


Another platform, Tryst.link, is also available in the U.S., but is based in Australia. Take, for example, MegaPersonals, an escorting site that’s available in Canada, the U.S., parts of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, but which is actually based in Romania. “This legal risk has resulted in many websites shuttering entirely, while those that remain might find it more difficult to use other forms of online service that they previously would have had access to, like hosting services.”Ĭonsequently, many platforms are popping up from outside the U.S., while still catering to the American market. “ made it significantly more legally risky to run an escort site or a site where folks might advertise for in-person prostitution (or anything close to it) from inside the United States,” explains Kendra Albert, a clinical instructor at Harvard’s Cyberlaw Clinic. FOSTA-SESTA has granted federal authorities the right to take down any site where escorting is advertised, meaning new sites have to go under the radar, or base themselves outside of the U.S. This stigma, along with legal and financial crackdowns, has made life very difficult for sex workers, particularly those who provide in-person services. “It’s a shame - the social and political stigma of it all.” “You feel like society is out to get you and your career,” she says. Although Kelly says it hasn’t “personally affected” her much in the years since, its introduction marked a “mental shift” for her. Just days after the website was seized by the FBI, FOSTA-SESTA - which makes website publishers criminally liable for whatever their users upload, including sexually explicit content, consensual or not - was signed into law.
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“I had to scramble for months to figure out how to advertise again,” she tells me. When the escort classified site Backpage shut down four years ago, sex worker Kelly (not her real name) was at a loss.
