Manifesto for Sex Positive Social Media

Dr. Zahra Stardust, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Queensland University of Technology

Thursday, April 25, 2024 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM EDT
Online Location

Social media platforms make private, arbitrary and unaccountable decisions about the kinds of sexualities that are visible in online space. Major platforms have a history of exploiting sexual content to grow their user-base and then purging sexual content creators, treating them as disposable. Such platforms employ surveillance technologies that screen for sex and nudity, share user information with law enforcement and advertisers and hold double-standards when assessing content created by lay users as opposed to celebrities. While over-policing sexual content, platforms lack a holistic response to addressing harassment, image-based abuse, malicious flagging, sexual racism, theft of sexual content and the unethical scraping of sexual databases. This paper presents a Manifesto for Sex Positive Social Media, featuring guiding principles for the design, moderation and regulation of sexual content. It draws from a Community Lab held among community organisations, advocates, and academics on Alternative Frameworks for Sexual Content Moderation held at RightsCon 2021.

Dr Zahra Stardust is a sexuality scholar whose work specialises in sexual media and sextech, analysing the design and governance of digital technologies. She focuses on the politics of sexual content moderation (including the production, distribution and regulation of explicit media), supporting platforms and regulators to understand the impacts of their policies and practices upon marginalised communities, particularly LGBTQA+ people and sex workers. Her first monograph Indie Porn: Revolution, Regulation and Resistance will be published by Duke University Press in 2024. Her first co-authored book Sextech: A Critical Introduction is under contract with Polity Books. Zahra is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Queensland University of Technology and an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.

This event will be hosted via Zoom. Register Here