Image-based sexual violence and imperfect victims: the case for platform cooperativism in the online sex industry

ABSTRACT

There is growing need for greater empirical understanding of the data violence experienced by online sex workers. Popular discourse about image-based sexual violence (IBSV), or ‘revenge porn’, often fails to identify the widespread proliferation of this practice within sexual services. This occurs as both consumers and adult-services platforms surreptitiously record and post performances on porn sites without consent, which can have severe implications for workers’ mental and social well-being. First, I apply a workerist lens to the neoliberal sexual agenda, which governs the (in)visibility and (un)freedom of online performers (OPs) across a variety of institutional settings. This exposes how top-down ideological power relations disappears OPs from legislative approaches to IBSV. Second, I show how IBSV emulates the tendencies of the platform business model, such as data appropriation and surveillance. I conclude with solutions including protections based in technology and human rights law, alongside platform cooperative development within a wider decriminalization framework.

KEYWORDS:

• human rights law
• image-based sexual abuse
• online sex work
• platform capitalism
• platform cooperativism
• workerism

Introduction

Locating the central experience of online sex workers within both policy approaches and dialogue about image-based sexual violence (IBSV) is critical to harm reduction. ‘Revenge porn’ belongs to a category of non-consensual online pornography, whereby sexual images or videos are shared without consent (Salter and Crofts 2015). This ‘highly gendered activity’, which disproportionately affects women, was categorized as an illegal sexual offence in 2015 in the UK (Salter and Crofts 2015, 233; McCallum 2023). It is typically represented as a malicious act committed with the intention of humiliating the victim. However, the discourse of ‘revenge porn’ is problematic due to its generally narrow association with vengeful ex-partners. This tends to disappear the experience of online sex workers – for whom the practice is widespread.

‘Camgirls’ sell sexual services online and, despite being frequently victimized by IBSV, are concerningly absent from debate. I use the term online performer (OP) instead of camgirls, following the guidance of Sex Workers’ Union (SWU) representative Harper Thornhill. Harper regards the term OPs as more inclusive than ‘camgirls’, which marginalizes the value of sex work and the experience of trans, non-binary, and cis-male workers. With this intersectionality in mind, it is important to acknowledge that sex work is still by and large performed by women (Smith and Mac 2018; Bowen et al. 2021). This industry is a growing gig economy sector. Workers interact with complex artificial intelligence systems while selling sexual services through adult-services platforms. This produces a competitive digital marketplace of content production, live streaming and subscription-based services.

Once such content is stolen and reproduced within the circuits of capital, its eternal presence can haunt the lives of victims of IBSV. Peacock (2021) called for an end to the use of the term revenge porn, and instead adoption of ‘image-based sexual abuse’. This terminology has been expressed within academia (McGlynn and Rackley 2017; Powell, Henry, and Flynn 2018; Powell, Scott, and Flynn 2020; DeKeseredy 2021). These studies exposed detrimental consequences including limited avenues of prevention, loss of sexual autonomy, and exacerbation of mental illness, alongside intensive and devastating victimization. Indeed, this act is not a category of porn but a novel iteration of misogynistic violence. Peacock (2021) notes that revenge porn terminology is harmful to ‘porn actors’, as it conflates crime with sex work and therefore exacerbates existing stigma.

Stigma shapes the governance of sex worker visibility and freedom in the digital economy. This can be attributed to the neoliberal sexual agenda, which was first identified by Bernstein (2007). This agenda prioritizes criminal justice over social welfare and masks capitalism’s role in shaping entry into labour markets. I advance understanding of this concept through the methods of workers’ inquiry, which emerged from the class composition analysis of Autonomist Marxist academics during the latter half of the twentieth century. These theorists stressed that workers’ struggles and organization (political composition) arise autonomously from exploitation and antagonism within production (technical composition) (Negri 1979; Tronti 2019a). Such theorists drew important attention to the multilayered agency of workers, stressing that capital’s technical tools of power can be sabotaged and repurposed from below.

While social reproduction has always been a feature of workerist discourses (Dalla Costa and James 1971; Federici 1975; Cleaver 1979), the workerist publication Notes from Below has recently developed a more explicit threefold framework of class composition analysis by incorporating social composition as an essential third element. This exposes how political composition is driven by struggles outside technical composition, in relation to ‘state-provided social services, migration and borders’ alongside community networks (Notes from Below Editors 2018). Social composition in this sector is troubled by IBSV, as the state can draw on non-consensual data online to police the lives and bodies of sex workers. The neoliberal sexual agenda ensures the industry’s shadowy existence as an informal labour sector regulated only by carceral solutions. Subsequently, there is absent socio-technical safeguarding against IBSV, while the states inattention towards labour standards enables exploitative platform governance. The proliferation of IBSV within technical composition therefore reflects a general lack of rights and protections.

