Why Elon Musk Should Protect Porn Stars on Twitter
Elon Musk’s will-he-or-won’t-he Twitter purchase may have descended into the Wall Street version of reality television, and it was recently eclipsed by the news that he’d reportedly paid a flight attendant $250,000 in hush money after she’d accused him of sexual misconduct, but his concerns about free speech on social media have sparked a valuable debate. Critics argue he’s setting the stage for a troll free-for-all, while others are celebrating Musk for potentially ushering in a new golden age of free speech. Throughout the debate, we’ve heard everyone from Taylor Lorenz to Ben Shapiro, but we’ve yet to hear from one of the most silenced groups on social media: porn stars.
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and other social media platforms censor us every day. Instagram seems to boot porn actors on a whim. Every girl in porn valley knows someone who lost their TikTok for posting a bikini pic, although every co-ed in Arizona can seemingly flash her belly button and shake her ass as much as she wants. Since I only create porn, I can only speak to pornographers’ experiences. I personally know that when people type in my name on Twitter, I don’t appear. You can argue all day if this is “shadow banning,” but the term doesn’t matter. The fact is: Silicon Valley censors adult performers, full stop.
Censorship hurts our ability to feed ourselves. When a pornographer loses a social media account, they lose the ability to promote themselves. If they cannot advertise, they can’t sell content. If they can’t sell content, they can’t make money. If they can’t make money, they can’t pay their mortgages, utility bills, etc. Sure, nobody wants to hear about our struggle—they just want to wank to our content—but our problems matter. And right now, we have a lot of problems. OnlyFans, many performers’ primary source of income, could ban us at any second.