It has
been horrifying to witness the fallout from the signing of FOSTA/SESTA and what
it has done to sexwork in the United States.
For those
who have been living under a rock, FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) and
SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) are bills from the House and Senate
that were signed into law back in April. Ostensibly, on the face, the bill were
created to make it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking.
However,
they was essentially a poison pill included that amended a past Communication
Decency Act, which removed immunity from online services for the actions of
their users.
What this
poison pill has led to was the seizure of Backpage.com, the termination of the
classified section of Craigslist, and the shutdown (out of fear) of other sites
in the United States that provided a forum for professional sex workers to
advertise and promote their services.
It has
also led to Twitter and other social media sites to revise their terms of use
to provide them more shielding in the wake of FOSTA/SESTA (and probably to
continue and step up their shadowbanning of sex workers).
This has
had harmful, deleterious affects on the women who utilize these services.