This article draws on qualitative PhD fieldwork including critical discourse analysis of the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA), video diaries, and participant observation of adult-services sites and sex worker events, alongside multiple in-depth interviews with OPs and members of the UK SWU between July 2022 and July 2023. The SWU provided essential access to union representatives and unionized participants. Sex workers are rightly untrusting of motives within both the media and academia, due to stigmatizing attitudes. Developing trust with this community during fieldwork shed important light on labour dynamics. Interviews with union representatives Jason Domino and Harper Thornhill also offered critical insight. I developed an almost ethnographic relationship with the latter, following the co-research methods of workers’ inquiry. Harper offered generous access to her knowledge both as a sex worker and as a sex workers’ rights advocate.

I followed Harper’s work with the SWU closely for a year. This led to co-presenting at a conference together, a co-authored article, and co-organizing a conference to present evidence about the harms of online criminalization to Ofcom. Interviews were conducted online and offline in London. My case-study approach involved observation of several sex worker organizations alongside the SWU, including the cabaret show Sexquisite and the socialist cooperative Cybertease – the latter of which informs discussions in this article. My workerist approach reflects on both class composition and the capitalist terrains to broadly locate the struggles of OPs within ideological power relations. I will first outline how the politics of seeing impacts the visibility of OPs in legislative approaches to IBSV. Second, I show how IBSV emulates the tendencies of the platform capitalism business model, such as data appropriation and surveillance. Finally, technical and legal protections, alongside policy directions like platform cooperativism, will be stressed as safeguarding mechanisms within a wider framework of decriminalization.

The politics of seeing in the neoliberal sexual agenda

The absence of OPs from cultural and legislative discourse about IBSV can be attributed to ideological power relations. Such understanding shifts the methods of workers’ inquiry to more balanced focus on both top-down and bottom-up dynamics of class struggle. The composition of capital develops across the economic, political, and cultural terrains, where it faces its own ideological battle for dominance (Hall 2019; Tronti 2019b, 2020). This dynamic is currently being absorbed into increasingly hostile attitudes towards sex workers, as political actors drive policy approaches towards criminalization. Such legislation exacerbates commercial risk for businesses associated with the industry, sparking increasing algorithmic surveillance and ejection from social media and financial technology – FinTech – platforms. In this context, the neoliberal sexual agenda controls a politics of seeing with three dominant gazes: the carceral gaze, the paternal gaze, and the algorithmic gaze. This has a significant impact on the (un)freedom and (in)visibility of workers in the sex industry. OPs are thus disappeared from a broad array of cultural, political, and institutional settings, including gig economy discourse, mainstream labour politics, legislative protection, and essential forms of economic and cultural participation (Rand 2019).

The carceral gaze is driven by the influence of radical – or abolitionist – feminism and anti-sex worker organizations on the cultural terrain like Nordic Model Now!, CEASE UK, and Not Buying It, whose rage towards misogynistic violence creates a blindness to the benefits provided by access to the sex industry. Bernstein identified that ‘carceral feminism’ evolved from the ‘militarized humanitarianism’ of both evangelical and feminist anti-trafficking activism, who associate blanket harm and organized crime with this industry (Bernstein 2007; 2010, 47). The paternal gaze represents state actors on the political terrain who seek to curtail sexual autonomy or impart violence through the power of inattention. This is driven by morality politics and fear that decriminalization will not be popular with the public. Indeed, recent policy approaches ignore decades of research into the positive impact of decriminalization (Comte 2014; Vuolajärvi 2022). The algorithmic gaze within the technical composition of OPs is shaped by this agenda, with new media technologies allowing platforms on the economic terrain to monitor and reduce access to digital communities and services. The neoliberal sexual agenda thus causes widespread institutionalized stigma, which has violent consequences. In this way, ‘sex worker’ is an inherently politicized identity with a specific, and historic, lived experience of stigma and discrimination (Smith and Mac 2018; Smith 2020).

