The recent news regarding Onlyfans removing adult content from their site came as a surprise to many, but not Annie Brown. “Due to investor bias, payment processing blocks, FOSTA/SESTA, app store policies, and other factors at the intersection of culture, politics, and technology, removing adult content has always been imminent for these large platforms.”
Annie is the founder of Lips, a feminist technology company at the forefront of the inclusive design movement, building products designed to unlock opportunities for previously underserved and intersectional marginalized communities. Their first product is a social media platform designed for women and LGBTQ individuals seeking a space to express themselves through art without the unhealthy aspects of mainstream internet culture such as online harassment, censorship and plagiarism.
Lips launched their first iteration as a digital platform in late 2019 (though it’s roots as a popular print zine go all the way back to 2007), right before what is now referred to as the Tumblr Porn Ban. 84M users left Tumblr between December 2019 and January 2020, immediately following the controversial implementation of strict policies regarding sex-positive accounts.
“Because Lips’ mission is, and always has been, about creative self-expression, we saw Tumblr’s sweeping ban of all things sex, gender, and sexuality-related, including art, education, and legal/consensual sex work, as an opportunity to figure out why this was happening, and what we could do about it to support our community,” says Brown.
For activists like Brown who have been speaking out against social media censorship for years, the Onlyfans announcement of deplatforming marginalized users is not a surprise. It is yet to be seen how Onlyfans will handle the removal of adult content, but based on her experience and research on Instagram and Tumblr, Brown predicts, "Onlyfans might try to backtrack since the response to their statement was so negative, but instead will remove any content related to sexual expression slowly and surreptitiously."
This is very similar to how Instagram continuously denies the existence of a practice called "shadowbanning" -- a way for companies to prevent their content from showing up in “suggested” searches and hide them from non-followers, but still appear for followers.
In their research and experience, the Lips team and Brown have concluded that unless a platform is founded on principles to center marginalized voices, it will eventually push off vulnerable communities in order to appeal to large corporations, conservative groups, and investors.
Brown explains, "For all of these large platforms there is a standard pattern -- guidelines will either become more and more strict and vague, making it near impossible for systematically targeted groups to remain online. These guidelines are constantly moving goal posts based on the whims and moral judgements of big tech executives, advertisers, and payment providers, and therefore impossible to adhere to.”
This last point is particularly interesting, as it was revealed that Mastercard threatened to stop processing payments on Onlyfans if it did not create stricter guidelines regarding adult content. Patreon followed suit by pushing updated terms of service upon its users as well.
In essence, the religious extremists pressuring payment processors and platforms are capitalizing upon the moral panic within tech culture by leveraging arguments against sex trafficking to push ineffective, harmful solutions, including a widespread erasure of sexual content from the Internet. This means an erasure of many women, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC artists, models, and performers, sex educators, as well as the purposeful silencing of feminist, queer, and anti-racist activists.
Photographed by: Anastasya Photography
As a result, many creators have been forced to flee the digital platform economy entirely, in favor of distributed methods of content production. For sex workers in particular, this means that many will be turning to in-person work for an income. This can sometimes mean more dangerous situations or illegal work. For many chronically ill artists, sex workers, educators, and activists, in person work is simply not an option.
“There is no easy answer to the preservation of sex-positive content online,” says Brown. “Our communities are facing with unfair and harmful censorship from all sides due to a complex web of longstanding victorian/puritanical morality among the American elite, the monopolization of technological influence and power among a small number of white, cis, heterosexual men, as well as the continued criminalization of sex work.”
However, one of the goals of Lips is to show that just because something is not easy, does not mean it’s impossible.
“We have been told that it has to be this way. That the online experience for women, non-binary, LGBTQIA, and BIPOC communities simply will always be less than - more dangerous, less healthy, unstable, and tumultuous. But the way things are now, this is primarily due to the fact that our modern technological systems have been dominated by cis, white, male perspectives on innovation.”
For Brown, innovation is synonymous with, and dependent on intersectional inclusion and the centering of marginalized voices in technological development. Because Lips places these voices at their center, they are motivated to think creatively to navigate systemic limitations on expression that currently exist.
