Dec 22, 2020 15:00:00

There is also concern that sex workers will be adversely affected, as a bill requiring 'confirmation of the consent of performers' will be submitted to adult sites

On December 4, 2020, the New York Times

reported that 'a lot of child pornography and revenge pornography are posted on Pornhub , a porn movie sharing site,' and Pornhub stopped payment services and a large number of movies. I was busy with measures such as deletion. A new US lawmaker has submitted a bill that requires adult sites to 'confirm the consent of performers,' but there are concerns that 'the risk to sex workers is high.'

Merkley, Sasse Unveil Urgently Needed Legislation to Crack Down on Online Sexual Exploitation | US Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon
https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/press-releases/merkley-sasse-unveil-urgently-needed-legislation-to-crack-down-on-online-sexual-exploitation

Pornhub squarely targeted in bipartisan bill to regulate sex work online | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/pornhub-squarely-targeted-in-bipartisan-bill-to-regulate-sex-work-online/

Journalist Nicholas Kristof 's article on Pornhub at the New York Times was a big hit, with Mastercard and Visa suspending Pornhub payments . Pornhub has announced measures such as uploading movies by unauthorized users and stopping the download function, and it is reported that more than 10 million movies uploaded by unauthorized users have been deleted.

The world's largest adult site Pornhub deletes more than 10 million 'movies uploaded by unauthenticated users' --GIGAZINE

On December 18, US Senators Jeff Merkley and Ben Sasse announced that they had submitted a bill for the Stop Internet Sexual Exploitation Act. The two said the bill was a follow-up to the disturbing report that 'this is a movie or photo being uploaded to a website like Pornhub without the consent of the performers.' This is an effort to beat the victims and trauma. 'Gives', claiming that it is a law that prevents online sexual exploitation and trafficking.

'Human dignity is important. Normal society is obliged to fight sexual exploitation and trafficking. For many years, Pornhub and its parent company, Mindgeek, have been raping, abusing and sexually exploiting children. It has been monetized. Victims have lived in pain and fear while traffickers in suits have become wealthy, 'accused Pornhub and Mindgeek by name.

The 'Internet Sexual Exploitation Prevention Law' requires platforms that provide pornographic content to verify the identity of users who upload movies and to have 'signed consent forms' for all people who appear in movies. We also require you to disable the ability to download movies from the platform.

In addition to this, for the platform, 'building a system that allows victims to delete movies from the website', 'establishing a 24-hour hotline that can respond to deletion within 2 hours from the request', 'deleted movies' The bill also requires measures such as 'introducing software that blocks the re-uploading of.' In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice needs to create a 'database of individuals who have stated that they do not agree to post the movie in which they appear' and the platform will refer to this database to check the content uploaded. That is.

Technology media Ars Technica points out that society needs to eliminate the exploitation of minors and those who disagree with sex work, and the bills submitted by senators are well-meaning. On the other hand, advocates of sex workers claim that 'the wording of the bill is ambiguous and poses a risk to those who want to engage in sex work.'

Adult entertainment writer Ana Valens points out that the bill is vaguely saying 'a platform for hosting and making public pornographic images available.' This definition may include not only adult movie sites like Pornhub, but also platforms such as OnlyFans and Patreon used by people in the adult entertainment industry, as well as social networks such as imageboards Reddit and Twitter.

Most websites may uniformly ban the posting of adult content if these websites are subject to regulation, as it would cost a lot of money to meet all the requirements of the bill. not. In that case, sex workers who act on their own will be expelled from OnlyFans and Patreon, and there is a possibility that financial problems will occur.

Valens argues that the requirement to require the performer's identity can also have a negative impact on the performer. The system of 'allowing posts on all platforms or denying all posts' of the database is inflexible, and you have to trust that all platforms that hold the database do not receive personal information. Must not be.

From these issues, Valens said the new bill 'creates impossible expectations and standards while not resolving online sexual exploitation, but instead causing the removal of adult content or the closure of indie sites.' I conclude.

In 2018, the FOSTA-SESTA law was enacted to ban online sexual trafficking, making it impossible for sex workers to advertise online and recruit prostitutes. As a result, many sex workers who were prostitutes themselves claimed that they were 'not only financially hit but also physically at risk', and sex workers saw new legal restrictions as dangerous. doing.

There are also voices in Congress concerned about the negative impact on sex workers, and in December 2019 a bill was submitted calling for an investigation into the impact of the FOSTA-SESTA law on sex workers. 'Sex workers are the most oppressed in our society, with many women of color and transgender,' said US House of Representatives Ro Khanna, who submitted the bill, and the FOSTA-SESTA law is the most social. He argued that it could hurt even more vulnerable people.