Securing Sexuality is the podcast and conference promoting sex positive, science based, and secure interpersonal relationships. We give people tips for safer sex in a digital age. We help sextech innovators and toy designers produce safer products. And we educate mental health and medical professionals on these topics so they can better advise their clients. Securing Sexuality provides sex therapists with continuing education (CEs) for AASECT, SSTAR, and SASH around cyber sexuality and social media, and more.
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Navigating Privacy Regulations in the Porn Industry
The pornography industry has always been a topic of debate and controversy, with concerns ranging from ethical considerations to the potential impact on individuals involved. In recent years, however, there has been an increasing focus on the privacy of users within this industry. With the proliferation of online platforms and the ease of access to adult content, it has become imperative to address the potential risks to user privacy and ensure accountability within the pornography industry. We explore the impact of privacy regulations on the pornography industry, with a specific focus on protecting user privacy and enforcing accountability.
Privacy regulations play a crucial role in safeguarding user privacy and ensuring responsible practices within the pornography industry. These regulations aim to protect individuals from potential harm and exploitation, while also promoting a safe and secure online environment. One such example of privacy regulations is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) implemented by the European Union in 2018. The GDPR outlines strict guidelines for the collection, storage, and use of personal data, including explicit consent requirements and the right to erasure. Privacy regulations have a significant impact on protecting user privacy within the pornography industry. By implementing stringent guidelines for data collection and storage, these regulations ensure that users' personal information remains confidential and secure. This is particularly important in an industry where individuals may face potential stigmatization or harm if their identities are exposed. Privacy regulations also help prevent the unauthorized sharing of personal information, reducing the risk of identity theft or other forms of cybercrime. Another crucial aspect of privacy regulations is enforcing accountability within the pornography industry. By setting clear guidelines and penalties for non-compliance, these regulations ensure that industry stakeholders are held responsible for their actions. This includes not only the producers and distributors of adult content but also the platforms and websites that host such content. Privacy regulations require these entities to implement robust security measures, obtain explicit consent from users, and handle personal data in a responsible and ethical manner. While privacy regulations are essential for protecting user privacy and enforcing accountability, the pornography industry faces several unique challenges in implementing these regulations. One significant challenge is the global nature of the industry, which often operates across multiple jurisdictions with varying privacy laws. This can create confusion and difficulties in ensuring compliance with different regulations. Additionally, the anonymity that users expect within the pornography industry presents challenges in verifying explicit consent and ensuring the accuracy of personal information provided. Technology plays a vital role in addressing these challenges and facilitating compliance with privacy regulations within the pornography industry. Advanced encryption techniques, secure payment gateways, and user authentication systems can help protect user privacy and prevent unauthorized access to personal data. Additionally, artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms can be utilized to verify explicit consent and detect potentially non-consensual content. The development and implementation of such technologies are crucial for ensuring the effectiveness of privacy regulations in the pornography industry. Privacy regulations have a significant impact on the pornography industry, playing a crucial role in protecting user privacy and enforcing accountability. These regulations ensure that personal data remains confidential and secure, reducing the risk of harm and exploitation. While challenges exist in implementing these regulations within the global and anonymous nature of the industry, technology can play a vital role in facilitating compliance and ensuring the effectiveness of privacy regulations. By prioritizing user privacy and accountability, the pornography industry can evolve in a responsible and ethical manner, promoting a safer online environment for all. Key Concepts:
Hello and welcome to Securing Sexuality. The podcast where we discuss the intersection of intimacy-
