Basically pimping out girls, but digitally.
Also because it’s digital, no one actually has to leave their country. As a person living in a very poor country, we look upon this as safer than immigrating to work as a maid for a rich family in Dubai.
Yes, the trope of every single person in the adult entertainment world or escort world is automatically a victim of human trafficking is quite tired. Yes, it absolutely happens and should be stopped when found, but at the same time, there are people doing this work of their own volition and actually enjoy it.
When you make a demand illegal, it doesn't stop that demand, but instead a black market and exploitation happens around it. Making it legal will stop the crimes, make it possible for the police to patrol and arrest people doing the wrong thing, and provide a way for those exploited to seek help without themselves being exposed to another type of danger.
Show me your evidence.
That's complete horseshit...
Human trafficking isn't just applied to sex workers. Human trafficking happens with butlers, maids, housekeepers, drivers, gardeners, and other house-staff.
Human trafficking is a demand problem not a supply problem. People demand slaves, so a slave market is born; period.
Human trafficking is a: 'Humans Suck', problem. Can't stop human trafficking without curing the 'humans suck' thing.
Doesn't matter the protections in place, they're there already. Doesn't matter about exposure to the issue, we all know it's happening. Doesn't matter the legal repercussions we enact, the penalties are on the books.
Doesn't matter... Humans suck, and there are those who will pay a premium for a literal slave.
Humans suck...
I think the solution to demand problems is better options. Tiger poaching to sell their balls as boner pills went away with viagra. Viagra worked better than fake animal snake oils.
Domestic robots will solve the human trafficking for domestic slaves as robots will be cheaper and better.
I think there’s also social progress as neither I, nor anyone I know has human trafficked to get a butler or whatnot, but 100 years ago that probably wouldn’t have been true.
> I think there’s also social progress
Speaking about the US, there's a general aversion to employing people for personal service jobs. Tech workers making 300k can certainly afford a maid who makes 60k, but actively go out of their way to instead employ a variety of people through 'gig' work and 'apps' to do simple tasks. They simply don't want to be seen as employing a maid, but still get all the benefits of having one (via the errand running service).
The problem at hand is _only_ if those people are trafficked, and is not willingly being employed.
So we can prioritize the protection of people forced into sex work at the expanse of willing sex workers, just like we prioritize protecting workers from forced overtime at the expanse of those that are willing to work 24/7 (and like any other work related enforcement, it should be directed at employers, not workers)
I suspect the news article was a bit of subtle protest by that police department, but it kind of illustrate how low we as a society is prioritizing protecting workers. Some people in the construction industry has also came out saying that construction as an industry would not function without the cheap labor that human trafficking contribute. It should be a major alarm clock that protecting workers from the most basic of threats, ie threat of violence and/or threats by the employer to not pay the employee. Some of the enforcement should land at the consumer who benefit from the situation, which would require companies to insure against shady subcontractors.
If you have immigrated to a country where you don't speak the language, don't share customs or culture, and your religion is illegal to practice (ergo no social safety net) then it's not particularly 'safe' for you if you have a disagreement with your employer.
There are few meaningful safeguards. Platforms positively identifying performers is good, it helps combat trafficking of kidnapping victims if nothing else. But it doesn't begin to address all the other scenarios in which a performer might be coerced. The platform knowing that Performer X has real name Y doesn't give them any insight into the existence of Pimp Z who has access to all her documents/accounts and threatens to kill her if she ever tries to leave.
Maybe you think "I know this woman, I watch her stream for many hours a week in unrehearsed situations, I have a strong parasocial relationship with her and I know she's not being abused" But you don't know that. Abuse can be hidden from close friends, family, neighbors, and certainly it can be hidden from stream simps.
America prefers to pretend like it doesn't see things, so it isn't expected to do anything about them. Sufficiently underground child trafficking is as good an outcome as none because how could we have known? The same way you know about any other workplace abuses; you inspect, you interview, and you make resources available. But we'd rather treat it like we treat farmwork, and simply wear blinders and continue to buy vegetables.
edit: there's no reason that providing services to sex workers has to be lead to pimping other than that we prefer it that way.
That's just how news works.
I am sure there are even more ways that I can't personally think of, and obviously some would not be culturally accepted.
What most people don’t realize is that traditional cam platforms like LiveJasmin and Streamate allocate a 30% cut for themselves and a 30% cut for the referring affiliate, typically a porn site. The remaining 40% is allocated to the model - 30% if the model uses a studio.
Another unspoken player is the credit card processor who typically captures 10% of the revenue for “risk”.
There is a reason that even with those high fees to be made, most processors will not touch the industry.
With the system the way it is, the card processors eat a little loss from "fraud", and then use that as a justification to exert editorial control over what industries they want to process payments for, because there's a lot of "fraud" in them. No it's not fraud, it's someone being embarrassed about their spending habits and claiming their card was stolen. If it was harder to steal cards, that would change.
Visa/MC's crusade against legitimization of sex work is a political/religious stance that has absolutely no place in what should be infrastructure. Infrastructure should be neutral.
There is a reason CC fees are so high in the porn industry and it isn’t just huge companies ripping off the little guy. The CC processor not only has to factor in the risks of client chargebacks but also the merchant themselves doing something shady (malicious or not)… say getting their DB hacked and having all the CC data in plaintext or something. Or just the merchant folds up shop and bails on the customers…. 10% rates exist for a very good reason
The govt's pretext has been "reputational risk." Isn't it nice of the feds to tell a bank that "someone" might not think well of them if they provide services to "those" people?
It is established law that a business that acts at govt behest is a state actor, so that "pressure" is enough to bring the 1st amendment in. That is, if there's a 1st amendment argument. However, said de-plaforming doesn't seem to succumbed to a 1st amendment challenge.
Maybe such a business would win with a first amendment argument on FedNow, but how many can survive until that decision comes down?
Source? I have never heard of this.
I did not know this was a thing until I came across this watching a few podcasts. Then more and more and more I realized this management industry was quite big.
And it makes sense, the performers are performers and not really business oriented for the most part. So its a vacuum that was waiting to be filled.
Then again, is it really any different from managers for actors, musicians, artists and other "normal" industries? I remember my father who was an artist had a few gallery owners who managed his sales, showings, personal commissions and other artist activities.
Now that I think about it decades later, its remarkably like pimping. Hahaha. No wonder dad had a love/have relationship with those people.