Struggles within technical composition like IBSV also face erasure by this agenda. Conversations about labour standards are sidelined by the wider threat of criminalization. Subsequently, the union faces a complex political battle to protect SWU members while also defending the existential right to exist. Simultaneously, sex worker organizations have been critical in driving IBSV dialogue towards the incorporation of this community (Bowen et al. 2021). While pornography consumption has been identified as a predictor of proclivity to engage in IBSV among young people, studies do not generally acknowledge the central experience of sex workers (Paradiso, Rollè, and Trombetta 2023). This could relate to underreported experiences, lack of academic awareness, or the general stigma which disappears OPs from dialogue. An attitude remains unspoken but evident: if a sex worker freely offers up sexual content online, then they cannot be victims of this same content. However, OPs do not consent to their private sexual services being leaked to the eternal clutches of the internet.

Such disregard reflects the general inattention paid towards labour standards within sexual services. In 2019, the sex worker advocacy organization National Ugly Mugs carried out research alongside sex worker organizations to assess perceptions of violence in the industry (Bowen et al. 2021). The data collected from this project demonstrate how IBSV is particularly applicable to the sex industry. GOV.UK (2023) reports that one in seven women and one in nine men aged between 18 and 34 years have experienced threats to share intimate images, with more than 28,000 reports recorded by police between April 2015 and December 2021. This is about 14% and 11%, respectively, for women and men. In the survey carried out at the same time by Bowen et al. (2021), 30% of sex workers expressed that they had experienced non-consensual sharing of intimate images. This suggests that sex workers are potentially twice as likely to experience IBSV than women and approximately three times more likely to experience this crime than men. For sex workers who primarily work online, I suspect the figures are much higher than Bowen et al. (2021) report. During fieldwork, most of my research participants reported having experienced IBSV. While these results are not representative due to the small sample size of my qualitative study, it is clear from participant narratives that IBSV is something everyone accepts as an unfortunate and pervasive reality of technical composition.

This produces a fine line of risk and reward. OPs are aware platforms do nothing to protect them, with reports of clients screenshotting as they live-stream services. However, such experiences have been rendered mostly invisible in both the literature and legislative action (Online Safety Act 2023; Paradiso, Rollè, and Trombetta 2023). The National Ugly Mugs report criticized the ‘definitions of what constitutes revenge porn’ in the Revenge Porn Act 2015, alongside failure to recognize how sex workers are distinct victims of IBSV (Bowen et al. 2021, 16). This criticism has fallen on deaf ears, as the OSA has once again failed to acknowledge the relevance of OPs. Sex workers are targeted as a primary harm, rather than victims of online harm. The act focuses on protecting children and adults from ‘primary priority content’ like pornography, including deepfake porn, and ‘priority illegal content’ like IBSV and ‘inciting prostitution for gain’ (Online Safety Act 2023). While the latter is not illegal in the UK, criminalization of incitement means that full-service providers are prohibited from advertising their services online. This increases vulnerability to dangerous practices, as sex workers use platforms to safely vet clients. Platforms now found guilty of hosting IBSV, alongside advertising of ‘prostitution’ and victims of sexual exploitation, can face large fines or even prison sentences (Online Safety Act 2023).

Digital protections against trafficking and sexual violence are undeniably crucial. However, the OSA views the sex industry exclusively through a carceral gaze. Ironically, this compromises the safety of this sector by reducing access to safer forms of economic participation. The algorithmic gaze will protect social media and FinTech platforms from the punitive consequences of the OSA, by monitoring, blacklisting, and shadowbanning OPs. Legislation addressing pornography should include specific directives for adult-services platforms to establish technological safeguards against IBSV. However, the absence of sex workers from conceptions of ‘sexual exploitation’, ‘protection’, and ‘empowerment’ exposes how deeply entrenched stigma is – with an act focused on media regulation within online pornography completely disregarding digital labour standards (Online Safety Act 2023). The suggestion is that while ‘children’, ‘adults’, and ‘trafficking victims’ are deserving of protection, sex workers are not (Online Safety Act 2023). They emerge as imperfect victims, responsible for their own sexual exploitation and associated only with danger and criminality. The political terrain thus feeds the politics of seeing embedded into the neoliberal sexual agenda, as the digital labour experience of sex work is rendered (in)visible. Bowen et al. sum this issue up succinctly:

Legislation is a blunt instrument and existing policies do not accommodate nuances and diversity of experience in sex work nor the specific forms of violence associated to working conditions and power relations. (2021, 10)

Legislation is indeed steeped in power relations. The OSA represents an ideological struggle, as the political terrain seeks to curtail the freedom of economic actors through the (un)freedom of the sex industry.

