomes “these elements of [x media] are problematic and therefore nobody can consume or create [x media] for any reason.” Those who break this rule are seen as evil and shunned. This type of attitude toward media is very common in fundamentalist circles.
A culture of censorship is the natural outcome of purity culture, because purity culture by its very nature seeks purity until even the whisper of objectionable content, in any context, is suppressed.
I would wager a guess that many people who are against anti culture are familiar with either these toxic conservative or fundamentalist attitudes towards media, and we are alarmed by their striking similarity with antis’ attitudes towards media. It is most certainly why I am against anti culture.
I’m not gonna lie, I agree with all of this expect for that whenever I see antis, it’s people who outspokenly condemn the romantification of pedophilia/incest/rape and other such things that we have seen influence society.
Idk, it’s also such a head jerk for me to hear people complaining about people who think pedophilia is bad or writing rape/incest fic as an outlet for own trauma is an unhealthy coping mech due to the ease at which it can be used to groom a next victim or retraumatize the first victim.
Obviously I understand that there are crazy people who call themselves antis and go on purity rants and triads, but frankly I’ve never seen them. And the fact that they’re all called antis is also annoying af bcus I can never tell if we’re talking about that crazy person sending death threats to content creators for putting xy together over zx or the people vocally calling out the prevalent pedophilic and abuse promoting nature of some content ¯_(ツ)_/¯
God I don’t have the energy for this censorship-lite BS right now, can someone else reply to this?
fundamentally, the responsibility for harm lies in the person that causes it. simple, right? if you (hypothetical you) use a piece of heavy spiky modern art to bludgeon someone into the hospital, is that the artist’s fault for not putting tennis balls on the spiky bits? no, it’s yours. bc you hit a guy with it.
same thing with written work. sure, a piece of “problematic” fanfiction could be used to harm someone else, but there’s two things wrong with holding the creator responsible for the harm done by a third party. the first is that this is true for literally any piece of media. I have spoken with people who were groomed using children’s toy sets, nevermind totally innocuous pieces of writing like harry potter. there is nothing that persecuting certain fanwriters could do to stop that.
the second is that when you decide the place responsibility on the creator of a work, instead of the person who chose to use that work to harm another person, you are absolving the actual perpetrator of guilt. full stop.
you are not actually qualified to decide what is or isn’t an unhealthy coping mechanism for another person. that is not your decision to make. there are actual steps we can – and do – take to mitigate the potential harm of problematic fanworks, but I very rarely see antis advocating for them. appropriate tagging and content warnings is one. education on critical thinking and what it means to click “yes I consent to see this work” is another.
at the bottom of it, advocating for censorship of things you find icky or disturbing or potentially harmful – without exploring or even actively ignoring the other ways that harm is mitigated and avoided – will always do more harm than good. always. there is no excuse for censorship rhetoric, none whatsoever, especially one as flimsy as “but think of the children” when evidence does and has always shown that no one in the anti movement actually gives a shit about “the children” except as pawns to further their own controlling agendas.
I actually didn’t find your response aggressive, especially compared to what I’ve seen on this blue hellscape lmao
I do agree with you that “protect the children” has been used as a rally cry for bullshit in literally every community.
I will admit I’m ignorant to the depths of anti community seeing as my only interactions have been anti-ddlg kink and anti people who would rather adults didn’t write explicit porn about a child/young teen and an adult. But I don’t doubt that there are some antis who go so past too far that they wander into ‘holy fuck’.
And no, I do agree that the one who causes harm may not have been the one who created the weapon. I just also believe that content creators should be held partially responsible. I fully support ‘don’t like don’t read’ but there are times when, like the op kinda mentions above, that we need to be critical of the content created and not to consume it blindly. I believe we also shouldn’t produce it blindly.
I’m sorry that the way i responded above made it seem like I placed sole responsibility on the content creator, bcus I don’t. I absolutely do not want to help absolve those who use any tool in their hands to abuse people, but while someone can use both a pencil and a bat full of nails to do damage, one is going to be much easier to inflict more damage quickly with, you know? The main fault of course lies with the sicko who picked it up and decided to use it as a weapon, but why would someone put nails in a bat?
And to me, there is also context. Like Lolita is a good example of what you mean of a piece of art in an exhibit being used as a weapon. The author clearly made the MC disturbed and an unreliable narrator and assumed that people would read it critically and see him as the monster he was written as, but sadly it didn’t work like that. His art has been used as a weapon, and while he clearly made it with no intentions of it being used in such a way, it has been.
