Once upon a time, Twitter was paradise for sex workers. We could post our thirst traps, network and build community with each other, find clients, and build a following. Then came the hateful algorithms with their dreaded shadowbans. Building a following became virtually impossible, and our posts were hidden from our actual followers who WANT TO SEE THEM BC THEY FOLLOW US! We tried to warn the masses that these tools would be weaponized against political dissenters, but predictably we were mostly ignored. (We’re trying to warn y’all about banking discrimination and the dangers of facial recognition technology too but that’s a subject for another post. Just know that they always test their hateful tech tools on us first, then roll them out for the respectables and normals.)
If you are interested in learning more about this, check out Hacking Hustling’s piece
Anyway, when Melon Husk bought Twitter, we knew it didn’t bode well, but some remained hopeful due to all his yapping about “free speech.” Of course things only got worse for us under Apartheid Clyde, but most of us have stayed because it remains one of the only platforms where you can post tit without catching a permaban for it.
I guess the Neo-Nazification of the platform culminating in the re-election of Trump with Elon’s help has finally pushed us over the edge, because there has been a huge migration over to BlueSky (aka LibSky.) Will it be better? Probably not. But for now, the shadowbans are minimal and fascists don’t appear to be tolerated so here we are.
Y’all may or may not realize it but sex workers tend to be at the forefront of new tech trends and innovations. When a new platform pops up, we’ll be there shortly with innovative new ways to sell hole. So I predict that LibSky may just take off.
TL;DR: if you post tit, they will come
Someone will probably create a thirstposter block list on blue twitter. Bluesky has robust blocking tools.
Siiiiiigh
“Thirstposting” aka “Desperately trying to make enough money to buy groceries and pay rent.”
I understand people’s frustration with seeing content they don’t want to see, especially when my colleagues spam their shit under unrelated posts. But the reason so many SWs resort to spam is that every platform deboosts us to the point that our own followers can’t see our posts.
I always follow platform rules regarding marking my content/profile sensitive, 18+, NSFW etc but every platform still restricts my ability to reach people who do want to see me!! We used to be able to just build a following organically because a lot of people on the internet actually do want to see tits and ass.
Word. The more hostile the system gets the more aggressive the advertising needs to be to get eyes on it, and then it creates an arms race between censorship algos and advertisers
Yes that’s exactly it.