A critical advocate and former SWU union representative, Jason Domino suggested during fieldwork that this act represents an attempt to gain regulatory power over Big Tech companies through punitive fiscal measures. Platforms are increasingly developing soft power to influence the economy, culture, election outcomes, political spheres of debate, and employment relationships (Culpepper and Thelen 2020; Hinds, Williams, and Joinson 2020). By establishing license to fine companies which breach content regulations, the state can be seen as establishing authority over these increasingly ubiquitous and predatory entities. This further appeals to moral panics in the neoliberal sexual agenda, which tend to arise during periods of change and economic insecurity (Tiidenberg and Van Der Nagel 2020). So, while this struggle is wrapped into public fears regarding new technologies, it simultaneously acts as a smokescreen for wider issues of exploitation and instability within the capitalist system. However, the OSA does not particularly impact the neoliberal agenda of these enterprises, as they are still free to monopolize markets, evade taxes, engage in exploitative data appropriation, and erode secure employment relationships. The (un)freedom of sex workers is unlikely to impact this power, as there is zero dialogue about their rights as workers despite the focus on IBSV. Moreover, legislation like this makes OPs more reliant on adult-services platforms, due to ejection from social media and FinTech. The discourse of protection in the OSA is therefore troubled by an ideological drive to not only erase the experience of OPs but the sex industry itself. This benefits the capitalist markets which profit from their easily exploitable and disregarded labour.

Opportunity for IBSV in the platform business model

Erasure of sex worker experiences is synonymous with consumer violence on platforms. Workerist analysis of IBSV exposes the relevance of the producer–consumer dynamic within the technical composition of service workers. Consumers have a significant influence on the wage relation and general labour experience of OPs. Despite violence like IBSV, the producer–consumer relationship can also reflect non-violent and reciprocal dynamics which emphasize the value of socially reproductive, pleasure-based services. Marxist theorist Tregenna (2009, 13) suggests that the temporal and spatial inseparability of production and consumption within ‘services commodities’ distinguishes such sectors from manufactured commodities. This is a decisive point for OP technical composition, as the data double is often produced at the same time it is consumed during live streaming. It is during such services that acts of IBSV can occur, alongside unsolicited reproduction of clip content sold on subscription-based platforms like OnlyFans. Misogynistic exploitation – or what can be termed networked misogyny – is fundamentally shaped by the invisibility of adult-services platforms within labour rights frameworks. This also enables economic actors to get away with their own violent strategies of data appropriation. There is a lack of socio-technical safeguarding against IBSV on cam sites, while the states inattention towards ethical standards enables exploitative platform governance.

The term ‘networked misogyny’ has been used by Dickel and Evolvi (2023) to describe online communities shaped by intense use of social media, gamer culture, and toxic masculinity. Characteristics of this subculture include violence, rejection of consent, and anger towards feminist women. This crosses over with rape apology within incel (involuntary celibate) culture and the viral following of self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate, who encourages ‘loverboy’ seduction tactics to trap women into camming to generate income (Dawson 2023). It is conceivable that some consumers of online sex work are connected to followers of Tate and wider fringe groups online, including incels who perceive themselves through women’s lack of sexual availability to them. This can perhaps explain why some people attempt to access content for free or steal and reproduce images without consent to shame sex workers. Indeed, IBSV occurs within a wider digital context in which sexual violence towards women is both celebrated and cultivated within social media platforms. This is evident when it becomes a tool for other kinds of online abuse.

The term ‘doxing’ is used in this industry to refer to experiences of stalking and harassment, whereby consumers threaten to expose sex worker identities online. IBSV provides ample fuel for the doxing of sex workers. OPs often wish to remain anonymous and operate under pseudonyms. IBSV can be used to threaten this anonymity through exposure to friends, family, and other workplaces. It also causes severe harm, with performers reporting experiences of depression, anxiety, terror, and stalking during interviews. This is why it is important to understand IBSV as a data protection and data justice issue, given that compromised anonymity can cause ostracization from social and institutional settings. In this sense, sex workers can face double victimization from IBSV. First, when they are subjected to the crime, and then again when they face social exclusion based on their status as sex workers. Thus, IBSV is not only widespread but comes with complex safeguarding issues.