-and information security. I'm Wolf Goerlich. He's a hacker and I'm Stefani Goerlich. She's a sex therapist and together we're going to discuss what safe sex looks like in a digital age. There's a question you always ask me, Stefani, that I don't have a good answer for. I mean, I asked many of those questions, but which one are you thinking of? Well, I think I have a good answer for some of them, but you're you've often been like, What about GDPR? What A What about other privacy regulations? How does that impact pornography? And then you you'll go. You'll be like And you know, pornography is a $35 billion industry annually, and I'll be like deer in the headlights. I mean, I do like to spell random pornography, fun facts. That's what happens when you marry a sex therapist. Um, but yeah, I mean, this is something that I'm curious about because, you know, as a therapist, I'm based in the US, and I'm licenced in four states and even in one country, the rules and regulations and reporting requirements and records retentions. All of that varies from state to state that I'm licenced in. And I have a lot of friends that are practising in the EU. Hi, Silva, if you're listening. Hi, Jim. Um, but, you know, it makes me curious. If it's so different from state to state within one country, what does it look like for my EU peers? Or, you know, people practising around the world? I have a supervised who travels everywhere. Every time I have a a conversation with her, She's in a new country and this fascinates me and you're right. It's one of the many things that I ask you that you don't have an answer for. I think there's only three things you asked me. I don't have an answer for, But today we have someone here to help us out. With that we do. I am super excited. We have been trying to talk to Alessandro Polidoro for a while now since before the conference last fall, and part of why we've been wanting to talk to him is because what he does is so cool and so niche. He is the lead attorney, um, of litigation and Digital rights advocacy for Stop the Porn. He's been coordinating an effort around the Europe's new regulations the Digital Services Act to, um, build a coalition to protect people. And he, um, is a sailor. I love the ocean, and he's a a dungeons and Dragons DM, which I mean, I love therapeutic gaming. So everything about Alessandro has made me so excited to talk to him. And I am super excited that we finally have you here. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Nice to be here. First question is simple. Can you, um, explain things better than my husband does? Ouch. Well, um, as a lawyer, I think I should respond. Uh, it depends. No, but I'm, uh, getting to to the the Well, there. There were many questions there, so I'll try to to, uh, cover all of them. Uh, quite simply, um, you were mentioning the general Data protection regulation. The GDPR. Uh, this is this is a regulation that has, uh, come into force now, six years ago. And, um, yeah, it it It is a clear example of what we like to call in Europe. The Brussel effect. So a regulation that started in Europe, a legal framework That was, uh, designed Uh, yeah, in within the EU. And then kind of, uh, spirited a trend. It set a new standard for the whole world. And we We've seen it, Uh, also in the US. For instance, the California Consumer Privacy Act, Uh, is, uh is has been written, uh, using the GDPR as a blueprint. Um, similar, uh, pieces of legislation have, uh, also spawned in, uh, Brazil And, uh, yeah, other parts of the world. Um, and basically, yeah. What? What? What is the probably the most relevant part of the GDPR on a global scale? Is that because of this concept of the, uh, it it's the the extra territorial effect of the GDPR. It's enforceable also outside of the EU. Because all the subjects that are doing business with with with Europe, uh, or they basically are processing personal data of residents or citizens of the European Union, uh, have to comply with the GDPR. And this is probably the reason why it it it It was so groundbreaking when it came out. And, um especially in the in the field of, uh, pornography of the adult entertainment industry, it has tried to set standards that we, uh, my colleagues and I, we have realised, are not actually followed as they should be. So this is probably what what is the the What was the starting point for us? Um, when we decided to run the litigation that you mentioned this project called Stop Data Porn, It was actually to try and bring accountability and and possibly enforcement of this regulation that it's so important for the protection of users of citizens. Uh, but it's often time ignored, Especially the pornography field. Yeah, and I'd like to think that whatever pornography we may be viewing, uh, in in the late at night or in our time alone. Uh, I is private, right? Is that the data is not being collected. It's not being aggregated. Uh, and I know there is under GDPR the right to be forgotten. I would just like every day on on a porn site. Just forget me like I'm done now, forget everything I just did. But it it it doesn't seem to be the case. I guess they're collecting a lot more data than I thought or anticipated. Right? Right. I mean, um, that's absolutely true. What you said, uh and everybody is expecting a certain level of of, uh, intimacy when dealing with this kind of of content. At least I mean, most of the time I would assume. And, um and and And the opposite is true unfortunately, And the funniest part, you know, is that this this topic of, um, profiling, uh, users and understanding the sexual preferences. Uh, it's something that, uh, uh, some platforms, for instance, porn have never been shy about, you know, because if you think of porn up, as I was saying, there is the at the end of every year they do the very famous ear in review where they say, Oh, look, uh oh, it's It's a brilliant strategy of marketing that they go and say, Oh, look, the the the in In this part of the world, they like this kind of porn, and in this part of the