The billion-dollar adult streaming industry is fueled by egregious labor abuses

“When we talked to the workers, they just wanted to get back at the cockroaches about how the studio owner is charging them for toilet paper or making them work when they’re on their periods. I couldn’t get people to talk to me about the platforms, and that’s all valid, because of course you’re mad at the guy you know,” Kilbride tells WIRED. “But there’s a whole other layer that’s completely It’s a billion-dollar industry that has been able to absolve itself of censure.”

WIRED reached out to BongaCams, Chaturbate, LiveJasmin and Stripchat for comment on the survey results.

The HRW report outlines important recommendations for improving conditions at both the studio and platform levels. This includes work safety standards for studios with regular inspections. Models should be able to take breaks and receive a minimum wage for their work management must not force models to perform specific sexual acts or agree to perform any actions on behalf of models.In addition, models must have access to confidential reports mechanism for them to notify law enforcement or other authorities of workplace violations.

The development of recommendations for their platforms is even more nuanced. Killbride says that most, if not all, adult streaming platforms have strict authentication requirements for creating accounts and specifically prohibit studio owners or anyone else from accepting the terms of service on someone else’s behalf. However, in practice, companies do not do enough, HRW researchers argue, to offer terms of service in a clear, understandable format in a variety of languages, including Spanish.

Platforms should also provide ways for content creators to report violations and receive a timely response, the researchers said , that the status quo on many platforms includes policy language that can confuse its users or technical complexities that allow content creators to say that it interferes with have verified ownership of their accounts.

On top of that, the stakes are especially high for account ownership issues, as researchers have found that studios often use “recycled” accounts that have been authenticated and approved by a single camera and then retained by the studio to bypass minimum requirements. age requirements and broadcast child sexual abuse material.

“We found that even though platforms are quite strict and have very clear policies about not broadcasting to children, studios still manage to hire and broadcast children using fake IDs or, more often, recycled accounts,” says Kilbride was done entirely with adults, but many people we spoke to started broadcasting as children when they were 13 to 17 years old.”

Kilbride stresses that the situation reflects an important point in sex worker advocacy and labor reform in general; listening to workers about their needs and protections that will help them do their jobs most effectively and fairly, and also protect other vulnerable populations. In this case, by allowing cameras to monitor and transmit their accounts and their followers, the adult streaming industry can also dramatically reduce the prevalence of sexual violence materials.