For example, Lips has launched as a progressive web app. This was a deliberate choice due to app stores' vague rules regarding sexual text and imagery. Even if a Lips app was deemed suitable for the App Store, at any time Apple or Android can revoke that approval based upon content it finds objectionable. A progressive web app allows Lips to circumvent App Store monopolies, and provides its users with the ability to exist online safely without fear of erasure.
Lips also currently asks all users to frame any sexually explicit content within the framework of self-expression and/or art. In this way, all the content on Lips is inherently protected under the first amendment.
For those familiar with the research surrounding sex trafficking prevention, it is obvious Lips’ model of open and honest expression of sex and sexuality is a much safer and smarter approach to actually curbing exploitation and harm online.
According to a recent article published by The New Republic, “If SESTA/FOSTA was intended to protect people by making it easier to prosecute traffickers, it was a miserable failure...If SESTA/FOSTA was meant to associate sex workers with allegations of sex trafficking, leading platforms to refuse them service out of fear of increased legal risks, and in turn further marginalizing and stigmatizing sex workers, it was a tremendous success.”
Authors of the first in-depth legal analysis of SESTA/FOSTA concluded that “though the exact legal applicability of FOSTA is speculative, it has already had a wide-reaching practical impact; it is clear that even the threat of an expansive reading of these amendments has had a chilling effect on free speech, has created dangerous working conditions for sex-workers, and has made it more difficult for police to find trafficked individuals.”
Photographed by: Anastasya Photography
Lips is vocal in it’s call for the end of FOSTA/SESTA and decriminalization. However, they also know that there is an immediate need for safe spaces online, and are working to build this with Lips despite the existence of FOSTA/SESTA.
For Brown, open discussions of sexuality and the proliferation of erotic art are key to shifting our society towards sex-positivity and ending rape-culture, sex trafficking, and gender/sexual discrimination. Lips has built this philosophy into their technology, and is taking user safety to the next level while still allowing sex-positive creators to thrive.
“The product roadmap for Lips includes age-verification, which is already beyond what Facebook and Instagram require,” says Brown. “We also ask that all Lips community members participate in a one-time approval process if they would like to post or comment on the site. This ensures that harassment is limited, and that bad actors are deterred from using the app. We are also thrilled to announce we have added esteemed technologists to our advisory board who are experts in online safety, security, and compliance.”
So where does Lips place itself in the universe of alternatives to platforms like Onlyfans that are deplatforming creators unfairly? While Lips does have monetization features planned for its next phase of development, and hopes to integrate subscription content platforms into its marketplace API, Brown sees Lips’ role first and foremost as an alternative to platforms like Instagram and Tumblr.
“For our long term goal of developing computer imaging models that can help to make algorithms less-biased towards sexually liberating, anti-racist, queer content, it’s important that we stay focused on our mission of creating a creative sharing social app. There are a lot of smaller, but still great alternatives to Onlyfans out there that we plan to collaborate with. However, there is nothing quite like Lips - we’re filling an important gap that exists, and demonstrating how social media can be better.”
Lips is not an adult content site per se, but are adamant sex worker advocates and have a significantly more nuanced and open-minded approach to moderation, allowing for nudity and other forms of “explicit” expression and promotion. Unlike other platforms, Lips even brings users into the moderation process - and will soon have elected moderation boards made up of a combination of academic experts, users, and representatives from stakeholder communities, including sex workers.
As a social media platform, Lips fulfills an important role in the online financial ecosystem of creators. Most Onlyfans creators rely on social media promotion to gain paid subscribers. This is why when Instagram started deleting accounts for linking to subscription sites, this caused a lot of financial insecurity and stalled growth for creators.
Because Lips is not an adult site, it allows for folks who might be browsing for photography, erotic art, LGBTQIA creators, etc. to discover sex worker accounts, appreciate their artistry and work, and most importantly, view them as fellow humans.
“Exposure to diversity is crucial in a healthy society. I think Lips does this in an authentic, exciting, and safe way. Myself and the team are thrilled about the possibility of a more inclusive Internet where our beloved community gets to finally exist at and lead from the center.”
You can download the Lips app at lips.social, as well as learn more and invest in their ongoing equity crowdfunding campaign at wefunder.com/lips.