world, they prefer these other things. And so they actually state very clearly that they know all the preferences in terms of pornography of their users. But then when you ask them to tell the same stuff in a legal uh, scenario in a in A in a legal context. All of a sudden, they they they become quite elusive, and and and it's it's It's surprising our litigation started exactly with that. We, um thanks to the contribution of some volunteers, we were able to file, um, a series of data subject access requests to the platform, Uh, in the case that porn A was the case study for for for the litigation. Um, we were asking, What data do you have about us? These users they were saying, you know, I've been using your platform for a while. What do you know about me? And they replied, we only know your email if you gave it to us and and and and a few other other things. I mean, they they they basically present they they could have been selling cheese. They could have been doing any other business, you know. And, um, this was quite shocking to to begin with, Um I mean, uh, this is, of course, the I don't know. I don't know if this is something that can be very concerning for for everybody, but the the part that scares me personally the most is that also this profiling happens. Um automatically. You know, today, uh, everybody talks about a I uh But before that, we were talking about algorithms, and and it's kind of the the the the similar subject. And, uh, this kind of, um uh, profiling algorithms, these personalization, uh, algorithms, they they they simply check the way you use the platform, and then they assign you a sexual preference. So this is for me the part that is most scary. It's not simply that they know or they assume, to know what we like in terms of pornography. But it's it it it's that this is assigned by a machine. A machine that doesn't doesn't communicate it transparently. So you don't know which sexual preference has been assigned to you by the machine, and it's impossible to challenge. And yeah, it's all just very scary. And and that I find particularly fascinating because there is a huge trend of straight women enjoying gay male erotica. I. I have a friend who makes her living as a well bisexual woman writing MLM romance novels and erotica like that. That's all she does. And she has a huge audience of mostly says straight women, and the same is true we know with with porn that a lot of straight women like watching gay porn. So the idea that there's, you know, an algorithm or a programme somewhere that's looking at your search history and trying to pin you down into a specific, uh, sexuality box is really problematic because human behaviour doesn't fit so nicely into algorithms. Absolutely also, III, I think on what you just said, what happens when there is a data leak? What happens when this list of preferences is is disclosed? For whatever reason. And I, I and I mentioned data leak because I wanna be optimistic that this this these lists are not just simply traded around, uh, in a form that that maybe still allows, um allows somebody to, uh, trace back an individual from what usually are supposed to be aggregated anonymized uh, huge data sets. Um, especially these days, we know that there can be political groups with discriminatory agendas that that would really make harmful use of this kind of information, right? And and this is the reason that so. So to be a bit clear, the litigation that we that we started and and the complaints that we filed we filed them in in two different places. Uh, in Europe, in Italy and in Cyprus. We started in Italy because this is this is where, uh, the organisation, uh, that I've been working with, um uh um uh was located. And, um, we were counting on some volunteers that were based in Italy in the beginning, But soon enough, we realised that we had to, uh, bring the litigation also in Cyprus. And the reason of that is I always make this joke that usually the the bigger the company, the smaller the island. And that's the case also for pap, because the the the, um the the the the huge conglomerate that controls porn up as a satellite company in Cyprus that used to be called MG free sites limited. Uh, and MGS used to mean mind geek. But now, as we know, mind geek changed their name into ilo. And so now it's called ILO Free Sites Limited. And, um so, as I was saying, we we filed we filed the complaint in Cyprus as well, because we needed to trigger the action of, uh, what the GDPR calls the lead authority. The Lead Data Protection Authority uh, that is basically responsible for enforcing this regulation and, uh, aga against the data controller against the platform that is actually responsible for the processing of personal data. And this was already very interesting because it allowed us to to to see how, um, different bodies of different uh uh, nations, uh, within the European Union. Try and Cooper on these kind of issues. The litigation is still ongoing. So, uh, it's it's it's perfect. Probably soon to say what will be the final outcome of it. But I can say that on both sides we've had really interesting and positive feedbacks and and and the the the the work done by the data protection authorities involved is being quite remarkable. I want to pull on something because I, I don't know that it's immediately obvious to people. Um, but if if you're going to these websites, your thought may be well, I'm sure they track some things, but it's anonymous, right? It's just it's just anonymous. I haven't