Any publicly available data which identify OPs as sex workers can be used against them due to the institutionalized stigma they face. For example, participants reported stories of US border control using facial recognition technology to identify them as sex workers and ban entry into America where selling sex is illegal. This might seem like an abstract issue in relation to IBSV. However, many OPs only sell private streaming services and sell content intended solely for the eyes of their client. When this content is non-consensually reproduced and sold to other platforms, this also increases opportunity for state surveillance. The algorithmic gaze is thus a key policing mechanism of the neoliberal sexual agenda, as governments emulate the harmful surveillance and data appropriation capabilities of platforms. Accordingly, this practice does not just shape struggles within technical composition but social composition too, as IBSV can influence relationships with social networks, communities, borders, and the police. This again draws attention to harmful politicization of sex worker identity. It also demonstrates how data violence emerges in different ways, both as a tool of sexual assault and as a mode of governance. Hoffmann (2021) uses this term to describe material and symbolic violences exacted by data technologies. This occurs in the ‘classifying, sorting, bounding, labelling and optimizing of technologies’ by state and private actors in expressions of informational power (Hoffmann 2021, 3541). In this sense, it is important to acknowledge how IBSV mimics the harmful tendencies of the platform business model.

Platform capitalism is defined by its voracious appetite for data (Srnicek 2017). Sex workers benefit from the accessible and flexible nature of platform work in the gig economy. However, they are simultaneously exploited by capitalist enterprises which show little interest in labour rights and protections. Concerns about ‘revenge porn’ grew following the global outcry triggered by the website Is Anyone Up? This platform hosted thousands of non-consensual images and videos. The American founder, Hunter Moore, encouraged users to post sexual images of their ex-girlfriends (Salter and Crofts 2015). Moore also hacked women’s emails and stole content for his site, which set the stage for the IBSV embedded into the camming sector. It is, as Salter and Crofts (2015) say, a business model and one which made Hunter Moore very rich – at one point he claimed to be earning more than US$13,000 a month in revenue. Is Anyone Up? shut down in 2012 following increasing hacking allegations, and in 2014 Moore was jailed for 2.5 years (Salter and Crofts 2015). More recently, the conviction of reality celebrity Stephen Bear triggered increasing cultural dialogue and pressure on the UK government to strengthen existing laws in the OSA. Stephen Bear shared on OnlyFans non-consensually recorded footage of himself and fellow celebrity Georgia Harrison having sex. He also profited from this action, showing again that this crime is often not only an act of sexual violence but one of financial sexual exploitation.

This is indicative of why interpretation of IBSV as a consequence of the current platform business model is important. Like Is Anyone Up?, OPs share experiences in which adult-services platforms engage in this crime. This is occurring in two ways. First, sites like MyFreeCams have surreptitiously recorded live stream performances and sold them onto other platforms without consent. Second, participants suggested that adult-services platforms are selling the profiles of OPs to other sites without consent, demonstrating how data are the ‘raw material’ which feeds the predatory dynamics of platforms (Couldry and Mejias 2019, 339). OPs report receiving emails asking them to ‘claim their profile’, where they find their content has already been extracted and placed onto another cam site. Performers believe the dominant sex work platform, Adult-Work, is selling their content for third-party profit after being approached by other platforms. These examples highlight how economic actors exploit data violence to generate revenue – but this tendency is built into the digital economy.

Platform capitalism is dependent on data appropriation and extraction (Srnicek 2017). In this sense, the platform business model and networked misogyny mirror each other, with the desire to breach privacy, consent, and ethical boundaries reflected in both. Moreover, gig economy platforms’ status as intermediaries – connecting producers and consumers in the market – rather than as employers, enables them to shirk responsibility. The actions of adult-services enterprises offer deeply concerning articulations of IBSV that are receiving no attention in political and legal spheres. The inattention of the paternal gaze under the neoliberal sexual agenda is affording platforms opportunity to turn data violence into profit. Meanwhile, the political terrain is failing to hold economic actors accountable under UK laws. The actions of MyFreeCams and Adult-Work expose a debased lack of regard towards the workers who generate their revenue. This does not mean adult-services sites should be shut down – as this would exacerbate poverty and risk of violence offline – but reimagined as ethical digital workspaces.