The recent news regarding Onlyfans removing adult content from their site came as a surprise to many, but not Annie Brown. “Due to investor bias, payment processing blocks, FOSTA/SESTA, app store policies, and other factors at the intersection of culture, politics, and technology, removing adult content has always been imminent for these large platforms.”
Annie is the founder of Lips, a feminist technology company at the forefront of the inclusive design movement, building products designed to unlock opportunities for previously underserved and intersectional marginalized communities. Their first product is a social media platform designed for women and LGBTQ individuals seeking a space to express themselves through art without the unhealthy aspects of mainstream internet culture such as online harassment, censorship and plagiarism.
Lips launched their first iteration as a digital platform in late 2019 (though it’s roots as a popular print zine go all the way back to 2007), right before what is now referred to as the Tumblr Porn Ban. 84M users left Tumblr between December 2019 and January 2020, immediately following the controversial implementation of strict policies regarding sex-positive accounts.
“Because Lips’ mission is, and always has been, about creative self-expression, we saw Tumblr’s sweeping ban of all things sex, gender, and sexuality-related, including art, education, and legal/consensual sex work, as an opportunity to figure out why this was happening, and what we could do about it to support our community,” says Brown.
For activists like Brown who have been speaking out against social media censorship for years, the Onlyfans announcement of deplatforming marginalized users is not a surprise. It is yet to be seen how Onlyfans will handle the removal of adult content, but based on her experience and research on Instagram and Tumblr, Brown predicts, "Onlyfans might try to backtrack since the response to their statement was so negative, but instead will remove any content related to sexual expression slowly and surreptitiously."
This is very similar to how Instagram continuously denies the existence of a practice called "shadowbanning" -- a way for companies to prevent their content from showing up in “suggested” searches and hide them from non-followers, but still appear for followers.
In their research and experience, the Lips team and Brown have concluded that unless a platform is founded on principles to center marginalized voices, it will eventually push off vulnerable communities in order to appeal to large corporations, conservative groups, and investors.
Brown explains, "For all of these large platforms there is a standard pattern -- guidelines will either become more and more strict and vague, making it near impossible for systematically targeted groups to remain online. These guidelines are constantly moving goal posts based on the whims and moral judgements of big tech executives, advertisers, and payment providers, and therefore impossible to adhere to.”
This last point is particularly interesting, as it was revealed that Mastercard threatened to stop processing payments on Onlyfans if it did not create stricter guidelines regarding adult content. Patreon followed suit by pushing updated terms of service upon its users as well.
In essence, the religious extremists pressuring payment processors and platforms are capitalizing upon the moral panic within tech culture by leveraging arguments against sex trafficking to push ineffective, harmful solutions, including a widespread erasure of sexual content from the Internet. This means an erasure of many women, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC artists, models, and performers, sex educators, as well as the purposeful silencing of feminist, queer, and anti-racist activists.
Photographed by: Anastasya Photography
As a result, many creators have been forced to flee the digital platform economy entirely, in favor of distributed methods of content production. For sex workers in particular, this means that many will be turning to in-person work for an income. This can sometimes mean more dangerous situations or illegal work. For many chronically ill artists, sex workers, educators, and activists, in person work is simply not an option.
“There is no easy answer to the preservation of sex-positive content online,” says Brown. “Our communities are facing with unfair and harmful censorship from all sides due to a complex web of longstanding victorian/puritanical morality among the American elite, the monopolization of technological influence and power among a small number of white, cis, heterosexual men, as well as the continued criminalization of sex work.”
However, one of the goals of Lips is to show that just because something is not easy, does not mean it’s impossible.
“We have been told that it has to be this way. That the online experience for women, non-binary, LGBTQIA, and BIPOC communities simply will always be less than - more dangerous, less healthy, unstable, and tumultuous. But the way things are now, this is primarily due to the fact that our modern technological systems have been dominated by cis, white, male perspectives on innovation.”
For Brown, innovation is synonymous with, and dependent on intersectional inclusion and the centering of marginalized voices in technological development. Because Lips places these voices at their center, they are motivated to think creatively to navigate systemic limitations on expression that currently exist.