given them my email address to your point earlier. I haven't I haven't logged in to, uh, one of these sites and and start browsing things around one of the things I think many people don't realise or forget is that there's a number of different techniques to de anonymize data, right, Be it based on where you're at, based on your times, you log in based on the unique fingerprint of your device. Um, based on I've even seen, uh, de Anonymizer papers where they look at they they cross reference the anonymized data set with, like, travel patterns like, Oh, you this is your normal behaviour. And you were in, uh, I'm in Detroit now. You're in Detroit and then, you know, uh, and this particular date you were in Cyprus, Um, so therefore, because of the behaviour is the same. And we have you looked at your travel plans, we can we can say with a degree of assurance that that is, is you, um, I've got to imagine, even though it's anonymized data that a lot of these same techniques are available on these, uh, these content providers, right. This is absolutely correct. Um, I believe there was also, um the, uh There was also an episode of the show from, um by the John Oliver shows. Last, uh, it's called last week Tonight? Yeah, I think so. Uh, they they they made they they made at some point an episode about data brokers, and I think that they were playing with the with the ability of, uh, tracing back individuals from huge, uh, anonymized data sets. And the funny thing is that, uh, John Oliver was able to trace back, I think five members of the US Congress Uh, yeah, yeah. I I If if I can give a suggestion to our audience, you should totally check it out. I think it's available on YouTube. It's a very insightful, uh, episode of the show. Um, but yeah, no. So to to to give an answer to what you were saying. Of course, there are all these, uh, many other data that can be cross referenced and and allow eventually to to take a person out of a bunch of data. Because, of course, let me be the Let me be the lawyer in the room again here. So the GDPR is very clear what a personal data is. Personal data is not only a data that allow that makes a person identified, but also a data that makes a person identifiable. So this means that when you have this piece of information, maybe you don't know yet who this person is, but you can use this one and a few others and then understand who this person is. So, um, few techniques that we were able to do document that are happening on on porno. But for or at least we were, uh, we were quite confident to see um, are, um uh, possibly, um, um techniques of device fingerprinting or browser fingerprinting of hardware Finger fingerprinting, which basically means that, uh, when you, uh when you cross reference the IP of a person the the model of a device that they were using to connect the time of the day and and and many other factors that are simply, um extracted by the machine that are used by the technicalities of accessing to Internet. And you can quite easily then, uh, try, uh, narrow all these information down to one single person. Because when you have all these elements, how many how many people were actually connecting from that specific area of the world at that specific time with that specific computer? And, you know, also, uh, the other thing that you mentioned the fact that Mm, probably 90% of the users. And now I'm just throwing a number here. But you know it. It was to give, like, the majority of the users, they don't even have an account on these platforms. Right? And and of course, if you have an account, then they track your history. But what we were able to to document, And this time this was also replicated by, um, a journalist at Wired. Uh, wired.com They They made a brilliant article when we launched the the the the campaign, and they were so scrupulous and careful also to replicate our methodologies of investigation. What they what they did document the same way we did, uh, beforehand was that when you are not registered to the platform and your access to it, the the browser that you are using is re is requested by the servers on the on of porn app to store? Uh, some, um, lines of numbers, some codes. There are unique identifiers of the specific video that you have watched, and these these identifiers are stored in the in the local storage of your browser. So it's a specific part of the browser of the memory of your browser that doesn't even get cleared when you reset the cookies. So you know the classic meme, uh, gesture of, of of of just, you know, cleaning your your history or clearing your cookies. It it it would not, um, remove this, uh, you know, effect it. It's a it's a it's a parallel. It's a parallel history of your, uh of what? You of what you have watched on on on porn app. And it's just there. Is there a way for people to access online content without giving up their information? Is something like a VPN a protector in situations like this? Or is it just a case of of the old adage, you know, if if if the product is free, you are the product. Uh, what I I've said this very same sentence many times when the product is free is free. You are the product, and this is absolutely the the the point. Um honestly, I, I don't think it would be responsible for me to, uh, answer directly to your question because I don't want to give the sense of, uh, the false sense of safety to to to users uh, of course, there are ways. If you are tech savvy, you can always find a way to to to try and be, uh, almost, uh, impossible