END FOSTA- SESTA TODAY!

SESTA or Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act was introduced around the same time as FOSTA or Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (often shortened to the last 5 words) at the in February of 2018. Passed by congress in March and signed into law by April, it has had detrimental effects on freedom of speech and expression for many people on social media. It has also violated sex workers right to safety and ruined their lives and livelihoods. Maybe worst of all, it has actually made the human trafficking problem that it was meant to combat, worse. More information about the statements made and how you can help are in the posts below.

I know you have heard of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are all things that are supposed to be constantly available for every US citizen according to our constitution. Civil liberties that should be possessed by every American include freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, right to security, etc (Openstax). Why then, are sex workers constantly having these liberties ripped away from them by our government? The government wouldn't take away someone's right to free speech because said speech was government critical or even negative. The government wouldn't bar a citizen from practicing a certain religion because it didn't coincide with the individual moral beliefs of government officials. The government wouldn't censor or destroy art, especially online art, even if it depicted something heinous or offensive. Yet, they continue to do all of these things to sex workers who are performing work which falls under their legal rights. The latest way that they are suppressing and endangering these Americans is through FOSTA- SESTA. FOSTA- SESTA stands for Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act- Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act. Intended to protect people from human trafficking and save human trafficking victims, it has instead only succeeded in making life harder for various types of sex workers. Porn stars, cam girls, and other sex workers whose work is totally legal are having their online sources of income, such as PayPal, shut down. They are having their entire websites and advertisements for their services being taken off of various platforms with no explanation. Worst of all, those engaging in illegal sex work, like prostitution, are being forced back onto the streets and into human trafficking. So not only is the bill not helping victims, but it is creating more, and harming those who are doing legal sex work. In fact, sex work related crimes have TRIPLED since the bills passing because websites used to screen potential customers have been completely shut down (SF Chronicle). These are all violations of the civil liberties of Americans, which is why you should care.  All of these negative effects caused by the passing of this bill are putting not only their livelihoods, but their lives at risk. This bill is forcing their work to become unsafe and limiting their options for finding other work. It's significantly harder to get your life together and find another job when your entire source of income is taken away. Or when you are murdered because you couldn't find out who you were providing services to. This is all being done because of an arbitrary negative moral view towards all sex work from society. However, one's personal beliefs should never stop another person from pursuing their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, especially when those pursuits are completely legal. Join in the fight against FOSTA- SESTA today!

The media has a much larger role in influencing people today than in the past (Openstax). Because of this, it has had a significantly large role in influencing and enabling FOSTA- SESTA to not only hurt sex workers, but non-sex workers as well. Part of FOSTA-SESTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act- Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) was to hold creators of websites accountable for anything that the government feels resembles sex work being posted on their sites. Because of this, the CEOs of popular social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and even Tumblr are becoming increasingly paranoid and banning content that doesn't even violate their community guidelines. Facebook seems to be the most paranoid, not only banning photos that don't even show nudity, but banning certain words and phrases that are vaguely sexual but unrelated to sex work. Facebook has banned people from saying words such as "kink", "fetish", "homosexual" and other words that have nothing to do with sex work, no matter what context those words were being said in (PC Mag). They are subjecting users who break this rule to suspension or even deletion. They are also shutting down accounts and deleting photos of those associated with sex work, even when the photos do not contain nudity. A similar thing is happening on Instagram with the censorship of the hashtags #stripper and #strippersonly. Stripping is a form of sex work that is 100% legal in all 50 states and those hashtags were used to bring people in that industry together, not show nudity since nudity is already a violation of Instagram's guidelines. Art by strippers, tips from one to another about the industry are all being censored, making it less safe even though it is still legal. Tumblr followed suit with Instagram by censoring those same hashtags, along with many more, including #sexwork itself. However, it had more leeway on the other two because although many hashtags sex workers used to advertise were censored, adult content and nudity weren't violations of their standards, until now. Starting December 17th all adult content including but not limited to "female presenting nipples" will be banned. Sex workers are already starting to feel these effects and are randomly getting their blogs deleted. But its not only them who will be affected. Professional photographers, artists, and anyone else who uses nudity to express themselves, specifically choosing to do so on Tumblr because of their old guidelines, will be negatively affected. People who reblog this content and don't even create it will be negatively affected. We must join to repeal this bill as it is using the media as a tool to restrict all Americans, not just sex workers.

https://iww.org/unions/dept600/iu690

All reblogged photos have sources attached.