Solutions

Dialogue about ethics has experienced significant amplification since the emergence of the SWU. SWU has organised from the grassroots, offering historic advancement of political composition in this sector. Both offline and online service providers are represented, enabling what foundational workerist Mario Tronti (2019b) calls ‘massification’, whereby different compositions of class expand and experience internal homogenization. This offers vital unity, as neoliberal competition and classed division can disrupt collectivization. Given the isolated disparity of this workforce, it is also no surprise that the SWU emerged in 2018 alongside the rapid expansion of social media. Union reps communicated how essential technology is to union meetings and organizing members. This supports workerist theory, which stresses how capital’s technical tools can be repurposed for sabotage and autonomous action (Negri 1979; Tronti 2019a). With no support from the economic and political terrain, the SWU also provides essential aid to members experiencing IBSV. This includes emotional care within the SWU WhatsApp group, where OPs can discuss experiences of industry abuse and get directed towards support services. The SWU also offers legal representation. If an OP finds their content non-consensually shared, the union can send intimidating legal letters to both platforms and consumers threatening action. This is somewhat dependent on awareness of who has committed the crime, however, and this can be difficult to ascertain.

Sex workers are often compelled to devise solutions to their own problems. My research participants suggested several ways that IBSV could be subverted within technical composition. First, anti-screen capture software could be adopted as a safeguard against illicit screenshots and unauthorized content recording. Social media platforms like Snapchat already use this technology. Second, Harper Thornhill believes IBSV could be mitigated through alteration of the exchangeable image file format (EXIF) data associated with explicit content, by shifting focus to protection of sex workers. EXIF files contain information about the origin of photographs, such as the location where the photograph was taken. While uploading content typically involves removal of EXIF data, Thornhill suggests employing novel use of steganography, a technique that conceals data, to embed and encrypt this information for enhanced protection. Thornhill questions whether platforms can incorporate, rather than eliminate, EXIF data as a means of attributing ownership, tracking viewership, and identifying recipients. This could increase protections against non-consensual appropriation and distribution of content, as well as hold perpetrators of IBSV accountable.

Second, Thornhill and I have discussed whether sex work could be a protected characteristic under human rights law. This refers to specific aspects of a person’s identity stated in the Equality Act (Malleson 2018, 598). There are nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Malleson argues that this framework must ‘satisfy three conditions: they must have some definitional and categorical stability, they must broadly reflect people’s understanding of social reality and lived experiences and they must align with the most significant axes of discrimination in society’. The inclusion of lived experiences, belief, and sexual orientation is suggestive of some basis for sex work as a protected characteristic.

The belief that sex can be paid for has been a historic subject of political debate. As demonstrated, sex work identity itself is inherently politicized and intensely vulnerable to violence, persecution, stigma, and abusive acts of data appropriation. If sex work was absorbed into this legal framework, then OPs would be protected from the harms of IBSV, such as being fired from places of employment, as well as potentially experiencing more legal rights to their own data. Thornhill and I spoke to several lawyers who suggested this proposal was unfounded or difficult to achieve. Yet the political belief that sex can be paid for found ardent expression in the feminist sex wars and has given rise to three positions within feminist discourse: abolitionism, sex-positive feminism, and decriminalization (Comte 2014). This suggests that sex worker identity is both politically and ideologically conceived and therefore could be considered a protected belief.

Despite this, the current drive towards criminalization under the neoliberal sexual agenda makes it unlikely that sex work will be considered an identity deserving of legal protection. Proposals would be met with fierce opposition by the carceral gaze of anti-sex worker organizations like Not Buying It and CEASE UK. Such advocacy groups lobby government for the abolition of prostitution and pornography, with active social media presences opposing decriminalization (Nordic Model Now 2023, n.d.). For example, on 27 October 2023, Not Buying It (2023) reshared a tweet on X from CEASE UK celebrating the ‘royal assent’ of the Online Safety Act with the caption: ‘This IS HUGE … Thank you to @CEASEorgUK and the many others who have worked for YEARS to get this through!’ This elucidates how the cultural terrain informs hostile attitudes towards pornography and sexual services in the OSA.

Anti-sex worker organizations shape not only lobbying campaigns, but perceptions on social media too. Such efforts make it difficult for the political terrain to address change, as politicians care about public perception – whether they believe in the morality of sex work or not. If the sex industry is associated with blanket harm, then how can individuals who sell sex be considered deserving of legal protection? The carceral gaze ensures that OP experiences of IBSV are less visible. As the OSA shows, focus remains on the inherently criminal nature of porn and commercial sex rather than potential safeguarding legislative frameworks. It is, as Rand (2019) says, considered bad work – immoral and undeserving of attention. This context only adds fuel to the political composition of OPs, with growing advocacy for transformation within the sex industry.

