by Baylie Clevenger The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte’s editorial board. Content disclaimer: This article discusses sensitive topics such as substance abuse, child exploitation and abuse, sexual abuse, and suicide. Anyone who is sensitive to these topics may find this article upsetting and should not read on. In December of 2018, the popular blog site Tumblr made the decision to ban all not suitable for work (NSFW) content. They made this decision to try to prevent child pornography on their site after Apple removed them from the app store because of the presence of this kind of content. Now, of course, trying to prevent sexual exploitation of children is a good thing. Nobody wants to see children be exploited, but this decision also became controversial when the online community of self-proclaimed sex workers took to other forms of social media to express their feelings on the issue. Over the years, social media platforms continue to develop different communities of people online who are brought together by commonalities. Tumblr, being known for NSFW content, was an outlet for these online sex workers. This community consists of people who make a profit off of creating and distributing adult content. Typically this content consists of anything from selling nude photos to making tips from streaming live adult content on camming sites to selling NSFW videos. Tumblr had become a way for online sex workers to promote themselves, as well as providing an outlet for them to make money. After the ban, many of them spoke out saying that this was harming their business and ultimately doing very little to actually prevent predators from accessing child pornography. On the other hand, there still seems to be a dull roar about restoring NSFW content to Tumblr from users that don’t really care about the plight of sex workers, but just want to see the content that had always been readily available on Tumblr. Users who want to see the restoration of NSFW are abundant and there might just be an unexpected site that wants to do it.
pornhub is buying tumblr pic.twitter.com/x2YwPUWGw0
— (@HennyNotToday) May 2, 2019
Defeats the original purpose
Even though it’s hard to say if Tumblr would have imposed this ban without Apple removing them from the app store, the original purpose was still to rid the site of child pornography. If we’re talking about protecting children from sexual exploitation, then PornHub is the last company/website that would be of any help. PornHub has a long history of publishing child porn as well as allowing for predatory terms to be searched on their site. For example, in 2018 the term “teen” continued to hold a spot as one of the most searched terms on the site, indicating that there are people searching for adult content that involves young and possibly vulnerable people. Since “teen” has consistently been a highly-searched term on the site, that also indicates that PornHub has done little to stop searches on their site for this kind of content. Searches for “teen” are also predatory because, as previously stated, there are people looking for NSFW content involving people as young as they can possibly find. When videos feature presumably young and vulnerable people and nobody is putting a stop to it, it is ultimately contributing to predatory tendencies and ideas. According to theWhat about women?
Children are not the only demographic being exploited and harmed by PornHub. Routinely, women in and outside of the porn industry are harmed by the underlying messages and hidden world of violence behind porn. According to the organization Enough is Enough, pornography has taken a violent turn in recent years.“Pornography has changed. Extreme content is the new norm. Soft porn has disappeared. In 2010 the journal Violence Against Women reported physical aggression in 88.2% of leading pornography scenes and verbal aggression in 48.7% with 94.4% of the aggression directed towards women and girls.” -Enough is EnoughPeople who choose to view porn don’t always think about the implications behind it. Even though they may not personally subscribe to the harmful messages it sends, giving these messages a platform still contributes to the violence and emotional turmoil that the porn industry creates.
“Consumers might tell themselves that they aren’t personally affected by porn, that they won’t be fooled into believing its underlying messages, but studies suggest otherwise. There is clear evidence that porn makes many consumers more likely to support violence against women, to believe that women secretly enjoy being raped, and to actually be sexually aggressive in real life.” -Enough is EnoughThese aren't just statistics either, they are real people who are being harmed every day by the parts of the porn industry that nobody sees. Ultimately, this industry is hurting women in and outside of it by perpetuating violence against women and rape culture.
Where does this leave sex workers?
Since a lot of the people who do sex work are making at least some portion of their income online, the Tumblr ban hurt has their business. One would think that reinstating NSFW content on the platform by any means would help their business, but in this case, that is not true. Actually, it could hurt their business even more because a lot of the content that PornHub allows to be published is taken from sex workers and published without their consent. People are stealing their content and posting it to sites for free when it was not meant to be.So, to have a site that already publishes other people’s content without permission, having them come in and take over another site would continue to hurt sex workers’ business. Another issue with the NSFW ban as well as the potential PornHub takeover is that sex workers who are voluntarily in this line of work are being left behind. If people really needed to view adult content that badly, it is abundantly available, but not always for free. Nobody wants to pay these people for their content and don’t care that free NSFW content is hurting other vulnerable individuals. Unsteady income is already part of why sex workers face so much mental and emotional turmoil. Their jobs are demonized and devalued and sites that exploit women and children, like PornHub, continue to thrive while also taking business away from people who have chosen a valid career. The current state of the porn industry already directly impacts violence against women and sexual assault, and sex workers are no different. They are people just the same as anyone else and because of the rampant shaming, content stealing, and assault/harassment they face, there has been a surge of sex workers, women in particular, who are taking their own lives and reporting use of drugs and alcohol to be able to deal with the baggage that comes with their line of work. Recently, porn actresses like August Ames, Yuri Luv, and Olivia Lua all died due to overdose or suicide. Whether or not their deaths had to do with their careers is unclear since none of them ever specifically stated that they were under distress because of the porn industry. However, other porn stars have spoken out on their behalf, blaming the porn industry for the disrespect and abuse that often lead to these deaths. Collective Shout, an organization that aims to reduce the sexual exploitation of women, also published a collection of quotes from porn stars, all women, that detail their violent experiences in porn. Ultimately, PornHub is harmful and exploitative to sex workers, women, and children. To allow them to take over such a large platform that has many people within these demographics already using it would be a mistake. Women, children, and sex workers are already abused, exploited, and shamed. To intensify that just to be able to have access to NSFW content would be a disgrace.Someone said this a bit more eloquently on Tumblr pic.twitter.com/eEViXcHWd3
— theo @ commissions (@theomancyCos) December 5, 2018
Internet Watch Foundation Enough is Enough Collective Shout
