SESTA, sex work, and online spaces

Sex workers are disappearing from online spaces. These spaces are integral to these workers’ health, labor, political organizing, and representation. The most recent and impactful effort in eradicating sex workers from the internet is legislation in the form of two relatively new bills: Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA); and, Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act (SESTA). These acts, claim to curb sex trafficking, but are disproportionately affecting consensual sex workers. Sex-workers are left to work: in less safe conditions; without harm-reduction tools; without connection to community; and, having lost online spaces integral to activism surrounding the very legislation that disproportionately affects them. Since President Donald Trump’s signing of the reconciled bill SESTA, the law has not been used in any lawsuits or litigation to assist victims of trafficking or prosecute traffickers. In practice, the law has been quick-and-effective in further criminalizing marginalized sex workers. Social media are censoring, shadow banning and suspending sex workers from various platforms (survivorsagainstsesta.org). The wider implications of the vaguely worded law are also affecting sexual expression more broadly for online users. Queer, sex-positive, Black and Brown individuals and online communities are being erased and policed; while cis, white, heterosexual bodies and spaces are privileged and persist— despite producing comparable content.