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Franco and Webber's “‘This is fucking nuts’: the role of payment intermediaries in structuring precarity and dependencies in platformized sex work” (2024)
Adult labour platforms do not develop their policies arbitrarily or in a vacuum; they do so in order to comply with the stringent rules developed and enforced by payment intermediaries, that is, credit card networks and payment processors.
[R]esearchers have also underlined the labour insecurity and precarity involved in online sex work (Stardust 2019; Vlase and Preoteasa 2022). Frequent deplatforming, anti-sex work terms and conditions, and automated moderation on social media platforms exacerbate this insecurity (Blunt and Stardust 2021; Are and Briggs 2023). Researchers have also looked at the effects of payment rules and financial discrimination on the sex industry in general, and sex workers in particular (Stardust et al. 2023). Credit cards, banks, payment processors, and other financial services routinely debank sexual businesses and workers – refusing services, seizing funds, and closing accounts – cutting off their access to online transactions (Herrmann and Redman 2021; Free Speech Coalition and SexWorkCEO 2023). Individual sex workers are most directly impacted
[S]ex workers become collateral damage, whereby anti-sex work stigma is coded into governance and becomes depoliticized (Blunt et al. 2021), and instead problematized as a ‘market risk’, ‘brand risk’, or legal liability (Stardust 2019).
Payment intermediaries have targeted sexual content and the adult industry, both by deplatforming all forms of sexual content and by setting out rules and terms and conditions on what type of content is allowed, and how this should be verified and moderated. Recently, researchers have argued that they function as extra-legal regulators of online sex work, which has profound consequences for both adult businesses and individual sex workers (Beebe 2022; Stardust et al. 2023). These rules make the barriers to entry high, skewing the industry towards larger and mainstream platforms and away from alternative platforms or independent creators (Monea 2022; Stardust et al. 2023).
Credit card networks prohibit material that is both illegal and ‘brand-damaging’, limiting the types of sexual content that can be monetized on a global scale .. [T]he rules developed by Visa and Mastercard, which are then interpreted and enforced by processors, determine in part the terms and conditions and content guidelines of adult platforms.
Credit card networks and payment processors develop and enforce these rules in a top-down fashion that does not prioritize accountability towards sex workers or the adult industry (Franco Citation2024). At the same time, adult platforms can be cut off from essential payment infrastructure if they fail to comply.
Individual sex workers do not have the same leverage with payment processors as platforms do. It is difficult for performers and adult content creators to monetize live streams and other content outside adult platforms ... [P]eer-to-peer payment platforms that have become commonplace in platform society, such as Venmo, Cash App, or PayPal, prohibit use for sexual commerce.
Because transactions in the adult industry are conceived of as having higher chargebacks rates, peer-to-peer payment platforms maintain that they have more financial incentive to prohibit sexual commerce, and thus deplatform independent (online) sex workers (Beebe 2022).
This makes it difficult for individual sex workers to receive money from clients directly. Those who do are at risk of account closures, chargebacks, and high processing fees.
[T]he risks of account closures are also intensified by the need to protect oneself from chargebacks by disgruntled or dishonest clients ... Because the selling of sexual services and content violates the terms of service of payment services like Venmo, sex workers cannot dispute chargebacks.
”Now I have to run all my money through camsites that are taking 50%. I'm not even working on these camsites, sometimes it was just to take a payment.”
[T]he fees on adult platforms are substantial, typically higher than those of comparable non-sexual platforms. Adult fan platforms usually take 20% or more, whereas creator-subscription platform Patreon’s fees are between 8 and 12% (Patreon.com WebcamStartup.com). Adult webcam platforms generally take between 40 and 75% of performer earnings, whereas live-streaming platforms like TikTok, YouTube, or Twitch only take between 30 and 50% of subscriber or advertising revenue (TikTok.com, Twitch.com, YouTube Help, WebcamStartup.com). The higher fees found on adult platforms can be partly explained by their high processing fees.
Sex workers are dependent on platforms, but are treated as an expendable workforce, not unlike many other digital labourers (Piasna 2022). While platforms may want to retain and sustain relationships with their top-earners, Daniel (industry lawyer) maintains that ‘they’re looked at as disposable by all of the companies’.
