00:00So, Arabelle, you have done a lot of advocacy work. You co-founded BAWS in 2018. I know you're not working with them anymore, but you also helped organize the Oakland SESTA-FOSTA protests back when that was outlawed.
00:15So, tell me a little bit about the advocacy work and maybe explain to people who don't know what SESTA-FOSTA is, because I think that there's still a lot of people who don't understand it. And I think that in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the Texas age verification laws, people should maybe be a little bit more educated on what the adult industry is facing in terms of government suppression.
00:38SESTA-FOSTA was a bill that passed in 2018, where it basically made websites liable for kind of anything that happened on them, specifically around sex trafficking. The problem is that so many different things can fall under that umbrella. And so, when people were voting for it, they were like, of course, sex trafficking, bad.
01:04SESTA-FOSTA is such a sexy thing to get behind, because obviously nobody wants sex trafficking, but so many people lump any sex work under sex trafficking.
01:17SESTA-FOSTA Yeah. And so, basically, if there was anything to be found, like sex trafficking, you could hold Facebook liable, or YouTube, or whatever site it was facilitated on.
01:32But what kind of happened is that it then made every website basically censor and wipe sex workers off of every platform, because they didn't want them.
01:46Like, I mean, it didn't work for everything, but like, sure, they tried.
01:50SESTA-FOSTA And like, the biggest, the people who took the biggest hit was, I'm going to use this as a good example, is Backpage, which was a website that was for mostly lower income, in-person sex workers, escorts, prostitutes, whatever term you want to use, to be able to advertise on.
02:11SESTA-FOSTA And even, like, the police, when they, like, took it down, they were like, hey, this is actually how we find people who are trafficked.
02:18And there were lots of lawyers who also were like, hey, this is how I can actually, like, stay in touch.
02:22So, the people who are at the most risk, and they were getting hurt, were then, like, getting, like, falling deeper underground.
02:28And, like, the only ways that people could find them or contact them was through that site.
02:32SESTA-FOSTA So, can you explain how Backpages worked, and like, how that was beneficial to the law, in terms of, like, helping sex workers?
02:40SESTA-FOSTA Yeah, I mean, it was helping trafficked people, not sex workers.
02:43SESTA-FOSTA Yeah, sorry, the trafficked.
02:45SESTA-FOSTA But it also helps sex workers also stay safe.
02:47So, this was a website where you could, for very little money, put up an ad and get clients, right?
02:54So, instead of, like, say, having to work the streets, or just, like, not being able, or having to freestyle, going into bars, or whatever,
03:04it added a level of safety for a lot of sex workers.
03:07SESTA-FOSTA So, when it disappeared, a lot of, it forced a lot of people to do work that was more at risk of, like, you know, rape, death, theft, all those things, arrest.
03:17SESTA-FOSTA And, like, it helped if anybody was actually being, like, trafficked and being advertised, that's how police would use that site to find people who were being, like, forced.
03:28SESTA-FOSTA So, basically, people who were being trafficked and consensual sex workers all paid for this.
03:33SESTA-FOSTA And, nothing, it didn't help anybody, it didn't help anybody, and it just hurt people.
03:39I got people into more dangerous situations, and, yeah, period.
03:43And people were lost.
03:44SESTA-FOSTA It also had, like, forums and stuff where sex workers could talk to each other, and they could also flag problematic clients.
03:55SESTA-FOSTA So, that wasn't on Backpage, but this law then, like, sites like bad date lists and all those things also went down.
04:03SESTA-FOSTA So, yeah, so it's, like, Backpage, a lot of different sites went down.
04:06SESTA-FOSTA A lot of different advertisements, and, like, a lot of sites where, like, people would, yeah, report bad dates.
04:10If there's anybody that, like, experienced violence or anything like that with a client, they could report that number.
04:16And then, like, people who were engaging in that kind of work could, like, you know, screen people that way and see if there had been any reports.
04:25SESTA-FOSTA So, it just did a lot more, I mean, it just only did harm.