to be tracked. Uh, and what not but the the the the truth of the matter is that the average for the average user is becoming more and more difficult. And actually, the reason I I'd rather not give this false sense of safety is because, um there is a There is an issue connected to to to what you've just said to, like, what is our agency? What is our possibility? What space is left to our possibility to still do what we want to do in these spaces without being compromised? Well, I think it's quite telling to consider that the very first claim of our litigation, the very first pillar of what we wanted to say in our, um in our complaints was the issue of consent because I think that the issue of consent is strictly connected with the issue of agency and the issue of of yeah, like also a safety in a way like feeling feeling safe when you're navigating the point. The first point we made in our litigation is that PN a And this is true for all all the, uh, countries in Europe. Uh, up until last June, they were never, ever asking for consent when accessing the platform for the cookies that they were using for the tracking that they were doing and for all the all the things that I've described before, Um, this is something that is quite surprising, especially for an average European user, because since especially since the GDPR came out. But the consent for cookies is something that was required even before the GDPR came into force. As I say, the concept for cookies is something that we see everywhere. Like, um, YouTube, for instance, I. I sometimes listen to music on YouTube, right? And every time that you open YouTube from a new device from a new browser, they say, Do you consent to cookies? And at the end of the day, I listen to music there and and they know what's my favourite Bob Dylan album, for instance. But when I go on porn app, they know what I like to watch. When I'm, you know, spending some time by myself or in company. It really depends. And and and And in this case, it was crazy that they were not asking for consent in any other business was already doing it for so long. And they're such a big platform. And this is so true that as we published the the litigation and as we got some very good, uh, coverage from the media, they changed their own page in less than two weeks, the this famous button of consent was implemented on the home page of all the European countries, Uh, by PN a, uh so quickly and and at first the button was a bit too tiny. So we actually made a AAA follow up statement saying that this was clearly just a, um, a fake solution. Just something you know, to to clear the consciousness and say, Yeah, we we we did the less than the bare minimum. But at least we did something. And the funny thing is that when we said that it was too little, they changed it again in less than a week. And so now you have this very big button of consent on, uh, the the that requires for required consent, uh, before access porn up and the reason why they didn't do it before. In my opinion, it's It's it's but this is again just my opinion. Uh, it's quite simple. And the the the the the reason is traffic. Because now that the button is there, there there will be statistically speaking for sure, somebody that will realise that maybe they can go somewhere else to bring their private business. You know, they can maybe get their their their content on a different platform rather than go to this tech giant and and and feed them with their intimate and personal data. And just to one closing remark on this on the topic of consent. OK, they did implement this button they did implement. This solution for for the hook is, but this is absolutely not enough because the GDPR says that when you're tracking sensitive data when you're collecting data related to what many issues, it can be your political beliefs, your religion or, in this case, your sexual life. Um, you need to ask for a very explicit consent because you're processing explicit data. And this is when the paradox that I mentioned before is becomes even more visible because still, today if you ask porn up in a legal, uh, context. Hey, are you processing legal sexual preferences of people? They're gonna say no. Their privacy policy today doesn't specify that at all. Even though every year in their year in review, in their marketing campaigns, they go around and say, Oh, yeah, no, we know what you like. We we know who likes to watch, uh, mil videos. We like, uh, we know who likes to watch group sex. We know who likes to watch gay porn or, uh, straight stuff. You know, all all these kind of things. So it's it's it's it's quite ridiculous. It it's even in plain sight. Basically, it's not even that. Well, I would love to hear more about how your coalition is addressing this right. We've been talking a lot about what it looks like and what the issues are, and I've been asking you all my questions. My husband can't answer before you know, before we go too much further. I mean, talk to us about what steps you are taking, uh, to to push back on this, talk to us about who you're working with and how you guys are tackling this in order to preserve privacy for European users. Because, goodness knows, in America, we're we're just left to the wind. Well, I mean, uh uh, never say never, because I've I've, uh the the The litigation that we're doing is absolutely replicable in in the US. So, actually, for our listeners out there, if you're a lawyer and you're based in California, eat me up. But anyway, um