How sex workers are fighting back against online deplatforming

It’s a grey Tues­day after­noon in Cen­tral Lon­don. A group of pro­tes­tors dressed main­ly in black latex and leather are stand­ing out­side the met­al and glass frontage of social media giant Meta’s UK head­quar­ters in Euston. Some are wear­ing masks: one sur­round­ed with latex spikes and anoth­er with a black and red dog mask. Two safe­ty reps with yel­low hi-vis vests worn on top of their fetish gear stand out from the crowd of black, red and met­al. The many plac­ards sport a vari­ety of pro-kink and sex-pos­i­tive slo­gans, such as ​‘Kink is art,’ ​‘Sus­pend­ed for just exist­ing,’ ​‘My account is my liveli­hood,’ and ‘#StopDeletingUs,’ the ral­ly­ing cry of today’s protest.

On June 22, over 50 promi­nent Insta­gram accounts run by sex work­ers, sex edu­ca­tors and mem­bers of the kink com­mu­ni­ty, some with hun­dreds of thou­sands of fol­low­ers, were removed by Insta­gram with no expla­na­tion. In response, a group of activists led by kink par­ty Klub Ver­boten and pub­li­cist Hele­na Kate Whit­ting­ham came togeth­er to cre­ate the #StopDeletingUs cam­paign. Togeth­er, they com­piled a data­base of delet­ed accounts and made a col­lec­tive appeal to Meta, Instagram’s par­ent com­pa­ny. After a huge out­cry online and numer­ous arti­cles in the tech press, Meta rein­stat­ed most of the accounts on June 28.

Despite suc­cess­ful­ly over­turn­ing the major­i­ty of the bans, the #StopDeletingUs cam­paign decid­ed to go ahead with their planned protest on July 4. The state­ment issued by Meta said the accounts ​“were removed in error,” but offered lit­tle in the way of expla­na­tion or reas­sur­ance that arbi­trary dele­tions would not occur in future.

“I’m still afraid they are going to delete us again,” explains Han­ny, co-organ­is­er of Klub Ver­boten. ​“Meta say they made a mis­take but they have giv­en us no infor­ma­tion. We have been very care­ful to stay with­in the rules, we received no warn­ings and we can’t under­stand why we were delet­ed. We’re here today to start a dia­logue with Meta because we want to wake up each day and not be scared that our account is going to be delet­ed again.”

This is just the lat­est in a long-run­ning saga of dele­tion, deplat­form­ing and cen­sor­ship of con­tent deemed sex­u­al across all social media plat­forms. This cen­sor­ship is main­ly dri­ven by rules set by pay­ment providers and attempts to com­ply with leg­is­la­tion such as FOS­TA-SES­TA in the US, which pri­mar­i­ly tar­gets sex work­ers, but also affects many oth­ers in the sex-pos­i­tive space, from artists and pho­tog­ra­phers to sex edu­ca­tors and women-run lin­gerie brands.

#StopDeletingUs are hop­ing to engage Meta in a con­struc­tive debate around online safe­guard­ing and the uneven and exces­sive mod­er­a­tion of legal sex­u­al con­tent. They want to high­light how, for many of those affect­ed by the ban, Insta­gram accounts are not just their liveli­hoods but vital sources of infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ty online, while dele­tions and deplat­form­ing can have huge neg­a­tive impacts on people.

Klub Ver­boten organ­is­es pro­gres­sive kink events in Lon­don and Berlin and has built a vibrant com­mu­ni­ty of ​“tens of thou­sands of car­ing kinksters” in Europe and around the globe. Found­ed in 2016, Ver­boten organ­is­ers Karl and Han­ny have led the way in devel­op­ing safe­guard­ing pro­ce­dures and under­stand­ing of fetish and BDSM prac­tis­es and cul­ture. Los­ing their account was a major blow.

“We felt super depressed for a cou­ple of days, we nev­er thought it would hit us that hard,” Karl explains. ​“When our dig­i­tal selves get erased with­out warn­ing or plau­si­ble cause, it’s not just the dig­i­tal struc­ture and hub that con­nects us that goes, for many of us, it’s a large pro­por­tion of our income, too.”