[E]ven though most platforms, such as Cam4, have ‘community managers’ that performers can contact when they have issues with the platform, performers have little recourse to appeal deplatforming, content bans, or account and stream bans and suspensions.
The vagueness of the rules and their implementation leads to uncertainty for performers, who have to figure out what is and is not allowed on platforms in the face of punitive but inconsistent enforcement.
[E]ven though there is a baseline concerning prohibited content, all have different ‘forbidden fruits’. This is exemplified in a spreadsheet created by performer Sophie Ladder that sets out the exact rules on allowable content on the respective cam platforms, fan platforms, clip sites, and tube sites (Ladder 2023). For example, fisting is allowed on some platforms, such as on Stripchat and JustForFans, but not on others, including Chaturbate or OnlyFans. Other platforms such as FanCentro or ManyVids allow fisting, but not when it is considered ‘extreme’ or ‘violent’.
Nearly half (42%) of respondents to Webber’s survey report having to remove legitimate content because they could no longer meet the stringent ID requirements. While performers have always been legally required to obtain and maintain age and consent documentation (known as ‘2257’ paperwork), platforms now require additional records that go beyond this legal threshold, even for content that was previously verified.
To comply with the credit card requirements, platforms increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to verify performer identity and consent, which can exacerbate the aforementioned issues. Ava, activist and performer, explains that she had her content removed because the moderation technology picked up on her reflection in the mirror as if there were two people on camera – but she did not upload two IDs.
Credit card networks and payment processors are private companies that determine the parameters of content, moderation, and verification on platforms. These entities set the conditions under which sex workers can do their work and earn an income. This is especially problematic given that these stakeholders do not hold expertise on sex work, and do not understand the repercussions of their policies.
90% of survey respondents report some kind of disruption to their work due to Mastercard’s updated 2021 guidelines. More than half (58%) had one or more of their accounts flagged, while 32% had one or more accounts closed entirely. As already shown, 42% had to remove content because of superfluous ID requirements, while others (58%) had to remove content because the theme or storyline is now banned. Performers are unable to monetize content that has been removed, whereas platforms often withhold the funds from closed accounts. Consequently, sex workers are deprived of earnings from their labour while platforms may still benefit financially from it.
Jake, industry lawyer, also notes the financial consequences of complex approval processes saying that creators ‘can’t pay their rent that month because all of a sudden there’s this new compliance obligation and their account is suspended and they can’t make any money’.
“I never know what sites are going to go down because their payment went down or because their rules have changed, so I can’t just stay on one site and work in one place.”
Given the varied impacts of Mastercard’s rules, compounded with the unequal relationship between platform and performer, 75% of survey respondents saw a drop in their monthly income. This is significant given that 84% of respondents said their online adult content creation is a primary source of income. Among those whose sales dropped, more than half lost 50% or more of their monthly income, and many described how this affected their ability to make ends meet
The loss of income leads to less safety and grave health consequences for performers, who are disproportionately disabled (Jones 2020; Felkins 2022). Many try to compensate for their lost earnings by taking on less desirable work that is harder on their mental and physical health
“I wasn’t making ends meet before I started doing porn, and I was struggling with my health due to the demands of working full time while chronically ill. Porn gave me full time income but with a freer schedule for doctor’s appointments, treatments, and self-care.”
While 90% of all survey respondents experienced at least one impact to their work, relative risk ratio calculations show that Black performers were 44% more likely to have suffered multiple detrimental impacts, such as having accounts closed or experiencing income loss, than white performers. Other performers of colour (32%), those who produce content featuring fat performers (73%), and those who produce queer content (71%) experienced similar increased risk ratios.
Researchers have attested to the disproportionate harm experienced by non-white, and specifically Black, and queer people from algorithmic content moderation and biometric verification, which further contextualizes these findings (Drozdowski et al. 2020; Haimson et al. 2021; Siapera 2022).
Mastercard justified their rules by claiming they aim to ‘prevent the victimization of individuals’. Yet, as with the criminalization of sex work (Vanwesenbeeck 2017; Herrmann and Redman 2021), rules set by payment intermediaries that are ostensibly designed to prevent harm and sexual exploitation actually render sex workers more vulnerable: by reducing their opportunities for stable income, exacerbating health conditions, and increasing their reliance on third parties and undesired forms of work.
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