um what I what? I, uh what happened after the litigation was launched was actually very, very impressive because first of first of all, well, I, I had a road map. Of what? I what I thought was gonna happen. I was talking with my team, Uh uh, back then in in in in June last summer and I was like, Yeah, I. I think we will be able to have a certain impact. And I think that the few things will actually happen and we will be able to be proud of this. And, you know, it's it's legal stuff. It takes time. It's not that fast. It's gonna take 1 1.5 year. Everything happened. It happened in three weeks. Everything that we wanted to happen happened in three weeks. We got immediate response from the Italian Data protection authority and then, uh, very, uh, significant, uh, response from the platforms, uh, itself, uh, for the function itself and and and and most importantly, what happened was that really the the people, both experts, and and and just like everyday citizens, they all got very interested in this issue. And everything kind of snowballed into something even bigger that I would have never thought before because, you know, now, in Europe, uh, there is this new regulation that has come into force, which is called the Digital Services Act. And, um, the the idea, uh, for us was to understand how we could leverage it, um, in in the in the in the porn industry, in the adult industry, and use it against not only porn in this case at this point, but all the biggest, uh, porn giants, uh, the the tech giants in porn. And, of course, it is something that that that that required a completely different approach. We weren't actually able to do it on our own. It would it would not have been meaningful to push it on. Uh uh, on behalf of one specific organisation. So what happened was that, um all these other groups and organisations some of the big names of the digital rights uh uh, seen especially, um, I I Maybe some of the listeners would be familiar with the organisation, like, uh, access now, or, uh, European digital rights is also a huge network of NGO S in, uh, in this field, Uh, there was a CDT centre for democracy and technology. Um, and and many, many other groups. Um, uh, I think that the the the one that was, uh, dearest, uh, for me was the contribution coming from a network that is called European Sex Workers Alliance. And and they they are, uh uh, not only defending the rights of sex workers, but also being more and more, um, um, conscious and aware of the of the issues of the digital rights. And they are very active in the, uh, uh and and vocal for digital rights policies in Europe. Um, so, as I was saying, with all these groups, we went to the European Commission, the government of the European Union, and we basically just said, Hey, this this regulation is coming into force. and you should not forget foreign platforms when you do that. When? When? When you When you enforce it. When you um Basically, what they were doing was creating a list, um, the the Digital Services Act as as the this, um, specific articles that are only referred to the biggest platforms out there the the the law. The law calls it very large online platforms. And and the European Commission last year started making a list of these very large online platforms. You can you can imagine all the big the big names. So Facebook YouTube tiktok, uh, there is even Amazon, even though Amazon is currently challenging the designation as very large online platforms because apparently they claim not to be that big after all. Uh, right, uh, and and the problem is that in that list, there was no, uh, porn platform, even though if you check, uh, the ranking of the most visited websites in the world, um, porn used to be the 12th most visited Now is the 14th. Now, correlation is not causation, but it used to be the 12th before our litigation came out. And now it's the 14th. So they lost two positions. I don't know why many reasons. Probably, um, X videos is the most visited, uh, porn platform in the world and ranks as the 10th or 11th most visited website in general. And they were not part of this list. So we kind of pushed a little bit and and and made our voice be heard on this on this topic. And surprisingly enough, once again, it took us six months, I believe, seven months to arrange this campaign and and and and publish an open letter. We got some coverage, and very quickly we we received a very reassuring reply from the European Commission that said that they were aware of the issue that they were, uh uh, you know, do doing the the the work necessary for this designation and that and and then they actually did designate three platforms in December. So a few months ago, porn app, X videos and Ri chat uh, were designated as the very first three very large online platforms in the porno in the porn sector in Europe. And now they will have to comply with with with all the with with many, uh, Reg, with many required of this regulation, they will have to allow independent auditors. So we will finally be able to open the black box of this algorithm. All this problem with the personalization of users that we've discussed until now all this problem with not knowing how this, uh, the the machines that are deployed by these tech giants work. We will finally be able to open this black box, of course, if and only if they don't challenge the designation and they bring to court the European Commission. But III, I am. This is This is an odd topic right now. And I think that even if they try something