Ver­boten felt the finan­cial con­se­quences imme­di­ate­ly, with an event in Berlin sell­ing less than half the usu­al num­ber of tick­ets. Many in the com­mu­ni­ty said they nev­er even heard it was hap­pen­ing. Yet, the con­se­quences of dele­tion go beyond the finan­cial. ​“We lost our net­work, our friends and our chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion,” Karl explains. ​“Many peo­ple have put a lot of time into these plat­forms, sat­is­fy­ing the community’s thirst for knowl­edge. Peo­ple who are curi­ous about sex edu­ca­tion can dis­cov­er us through social plat­forms and sat­is­fy their curios­i­ty about div­ing into our com­mu­ni­ty. Exclud­ing sex­u­al­i­ty from these plat­forms is like tak­ing a part of our human­i­ty, slic­ing it up and say­ing that sex­u­al­i­ty is not part of your self.”

This isn’t the first time that Karl and Han­ny have had to fight for their sur­vival. In 2022, Tow­er Ham­lets coun­cil tried to take away the licence for Wap­ping club E1 / Stu­dio Places, one of London’s last sur­viv­ing queer-friend­ly kink spaces. Ver­boten cre­at­ed the Save Kink Spaces cam­paign and spent months ral­ly­ing their com­mu­ni­ty and build­ing a legal defence before the coun­cil final­ly relented.

“We would rather spend our time on cre­ative projects than con­stant­ly hav­ing to defend our exis­tence both online and offline,” Karl explains. ​“It makes us ques­tion our entire world – our val­ue sys­tem and our moral com­pass. The inter­net, includ­ing Meta, hosts plen­ty of Andrew Tate-style losers who dri­ve inhu­mane agen­das for pure per­son­al gains. The algo­rithms can’t seem to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between sex­ist online war­lords and those seek­ing to improve lives or encour­ag­ing peo­ple to express them­selves in this dull place.”

Infa­mous misog­y­nist Andrew Tate spread his tox­ic ideas to mil­lions before he was even­tu­al­ly banned but his con­tent and that of his many copy­cats still pro­lif­er­ates online. For all the polic­ing and delet­ing of sex work­ers and sex edu­ca­tors, many who speak to Huck com­plain about Meta’s slow pace in remov­ing hate speech and abuse.

As the line of secu­ri­ty guards out­side Meta’s door­way eye them sus­pi­cious­ly, the pro­tes­tors assem­ble for a pho­to­shoot. A man dressed as a droog from Clock­work Orange waves the rain­bow Progress Pride flag above the group as peo­ple call out irrev­er­ent chants. ​“Stop allow­ing cock pic­tures through and delet­ing sex edu­ca­tion con­tent,” shouts Reed Amber over the din.

Reed is a sex edu­ca­tor, sex work­er and co-founder of Come­Cu­ri­ous and the F**ks Giv­en pod­cast. ​“I always strug­gle to get imposter accounts tak­en down or stop unso­licit­ed dick pics,” Reed says, with a tone of exas­per­a­tion. ​“Yet, my posts talk­ing about sex edu­ca­tion or LGBTQ+ issues fre­quent­ly get tak­en down. The peo­ple abus­ing women online are exact­ly the peo­ple who need the sex edu­ca­tion con­tent we put out there, so they can learn not to harm oth­er peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly women.”

Reed is frus­trat­ed by a lack of pro­tec­tion for women online and the lethar­gic response from Meta and oth­er plat­forms when it comes to tack­ling abuse. She also sees con­stant dou­ble-stan­dards in the way rules are applied. ​“When a female account gets tak­en down or some­body with maybe a cur­va­ceous body has a post removed, it is just say­ing a huge ​‘fuck you’ to women as a gen­der,” Reed says. ​“When it comes to being over­ly sex­u­alised, I have seen count­less male accounts where you can lit­er­al­ly see dick out­lines in pho­tos but those accounts seem to get away scot-free. We see the same gen­der hypocrisy all the time.”