For example, Lips has launched as a progressive web app. This was a deliberate choice due to app stores' vague rules regarding sexual text and imagery. Even if a Lips app was deemed suitable for the App Store, at any time Apple or Android can revoke that approval based upon content it finds objectionable. A progressive web app allows Lips to circumvent App Store monopolies, and provides its users with the ability to exist online safely without fear of erasure.
Lips also currently asks all users to frame any sexually explicit content within the framework of self-expression and/or art. In this way, all the content on Lips is inherently protected under the first amendment.
For those familiar with the research surrounding sex trafficking prevention, it is obvious Lips’ model of open and honest expression of sex and sexuality is a much safer and smarter approach to actually curbing exploitation and harm online.
According to a recent article published by The New Republic, “If SESTA/FOSTA was intended to protect people by making it easier to prosecute traffickers, it was a miserable failure...If SESTA/FOSTA was meant to associate sex workers with allegations of sex trafficking, leading platforms to refuse them service out of fear of increased legal risks, and in turn further marginalizing and stigmatizing sex workers, it was a tremendous success.”
Authors of the first in-depth legal analysis of SESTA/FOSTA concluded that “though the exact legal applicability of FOSTA is speculative, it has already had a wide-reaching practical impact; it is clear that even the threat of an expansive reading of these amendments has had a chilling effect on free speech, has created dangerous working conditions for sex-workers, and has made it more difficult for police to find trafficked individuals.”
Photographed by: Anastasya Photography
Lips is vocal in it’s call for the end of FOSTA/SESTA and decriminalization. However, they also know that there is an immediate need for safe spaces online, and are working to build this with Lips despite the existence of FOSTA/SESTA.
For Brown, open discussions of sexuality and the proliferation of erotic art are key to shifting our society towards sex-positivity and ending rape-culture, sex trafficking, and gender/sexual discrimination. Lips has built this philosophy into their technology, and is taking user safety to the next level while still allowing sex-positive creators to thrive.
“The product roadmap for Lips includes age-verification, which is already beyond what Facebook and Instagram require,” says Brown. “We also ask that all Lips community members participate in a one-time approval process if they would like to post or comment on the site. This ensures that harassment is limited, and that bad actors are deterred from using the app. We are also thrilled to announce we have added esteemed technologists to our advisory board who are experts in online safety, security, and compliance.”
So where does Lips place itself in the universe of alternatives to platforms like Onlyfans that are deplatforming creators unfairly? While Lips does have monetization features planned for its next phase of development, and hopes to integrate subscription content platforms into its marketplace API, Brown sees Lips’ role first and foremost as an alternative to platforms like Instagram and Tumblr.
“For our long term goal of developing computer imaging models that can help to make algorithms less-biased towards sexually liberating, anti-racist, queer content, it’s important that we stay focused on our mission of creating a creative sharing social app. There are a lot of smaller, but still great alternatives to Onlyfans out there that we plan to collaborate with. However, there is nothing quite like Lips - we’re filling an important gap that exists, and demonstrating how social media can be better.”
Lips is not an adult content site per se, but are adamant sex worker advocates and have a significantly more nuanced and open-minded approach to moderation, allowing for nudity and other forms of “explicit” expression and promotion. Unlike other platforms, Lips even brings users into the moderation process - and will soon have elected moderation boards made up of a combination of academic experts, users, and representatives from stakeholder communities, including sex workers.
As a social media platform, Lips fulfills an important role in the online financial ecosystem of creators. Most Onlyfans creators rely on social media promotion to gain paid subscribers. This is why when Instagram started deleting accounts for linking to subscription sites, this caused a lot of financial insecurity and stalled growth for creators.
Because Lips is not an adult site, it allows for folks who might be browsing for photography, erotic art, LGBTQIA creators, etc. to discover sex worker accounts, appreciate their artistry and work, and most importantly, view them as fellow humans.
“Exposure to diversity is crucial in a healthy society. I think Lips does this in an authentic, exciting, and safe way. Myself and the team are thrilled about the possibility of a more inclusive Internet where our beloved community gets to finally exist at and lead from the center.”
You can download the Lips app at lips.social, as well as learn more and invest in their ongoing equity crowdfunding campaign at wefunder.com/lips.
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