
highlights
The Corporate Metaverse Can’t Compete
November 1, 2022
I recently spent part of my afternoon throwing giant Wendy’s Baconators at a basketball hoop, and no one was there to see it. When I entered the Buck BiscuitDome—a low-poly stadium shaped like a giant burger, one of the many mostly barren “worlds” to visit in Meta’s Horizon Worlds—and saw that no one was there, I wasn’t surprised. Recent reports revealed that Meta is bleeding users by the hundreds of thousands, and that the company can’t even get its own employees to hang out in its virtual reality metaverse. The BiscuitDome is an abandoned relic of a Wendy’s brand activation; digital litter left from a one-month March Madness-themed event earlier this year. But it’s emblematic of what many corporations seemingly think that the metaverse is for: pricey ads that might draw a few eyes at first, and then fritter off into forgettable detritus.
The Crusade Against Pornhub Is Going to Get Someone Killed
April 13, 2021
A post by an extremist Christian group on the far-right social media platform Gab called for the death of a specific Pornhub executive. “WANTED,” the image posted to Gab, featuring a man’s headshot and full name, said. “For crimes against women and children. Help us bring pornstars to justice. Save your children from the LGBT ideology. Save your daughter from becoming a whore. Save the white race!” Another image in the same post shows a man in military fatigues and a black ski mask holding a gun.
For years, anti-trafficking organizations have pushed agendas that toe the line of vigilantism. They shouldn’t be surprised when someone takes their version of “justice” into their own hands.
Sex Workers Banned from Banks Turn to Crypto
April 7, 2022
For our fifth episode of CRYPTOLAND, Motherboard visited Allie and Belle Creed, another sex worker primarily using cryptocurrency, at the Las Vegas headquarters for Spankchain, a crypto platform made for sex workers by sex workers.
Crypto and NFTs are the only reason many were able to weather last year’s shakeups in the porn industry—OnlyFans announced and then walked back a decision to ban NSFW material, which caused them to lose subscribers, and Visa, Mastercard and Discover cut ties with Pornhub, cutting off hundreds of performers from their livelihoods. In October, Mastercard implemented even more strict rules for adult content platforms and their creators, causing them to lose even more money—and opening them up to more vulnerability.
platforms and moderation
- ‘My AI Is Sexually Harassing Me’: Replika Users Say the Chatbot Has Gotten Way Too Horny
- Deepfake Porn Creator Deletes Internet Presence After Tearful ‘Atrioc’ Apology
- Why This Teen Walked Away From Millions of TikTok Followers
- What Is the EARN IT Act and Why Is It Bad for the Internet?
- Virginia School Board Bans ‘Sexually Explicit’ Books, Threatens to Burn Them
- There Is No Tech Solution to Deepfakes
- ‘Sex Trafficking’ Bill Will Take Away Online Spaces Sex Workers Need to Survive
- Deepfakes Were Created As A Way to Own Women’s Bodies—We Can’t Forget That
- Archivists Are Preserving Capitol Hill Riot Livestreams Before They’re Deleted
labor issues in the adult industry
- Sex Workers Detail the Financial Damages of Mastercard’s Discrimination
- Anti-Porn Crusaders Are Going After Twitter Next
- ‘I Felt Betrayed’: OnlyFans Creators Scramble to Adapt to Imminent Ban
- A New Wave of Reckoning Is Sweeping the Porn Industry
- 40 Girls Do Porn Victims Are Suing Pornhub for $1 Million Each
- How Cam Models Changed the Porn World Forever
- Inside the Underground Trade of Pirated OnlyFans Porn
- An OnlyFans Model Is Trying to Subpoena Reddit for Users Who Pirate Her Content
banking discrimination
sex tech
fetish and kink
misc