Dr. Car­oli­na Are is a con­tent mod­er­a­tion researcher at Northum­bria University’s Cen­tre For Dig­i­tal Cit­i­zens. She has been both bat­tling and research­ing deplat­form­ing on social media since 2019, when she pressed Insta­gram to apol­o­gise for shad­ow­ban­ning pole danc­ing hash­tags. In 2020, she cre­at­ed a peti­tion against Instagram’s new sex-neg­a­tive terms of use. After estab­lish­ing con­tact with Meta’s pol­i­cy unit, she has been func­tion­ing as an unof­fi­cial liai­son, help­ing many unblock their accounts. She speaks to Huck while en-route to her native Sar­dinia, but played a major role in advis­ing the cam­paign lead­ing up to today’s protest, along­side Hele­na and Klub Verboten.

Car­oli­na explains that since FOS­TA-SES­TA became law in the US in April 2018, count­less accounts have been delet­ed world­wide as social media plat­forms attempt to com­ply with leg­is­la­tion that bans ​“solic­i­ta­tion.” Framed as a means to com­bat sex traf­fick­ing, the law was pro­mot­ed by Amer­i­can reli­gious and extreme con­ser­v­a­tive groups, with anti-sex, anti-porn and anti-sex work agen­das. Yet, research into the impact of FOS­TA-SES­TA pub­lished in the Colum­bia Human Rights Law Review con­clud­ed it has had ​“a chill­ing effect on free speech, has cre­at­ed dan­ger­ous work­ing con­di­tions for sex-work­ers, and has made it more dif­fi­cult for police to find traf­ficked individuals.”

“Resist­ing dele­tion has become this ongo­ing bat­tle, where we all band togeth­er to defend one-oth­er,” co-organ­is­er Hele­na explains. ​“We are just col­lat­er­al dam­age but sex work­ers are the pri­ma­ry tar­gets and are most affect­ed by this, which all comes from FOS­TA-SES­TA. We aren’t even liv­ing in Amer­i­ca, yet regard­less of the legal sit­u­a­tion in our coun­try, we’re affect­ed by this law – it’s a glob­al, not just a US problem.”

Car­oli­na co-authored a study on the effects of deplat­form­ing with Pro­fes­sor Pam Brig­gs from the Cen­ter for Dig­i­tal Cit­i­zens. ​“A large por­tion of our work now occurs online, through the cre­ator econ­o­my or using social media as a means of self-pro­mo­tion,” Car­oli­na explains. ​“Addi­tion­al­ly, many stig­ma­tised and mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties, such as sex work­ers and kinky or LGBTQ+ peo­ple, have found a space on social media to express them­selves, net­work and con­nect with com­mu­ni­ties of like-mind­ed peo­ple – while often being exclud­ed from those oppor­tu­ni­ties offline. So, being deplat­formed means finan­cial loss or los­ing your work­place. But the per­son­al loss felt from los­ing a com­mu­ni­ty is sig­nif­i­cant, too. Our study par­tic­i­pants expressed feel­ings of depres­sion, low mood and of feel­ing ashamed, again, in a space that had pre­vi­ous­ly felt inclusive.”

Car­oli­na has been deplat­formed her­self by Meta once in 2021 and by Tik­Tok four times in 2021, so she knows inti­mate­ly the pain and frus­tra­tion it can cause. ​“I real­ly care about deplat­formed users and I want to help them,” she explains. ​“But my posi­tion is becom­ing over­whelm­ing because I am doing free labour for a mas­sive cor­po­ra­tion whose mod­er­a­tion and appeals sys­tem does not work. If it worked, I wouldn’t be need­ed. The huge neg­a­tive effects of deplat­form­ing mean it is vital to make this process fair­er and more just, so that peo­ple don’t have to go through this any longer.”

#StopDeletingUs pub­lished ​‘Our Demands, Your Solu­tions,’ which calls on Meta to use more human mod­er­a­tion, rather than AI; clar­i­fy Meta’s guide­lines, includ­ing their def­i­n­i­tions of solic­i­ta­tion; and rec­om­mend­ed the addi­tion of 18+ con­tent warn­ings, among oth­er mea­sures. Addi­tion­al­ly, Car­oli­na and the Cen­tre for Dig­i­tal Cit­i­zens recent­ly pub­lished a report called ​‘Co-Design­ing Plat­form Gov­er­nance Poli­cies.’ Based on exten­sive research and con­sul­ta­tion, it pro­pos­es a ore prin­ci­pled frame­work for mod­er­a­tion on dig­i­tal plat­forms, over­com­ing injus­tices and pro­vid­ing much greater pro­tec­tion for mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties online, such as sex work­ers, LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC users.