04:29I don't think anything positive came out of it.
04:31What was interesting is, like, all the, like, more accessible, like, all the websites that were made for, like, like, I mean, it was a class thing.
04:43Like, the fancy sites never went down.
04:46Like, you know, yeah, the sites were with, like, the more high-end workers, like, didn't go down.
04:52And it was all, like, to me, it was, like, war on, like, poor sex workers.
04:56SESTA-FOSTA Why do you think that that is the case?
04:58SESTA-FOSTA I don't know.
05:00I don't, I, that I have no idea.
05:01I mean, there's poverty.
05:03Like, we don't, we hate poor people.
05:05It's true.
05:06This country hates poor people.
05:07And so, it is interesting that, like, and those are the people who, you know, paid the price were those people.
05:16I think, you know, a lot of people who had the means adapted and, like, went and, like, advertised elsewhere and were able to, like, keep working.
05:24And it's always, like, the poorest who take that hit.
05:29I guess when you have money, you can pay for, like, good lawyers, right, to kind of argue.
05:33There's lawyers, there's other, like I said, the websites that people were advertising on that were, like, very expensive to advertise on are still there.
05:41You could make your own website.
05:42You could learn SEO.
05:43There's a million different ways, if you have the money, to do that.
05:47But, you know, that's not, not everybody has that.
05:50So, yeah, SESTA-FOSTA, like, and then it created also just a huge amount of censorship, too.
05:56So, now, like, sex educators, like, people who were just, like, talked about sex, they would also, like, get censored on all platforms because everybody's afraid to get sued for trafficking.
06:08Right.
06:08So, there's a large, like, ramifications.
06:11Yeah.
06:11For a bill that didn't even help the people who they were claiming to help.
06:16Right.
06:17Yeah.
06:17Right.
06:17I mean, there's a lot of, we see that.
06:20So much with, you know, organizations like Nicosi and Trafficking Hub.
06:26I mean, they dress up this, you know, conservative, religious right movement in, we want to protect women from sex trafficking.
06:38And they really use that as a Trojan horse to shut down porn.
06:43Exactly.
06:44I mean, the woman from Exodus who literally posted.
06:48Layla McElweiss.
06:49Yeah.
06:50Yeah.
06:50Posted her video, like, a part of her, like, video, this was child pornography, like, on, like, Twitter.
06:57Like, it's just insane.
06:59And, like, there were numerous people who had worked with them who then, like, you know, came out and said that they were, like, completely shafted.
07:06Learning kind of, like, learning kind of the background of how, like, anti-trafficking laws and organizations worked really made me question everything else.
07:16Because it sounds good, but it's not helping the people who are, like, it's hurting a lot of people who are, like, consensually doing the work.
07:26Yeah.
07:26But, yeah, so we put on that, that March into Oakland was me and Maxine Holloway, who still runs BOSS.
07:34Um, I, that's, it's, it's hard work.
07:38Like, and, uh, I think it was, um, activism and, like, especially, I think, in, like, identity-based activism gets, like, very messy and tricky.
07:52Uh, and so I, I, like, did not have the, like, I didn't, I didn't have it in me to keep going.
07:58Yeah.
07:58Um, but, like, we started it, we put on, you know, we set up a thing.
08:02We had, like, emergency, like, funds for people.
08:05I think they just shut that program down recently.
08:07But for years, they were just, like, if you didn't have a place to sleep, you didn't have a, you know, you needed groceries, you need to feed your kid, whatever.
08:14Like, you were sent, like, a couple hundred dollars, um, to, to help in, um, in your time of need.
08:22Um, so that was a thing.
08:23They helped people get housing.
08:25Um, there's a lot of different stuff.
08:27Education, um, sharing resources.
08:31Uh, but, yeah, so we put on the Oakland contingent because it was a national, I think, actually, it was a national thing.
08:37There were a couple, like, people, uh, uh, marches, like, internationally.
08:41But it was, like, obviously, it was a U.S. law.
08:42So, um, but, yeah, we did the, the Oakland march.
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