THREAD: there's a lot of justifiable anger at OnlyFans right now for betraying the sex workers who made them rich. That's justified. In the end tho, like most tech issues, the root of this problem is monopoly power. OF was running a business in a "store" they rent instead of own.
From what has been publicly reported, it seems that OnlyFans made it's decision to "pivot" (aka throw sex workers under the bus) based on a few factors:
1) pressure from payment processors / big banks
2) pressure from Big Tech giants like Apple
3) pressure from investors
1) pressure from payment processors / big banks
2) pressure from Big Tech giants like Apple
3) pressure from investors
The third problem is perhaps tough to solve without ... idk abolishing capitalism or whatever. But the first two are the direct result of rightwing evangelicals posing as anti-trafficking activists (ie Exodus Cry) exploiting vulnerabilities in centralized Internet infrastructure.
Payment processing has long provided a convenient choke-point for censorship. I'm old enough to remember when Palestine activists & support committees for prisoners like Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier were unceremoniously booted from PayPal in the early days of the service.
And Apple's puritanical (and inequitably enforced) "no porn" rule for its App Store is arguably an even bigger infrastructure issue. Since the company uses its app store monopoly to maintain a stranglehold on what software millions of people can and can't run on their iPhones.
Folks like @jilliancyork have excellent pieces about the dangers of pushing for content moderation at the infrastructure layer of the tech stack. (There's a lot of consensus about this at ISP level, that's #NetNeutrality, but we need to think beyond that) eff.org/deeplinks/2021…
I have argued, loudly, that pushing for more aggressive content moderation, especially from infrastructure-like entities like payment processors, web hosts, CDNs, etc, is a terrible idea that will always backfire against marginalized people and social movements. But...
... the reality is that that ship has maybe sailed. There is practically an entire industry now around pushing narratives like "Why is XYZ web service hosting ABC terrible thing? This is an outrage!" (and well-intentioned but misguided journalists happy to uncritically amplify)
So we can do harm reduction by pushing back against bad decisions like the ones that OnlyFans just made, and exposing the true intentions of groups that are doing their damnedest to chase sex workers off the Internet knowing full well that it puts people's lives in danger...
... but as long as businesses like OnlyFans are reliant on centralized tech infrastructure, they will always behave like businesses that are "renting" & not "owning," and they'll always be scared that their landlords (Mastercard/Visa, Paypal, Amazon Web Services) will evict them
There will likely be a ton of "OnlyFans alternatives" that will spring up in the coming days. Some that will be total scams or run by bros with a savior complex, and some that are genuine attempts to create decentralized options for people engaged in consensual sexual expression.
There is a lot of (legitimate!) skepticism from folks within the sex worker community and broader progressive communities toward #cryptocurrency and decentralized tech projects. But I will say that this OnlyFans news is exactly why I care about decentralized tech and finance.
I do not think that a world where governments can easily shut down platforms or where platforms can be forced to shut down by right wing moral panic targeting payment processors or other infrastructure providers is a better or safer world than one with uncensorable private money.
So, I'm as skeptical of the next person of reply-guys claiming "Blockchain will fix this." Because these are complex problems driven by intersecting oppressive systems and no one single piece of technology is going to fix them. But I hope this serves as a wake-up call to folks...
...when you dismiss cryptocurrencies or decentralized tech as "all a scam" or "just for criminals and money laundering," you're helping solidify a narrative that governments will use to kill off what could be our best chance to have a better, less fucked up Internet
Cryptocurrency is not magic, and there are plenty of scams and jerks floating around out there. But this is one scenario where it genuinely helps. Depressing to see folks who consider themselves on the left oppose tech that could enable an uncensorable worker-owned OF alternative
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