you're so self satisfying

Image ID: a thread by @ anavalens on twitter : 🚨🚨 By popular request I’m compiling a master post on SISEA, the bipartisan bill by @SenSasse & @SenJeffMerkley that would purge porn from social media and devastate sex workers’ income during a pandemic. 🚨🚨THREAD. Plz RT. 🧵

This fantastic @XBIZ story goes over the basics. The TLDR:

1) The bill targets any online platform that "hosts and makes available to the general public" porn. This essentially ranges from OnlyFans to Twitter

2) The bill demands sites with porn institute strenuous verification and content moderation systems, such as a 24-hour platform hotline with a two-hour window to pull reported material. These strains will likely cause Twitter, OnlyFans, etc to dump porn over institute changes

3) Websites that violate these requests violate the Federal Trade Commission Act's "unfair or deceptive act or practice" rules. TLDR, this can lead to a settlement negotiation or a cease and desist order, which can result in civil penalties if violated.

https://epic.org/privacy/internet/ftc/Authority.html

4) Again: This creates a situation where legal liability and the cost involved in creating (borderline impossible) enforcement structures are so strenuous that most social media websites will simply remove NSFW content as opposed to micromanage it

5) A "covered platform" "hosts and makes available to the general public pornographic images," which are defined as "any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture" with sexually explicit conduct

This could be interpreted many different ways. It could, theoretically, introduce risk to sites that host pornographic illustrations, such as Patreon, Fur Affinity, and Pixiv. It could also introduce risk for sites and social media platforms that teens use for sexting.

Let's talk about the content moderation structure itself:

5) SISEA would require platforms with pornographic material to verify all uploaders' identities, age, & provide a signed consent form from all individuals appearing in porn. This includes past & present adult material.

Meanwhile, 6) If you are a revenge porn victim and you want to make sure you do not appear on sites with NSFW material, you have to provide the federal government your personal information. It appears the database is all or nothing, shutting out sex workers from these protections

There are a few problems with these two measures:

1) Not all sex workers are documented. Instituting federal requirements introduces increased risk for migrant sex workers, who obviously do not want their personal information identified by the gov't

2) This introduces severe staffing costs for sites that already have strong, ethical DIY porn scenes, like Reddit. Suddenly, if Reddit still wants to host GoneWild, it needs to feverishly document every single uploader's PI. It's creating new problems w/o solving old ones

3) This introduces increased security risks for performers, who now have to trust (the few remaining) platforms will safeguard their personal info. Data breaches happen. Not every site stores its personal info in safe, encrypted ways. This puts sex workers at increased risk

4) The database forces sites to cross-check new uploads with the database before allowing new content. The database only covers individuals who "do not consent to the uploading to any covered platform of any pornographic images" they appear in. Not just some. All or nothing.

As I mentioned above, the database doesn't account for the fact that many sex workers and non-sex workers alike want *nonconsensual* material of themselves pulled. The database creates a binary. Either you're a victim or you're a sex worker. You never get to be both.

So in short, this bill is dripping in whorephobia, creates impossible expectations and standards, doesn't solve online sexual exploitation, and instead creates an incentive to pull adult material from the web altogether, either via NSFW content purges or indie sites closing down

.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:

This bill was introduced in the Senate. Every state has *TWO* senators. So this is easy. Use GovTrack to find your state, and contact your two senators.

END ID"

LINK TO THREAD

PLEASE PLEASE help stop this bill which will likely cause all social media to ban porn.  Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/acvalens/status/1340338322326106112?s=20

If you haven’t heard about it yet, SISEA is a bipartisan bill introduced in the US senate by Ben Sasse (R) and Jeff Merkley (D)

It includes a series of overly strict regulations to be imposed on the online porn industry, and would basically have the same results as the tumblr porn ban, but internet-wide.

Here’s just a few of the rules it proposes:

Requires verified ID and signed consent forms for everyone involved in the production and uploading of adult content

Requires the PLATFORM, not the user, hosting pornography to include a banner or notice on the site that tells you how to request the removal of content if you didn’t consent to being in the video

Prohibiting VIDEO DOWNLOADS on all platforms that host pornographic content within three months of the legislation passing

These platforms are ALL required to have a 24hr MANNED hotline, staffed by the platform, for content removal requests. (No clarification on how the person requesting the removal would be expected to prove their identity, and this is IN SPITE OF the rigorous verification process the proposed law ALSO REQUIRES, so this is likely to be abused by trolls)

Requires removal of flagged videos within TWO HOURS.

Requires all platforms to have an algorithm to prevent videos that have been removed (by the host, not the uploaded) from being reuploaded after removal

The above is to be enforced by the FTC

Creating a DATABASE OF PEOPLE who do not consent to being in adult videos, which must be checked BEFORE ANY NEW CONTENT CAN BE UPLOADED, the specifics of which are to be decided by the Department of Justice, and failure to comply with this requirement will be punished with a fine

So I’m sure by now that everyone has an idea of how bad this will be for not only sex workers, but any and all platforms that people use to post adult content, whether it’s the platform’s intended use or not, as well as anyone who consumes said content.

The rules concerning digital content, as many are probably wondering, are incredibly vague. Here’s a breakdown on twitter of why these rules in particular would be disastrous:

So, you’re probably wondering

“What can I do to stop this from being passed?”

Right now, I haven’t seen any petitions about this particular legislation, but I 100% advise and advocate for calling your state’s representatives and senators and demanding they speak out against this bill and it’s absolutely impossible requirements.

Here’s a list of current US Senators and their official contact info:

Here’s the info for US Congresspeople:

And here’s the article where I originally heard about SISEA, because I don’t see many people talking about it yet:

EDIT: Linking this tumblr thread to explain what exactly makes this bill so bad and why this does not help victims of trafficking and revenge porn, but hurts sex workers!!! I’m seeing a lot of comments confused about why SISEA is such a bad thing for everyone involved, and this is a very thorough look at why!

“Wishing you all a Happy New Year! Stay safe. Keith”

me: 

@scarcity-of-cats @annajanes

2 - This and rotten apples are some of the best sites ever

Christmas Shop Fronts, UK, 1960s