Sex workers have repeatedly argued that rather than having any tangible effect on their safety, such restrictions actually eliminate vital sources of income while forcing them into more dangerous situations, including increased in-person sex work.
LaLa B. Holston-Zannell, trans justice campaign manager for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), specified in a Wednesday blog post that the policy will only serve to make sex workers, and trans sex workers of color in particular, more vulnerable to abuse.
“Economic freedom, healthcare, and other basic rights are inaccessible when politicians and corporations don’t treat sex work like they would any other job,” Holston-Zannell said. “Sex workers’ livelihoods shouldn’t depend on the whims of politicians and corporations.”
In a statement detailing the policy changes released in April, Mastercard’s senior vice president of customer engagement and performance, John Verdeschi, stated that the change was made with the hope of improving content controls for “people with the greatest need for these protections.”
“We’re committed to doing everything in our power to ensure only lawful activity takes place on our network,” Verdeschi said.
While policies like FOSTA-SESTA and the recent Mastercard changes are ostensibly intended to crack down on illegal child pornography or exploitation, advocates have noted that they do more to police than to protect — all while taking money away from already economically vulnerable populations.
In one 2020 study, sex worker-led research collective Hacking/Hustling found that 72.5% of respondents reported experiencing economic instability in the two years since FOSTA-SESTA.
“While FOSTA-SESTA’s purported purpose is to aid in the reduction of human trafficking, what we’ve witnessed within the scope of this study is that this law is contributing to the poverty that makes an individual more susceptible to labor exploitation and trafficking,” the study’s authors found.
In response to the policy change, the ACLU is calling on Mastercard to halt the new guidelines and instead work with stakeholders to determine how to “create stability and reduce harm for sex workers.”
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