Fan fiction that I’ve seen is like leaving that spiked bat in the middle of a dark alley. There is little chance it was written as ‘this is bad and traumatizing and I’m going to explore this dark area’ but more as ‘I have a rape fetish and enjoy thinking about one 15 character raping another bcus he loves him SO MUCH’ -and yes, that’s an actual thing Ive seen, and a grown woman has admitted it several times.
I think what also trips me up is how much grey area there is, and how much responsibility we are then laying on everyone involved, you know? It’s complex and on so many layers of society that it’s hard. Especially when I think of how naive and susceptible I was myself as a kid. I think my main thing that I disagree with is the assumed reaction of ‘let people create whatever they want, it’s the people who use it who are the only bad people’.
Bcus if that piece hadn’t been created, they would have one less tool to inflict harm, or inflict it as easily as they have.
I really appreciate your approach here, I want to thank you for that, sincerely. this is gonna be long and probably rambly bc my focus isn’t great today but hopefully I can get my point across.
so, lolita. should it have never been written? I’ve never read it, and I don’t intend to, because the subject matter would likely do a number on my mental health that I’m not prepared to deal with right now. there’s actually a lot of shit like that, that I can’t even skim without feeling sick to my stomach. but honestly, that doesn’t matter. I cannot, should not, say that an author should never have written a thing just because I find the subject morally abhorrant.
and I feel you’re missing my point, here. it is not, it has never been, just the icky stuff that’s been used to hurt people. for every instance of a young person being groomed using sexual media involving people like them, there are ten more where the grooming material was fully legal fully vanilla adult-man-on-adult-woman porn. the content of the work means very little, compared to its emotional attachment to the victim and the skill of the manipulator. this is why I say that banning all work of a certain type is not only wrong, but useless. talk to survivors, listen to what they have to say about their experiences. theory doesn’t matter here, especially when theory ignores the real lived experience and testimonies of survivors of abuse.
thing is, fanfiction really isn’t like a spiked bat in an alley. it’s like a spiked bat in a glass case, in a room with a sign on the door that says “sharp things ahead”. sure, someone could still break in and steal it for harmful purposes, but they’re not supposed to, and you can’t place blame with the building owners for not preventing it bc they did what they were obligated to, which was to put the damn thing in a glass box and put a sign on the door. would the world maybe have been safer if we didn’t make art installations out of dangerous objects? maybe. but the fire extinguisher is also right there, a very useful item that saves lives every year, and yet it’s still very heavy and ideal for bludgeoning.
if our hypothetical abuser was truly prevented from accessing our bat with nails, it might be harder for them to inflict damage, sure….. but it probably wouldn’t be. people got fists. people got kitchen knives. people come fully equipped with anything they’d need to do serious harm to another person, and we as a society both can’t prevent someone from having access to everything that could possibly do another person harm, and we shouldn’t do that either. it’s not right to force someone into such a small box, for the sake of hypothetical victims. it is, fundamentally, not right to prohibit artistic action out of moral outrage. there’s a reason there’s something called “legal obscenity”, which can only be decided upon on a case-by-case basis in federal court, by ruling of a judge. there is a reason a piece of media must be declared to have “no artistic merit” in order to be classified as legally obscene. there are so many court cases that have involved this, and the vast majority of them have been ended without an obscenity charge. they’re educational reading, if you feel like digging them up.
fiction is a place to put things that are too horrifying or disturbing to deal with in real life. it is a place to engage with abhorrant themes at arm’s length, to deal with them on your own terms and at your own pace. I get the feeling you’re under the impression that people only write and consume problematic fic out of fetishism, but the fact of the matter is that dark fiction is immeasurably valuable to people who have suffered or are currently suffering. I’ve heard testimonies from people who legitimately did not know what was happening to them was sexual abuse until they read a fic where a similar thing occurred and was treated as the horrifying thing that it is. seeing yourself represented in fiction as a survivor has measurable and documented positive effects, and knowing what abuse looks like is vital to fighting it.
and if a survivor isn’t coping the “right” way, and it looks like they’re enjoying dark fic for the wrong reasons? still doesn’t matter. there is no excuse for harming that person to potentially avoid harm to others, not when there are other ways of avoiding that harm that do not have survivors as collateral damage. I will aways prioritize methods that result in fewer future victims and that do not involve throwing existing victims under the bus.
tldr, prohibiting artistic expression via darkfic is both ineffective and morally questionable at best, and the data points to it harming more people than it helps. there are other, better, more effective ways of ensuring the safety of vulnerable people, and that is where we should be concentrating our efforts.
Queer Fiction Writer 