Fairtrade to Fairwork

As the SWU online representative, Harper Thornhill has recently called for a Fairtrade movement in the sex industry. This could establish sex worker-led certification bodies, tasked with ethically monitoring the labour standards of platforms. Those that meet the criteria would be certified as Fairtrade, while platforms that actively fail to safeguard against IBSV would be put under a spotlight. Fairtrade sex has been envisioned in the grassroots for some time. The shift to feminist porn production as ‘fair trade porn’ is discussed by Paasonen, Nikunen, and Saarenmaa (2007, 1). Such a producer, Tristin Taormino (2013), offers conditions that can be built into regulation of Fairtrade porn. These conditions should always be set by the workers, who are the experts of safe and consensual sexual labour. Mondin (2014) also references how porn producers are leading this conversation on Fairtrade modes of production and ethical representation. Scott (2016) called for ethical standards such as discussions of consent, guidelines on pornographic spectatorship, and responsible consumption. This should include participation in designing the socio-technical infrastructure of cam sites, with experts like Harper Thornhill offering critical foresight about how they could be ethically reconceived. Fairtrade porn means sexual services without consumer violence like IBSV.

The Fairwork Foundation has recently adopted the struggle of the Fairtrade movement for the platform capitalism context. The foundation has connected academics and legal professionals to set minimum Fairwork standards for gig economy platforms (Graham et al. 2019). It has developed into a transnational research project establishing ethical labour standards for digital work. The foundation has developed five principles of fair platform work: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and opportunities for representation (Graham et al. 2019). It has also recently started an important inquiry into the needs of online sex workers. However, due to the invisibility politics this sector faces, Fairwork standards alone will not offer transformative change. Adult-services platforms do not reflect the principles and are highly unlikely to receive good Fairwork ratings. They are also unlikely to offer more reciprocal benefits if this will impact profits. This became evident during fieldwork about conditions within technical composition. For instance, participants shared that Adult-Work, which generally dominates the UK market, raised the percentage they take from the wages of service-providers so that they would not have to pay their own corporate tax. Moreover, while the behaviour of OPs is algorithmically monitored, consumer violence is not. This is reflective of a general disregard for the rights and working conditions of sex workers – including IBSV. However, such inaction of the economic terrain offers impetus for class struggle.

Platform cooperativism

This context is indicative of the need for worker-owned platforms, which are recognized by the UK government and ethically developed so exploitation like IBSV is prohibited. Wilkinson (2017) has highlighted diverse economies within online pornography, including calls for alternative economic structures. Such structures could reflect Fairwork principles, with opportunity for worker control over technical composition. Platform cooperatives offer this transformation advocated for within sex work discourses (Mondin 2014; Scott 2016; Wilkinson 2017). They reimagine the economic reality of venture capital-funded gig economy firms, offering democratic ownership, labour rights, and union representation (Scholz et al. 2021). This also feeds into workerist theory. Tronti (2020) indicates that struggles can be advanced through productivity, entrepreneurship, and political initiative within the working class. This requires an ‘ideology of pure subversive principle’ (Tronti 2019b). There is evidence of such character within the political composition of OPs. During fieldwork I discovered an example of a rudimentary platform cooperative called Cybertease, which was formed by a collective of unionized strippers who fell out of work during the pandemic. Cybertease hosts online and offline events, shares profits evenly, uses events as a political mouthpiece, and aligns with socialist, boss-free ideological discourses. While the cooperative now mainly runs offline, it does expose evidence of radical political composition within the community. This is evident in the statement of one of its founding members, April Fiasco:

We always talk about politics  …  we’ll be like hey this is a socialist online strip club, we share all the profits between each other, we support sex workers, we support full decriminalisation of all sex work, and you should too and make sure you tip us all. someone from the union suggested us doing it as more of a co-op thing so we all shared the money  …  It’s the fairest way of doing it. (Interview, October 21, 2022)

These discourses show critical reflection on unequal power structures within capitalist business models. April also shows how sex workers confront the neoliberal sexual agenda with a radical politics of visibility from below.