“Today, we asked Meta to come down in sol­i­dar­i­ty but the first per­son they sent out was their head of secu­ri­ty to say nobody from the com­pa­ny would be speak­ing to us,” Han­ny explains. ​“It just shows the lev­el of fear that is imposed in the phys­i­cal realm trans­lates into the lev­el of fear in the dig­i­tal domain,” Karl adds.

On safe­ty duty, Whiskey is sport­ing a yel­low hi-ves vest beneath their black latex face mask with a red and black pony­tail. In her expe­ri­ence, while there are few safe spaces for women, online or IRL, the com­mu­ni­ty around Ver­boten is a place of safe­ty and respect. 

“I’ve had to com­plete­ly step away from reg­u­lar nightlife because of the amount of harass­ment and abuse I have received as a curvy, rel­a­tive­ly attrac­tive per­son in men’s eyes,” she explains. ​“There is nobody to report or address any­thing with. I’ve been touched, I’ve been groped, I’ve been fol­lowed and made to feel real­ly unsafe. That is not some­thing that hap­pens at Klub Ver­boten events. You can be half naked, go out to rave and just have an amaz­ing time, safe­ly. Where else can you do that?”

Unlike many of the oth­er atten­dees who share their neg­a­tive expe­ri­ences of being female online, Whiskey hasn’t received abuse or unso­licit­ed dick pics. But that’s only because they’ve enforced strict safe­ty mea­sures: their account is pri­vate, they’re vir­tu­al­ly anony­mous and have almost no pres­ence online. But for oth­ers, whose per­son­al­i­ties are their brands, this isn’t an option.

After being a mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty for six years, Whiskey now works on the Klub Ver­boten safe­guard­ing team. ​“I main­ly look after the play space and ensure safe­ty and secu­ri­ty for peo­ple when they are at their most vul­ner­a­ble,” she explains. ​“As a com­mu­ni­ty, we take mutu­al respon­si­bil­i­ty for one-anoth­er and there are pro­ce­dures in place to keep every­one as safe as pos­si­ble. Spread­ing aware­ness is key, along­side trans­paren­cy and clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion. We pre­fer to inter­vene before sit­u­a­tions devel­op and bring issues to people’s atten­tion. If some­one has trans­gressed, we pre­fer to have an open con­ver­sa­tion and talk about how we can do bet­ter as a com­mu­ni­ty, rather than just eject­ing peo­ple straight away.”

Klub Ver­boten put out con­stant mes­sag­ing around respect, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and safe­guard­ing. They don’t rely on AI or algo­rithms to main­tain a safe space but by set­ting out clear rules that every­one under­stands, which are enforced by humans trained to dis­cuss issues open­ly. In fact, their ​‘Don’t Be A Dick’ mot­to has been so suc­cess­ful, it has been copied by oth­ers. Verboten’s approach stands in stark con­trast to Meta’s response to today’s protest: hid­ing behind a glass wall of silence. Meta, it seems, could take a les­son on dia­logue and trans­paren­cy from the kink com­mu­ni­ty, rather than attempt­ing to address sen­si­tive issues around free speech and expres­sion through dele­tion and deplatforming.

“Remov­ing us from these plat­forms takes away a tool of edu­ca­tion and infor­ma­tion from poten­tial­ly hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple who oth­er­wise wouldn’t have access to it,” Whiskey explains. ​“This space allows peo­ple to explore, open their hori­zons and see that things don’t have to be done in a misog­y­nis­tic, preda­to­ry or patri­ar­chal way. How­ev­er much they try to sup­press, silence and deplat­form us, the com­mu­ni­ty won’t cease to exist – we will always be here.”

Fol­low Aiyush Pach­nan­da on Insta­gram.

Fol­low Alex King on Twit­ter.

Enjoyed this arti­cle? Fol­low Huck on Twit­ter and Insta­gram.