Several platform cooperatives have emerged over the last decade within food delivery, transport, domestic labour, music streaming, and photography (Scholz 2023). Stocksy, a stock photography platform cooperative based in British Columbia, has an annual revenue of CAD$10.7 million (Scholz 2023). CoopCycle, a bike food delivery software platform, has built more than 67 cooperatives across seven countries and has extended from Europe to Canada and Australia (Scholz 2023). In the UK, a full-service platform cooperative called Horizontl was recently in the process of development. However, the founder has shared that legislation is a major barrier, suggesting that criminalization greatly diminishes opportunity for labour rights advancement. This is especially relevant since the OSA passed. Despite this, the other examples demonstrate the feasibility of building alternative economic structures. A Platform Cooperativism Consortium policy report recommends several approaches governments can take to enable platform cooperatives to compete against the considerable venture capital investment and monopoly power of capitalist enterprises:

1. Procurement policies which prioritize platform cooperatives over privately-owned firms.

2. Public solidarity finance campaigns incorporated into national, regional, and municipal development strategies.

3. Public participation in multi-stakeholder cooperatives via direct state ownership of co-op shares that provide a public voice in cooperative management.

4. Legal research which ensure laws governing cooperatives are considerate of shifts in digital technology.

5. Public benefits available to workers of platform cooperatives like healthcare, childcare, and worker training.

6. Networked public spaces as hubs for explicit use of platform cooperatives. (Scholz et al. 2021)

This suggests that state actors can empower gig economy workers, including those in the sex industry, to experience ownership over production. Arguably, service sector labour in general should be owned by workers or nationalized by government. Grassroots unions could provide a platform for a platform cooperative by rallying members for consultation and participation. Harper Thornhill and I intend to merge industry, grassroots trade union, and academic expertise to enable platform cooperative development for online sex workers. The platform will be entirely owned and managed by workers, with equal divestment of profits. This can be built with the intention of protecting workers from IBSV and misogynistic abuse. The aim is also to encourage ethical consumption of sex work, and to centre labour rights within an ethical framework which prioritizes community, care, and workers’ rights.

As workerists suggest, technology can indeed be repurposed to sabotage capital (Negri 1979; Tronti 2019a). Such action need not be limited to acts of disruption within technical composition, as platform cooperative development involves reclaiming ownership over the means of production within service labour. Sex work has historically existed outside capitalist markets, whether in the home or in brothels – it is the digital economy that has so egregiously shifted the balance of this dynamic. In his later years, Tronti (2019b, 2020) began to focus analysis on ‘autonomy of the political’. This sparked the hypothesis that political autonomy of state and civil society would lead to greater freedom from capitalist domination. The former means autonomy of the state to operate independently from capitalist influence, while the latter refers to the political development of innovative workers’ organizations which autonomously represent class interest. This enables the hypothesis that political and economic autonomy will lead to greater advancement of sex workers’ rights.

Conclusion

There has been increasing inquiry about the ineffectiveness of laws against image-based violence, which many claim are not working (Malleson 2018; Robinson and Dowling 2019; Mania 2020; Bowen et al. 2021). The question must also be for whom are they not working? State actors are emboldened by morality discourses, which often leave sex workers out of definitions and official labour statistics (Rand 2019). Camming platforms also skirt under the radar because of their position as an intermediary, rather than an employer. Subsequently, IBSV continues to flourish within this informal labour market. The OSA has strengthened pre-existing laws pertaining to IBSV by making it easier to convict perpetrators. New laws are also proposed to address the rise in deepfake pornography. However, nowhere is it acknowledged in the discourse that online sex workers also need protection from this crime. ‘Safety’ is only applied to UK citizens which represent acceptable notions of victimhood. Sex workers are thus imperfect victims. The UK government must recognize that full decriminalization will counteract the extensive harms inflicted by stigmatizing laws. Second, there is grounds to include sex work as a protected characteristic under human rights law due to the intense politicization and marginalization of this identity. Sex workers’ rights are critical to human rights frameworks and require urgent, and more effective, adoption within them. Third, Fairwork standards, alone, will not be enough to improve labour conditions for online sex work, due to the deeply embedded politics of invisibility. Subsequently, there is a growing need for platform cooperative development in this sector, built with Fairwork principles, which are fully owned by workers and prioritized by the UK government. Platform cooperatives are a form of data justice, which could enable critical safeguarding against IBSV and new conceptions of what digital rights are within the increasingly prevalent reality of platform work.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with a minor change. This change does not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Economic and Social Research Council [UKRI Grant Ref Number is: ES/P000703/1].