like that, it would only delay the inevitable for them because they have the numbers to be designated big platforms and and and to close on this point, the reason why this regulation is targeting big platforms is because they we are. We have finally been able to recognise that platforms this big bring with their simple existence for the simple fact that they exist. They bring a systemic risk to society. We've seen it a lot, you know. We've seen it with Facebook and and the power of manipulating elections. We've seen it with YouTube and the possibility of spreading disinformation. You know, those very creepy rabbit holes that sometimes people can get lost into and and And when it comes to porn platforms, there is a systemic risk when they get so big. And it's not only the simple fact of the way that their business is run and and and the fact that as we have seen, oftentimes they just don't don't don't play by the rules. But also, if you if you put all these very sensitive, uh, content all the all these very delicate information in one place, if you don't diversify, not only you are stuck. You, you, you, you, you block the development of a driving industry. The sex act industry suffers So much for the simple existence of this of of these tech giants. But you're also, um, creating, uh, very dangerous weapons. Very dangerous tools. We've seen it recently with the, uh with the deep fake of of Taylor Swift. But there are so many other examples of of gender based violence that have been facilitated through porn platforms, and they need to be held accountable for that. They absolutely need to be held accountable for that. One of the things that I really admire you for. And this This gets back to your question, Stefani. So I'm gonna pick on you for a little bit. I. I think there is. There is. There's something intrinsic in the, like, American way of thinking sometimes, which is OK, what do I need to do individually to protect myself, right? And And you could have spent all the time you spent going after porn. And not now all the work that you've done, uh, going after, you know, making sure that within the European Digital Services Act that you know, these, uh, companies are in scope. You could have spent that time just protecting yourself. And maybe you could have been very, you know, invisible to all these platforms. Maybe you could have come up with a great way of of doing it. Maybe you could have shared that out and maybe another. You know, 5, 10 or 50 or 100 people might have followed that along. Uh, but by taking action at the level, you're taking action. And just a couple of weeks you you changed porn. You change the way that they're gathering information right in in taking this action at the level you're taking it. I love it because it seems to me to protect a significant amount of people. Um, with with the amount of time right, the the the multiplier effect is is very strong. Um, So I my hats off to you for taking on these companies and taking on these laws before we we wrap up, though. II, I wonder, like, where where are we at in this story? Where are we at? In the top data porn story. Where are we at? In the Digital Services Act story. Um, you know what, Uh, what's happening today as we're recording this And what do you see? Happening as we had in the spring and summer? Ok, well, first of all, thank you so much for your for your words. Very kind. And I and I want to to Precisely There is always a team effort. I. I like to consider myself often, uh, always just a facilitator. Sometimes they When, when I'm asked to be a coordinator. Maybe, but, um, uh, it's it's it is always important to realise that this kind of, uh, results this kind of impact can only be achieved when people get together. Um, and and this is, uh, uh, I. I will I will get to that soon because the the coalition that we have built now it's a clear example of that, but to answer to your question about the litigation because that's also possibly the the most exciting part because lawsuits can be exciting, or at least for legal learns nerds like me. They are. Um, as I was saying, we filed these two complaints, right? One in Italy and one in, uh, in Cyprus, to be precise. The one in Cyprus happened earlier. Um, and to be even more precise, we filed a report in Italy that didn't get any impact. Then we filed a complaint in Cyprus that also went a little bit, Uh uh, yeah, like, unnoticed. But this was probably our, uh our mistake was the strategy that we use because we thought if we just file the complaint and wait and try to establish a communication with data protection authority, we will use the benefit of surprise and and the advantage of not having, uh, uh, shared the, uh, our our, um Our action with the public And maybe they will be able to go and and and check on the platform, uh, without them knowing that they're coming. And and this is something that actually started happening, but in a way that we were not even informed of. So eventually we realised that the secret ingredient to to make things moving was to be loud and to be vocal and to be a huge, scary bunch of angry people that were that are claiming, reclaiming their rights. And that's why last summer we decided to file this new complaint in in Italy and and and go to the media and and and, uh, pair it with a strong communication campaign. And this was this was this. This is exactly what put the what made the the the wheel, uh, running and and and and put the spin to what we were doing. And I and I'm I'm I'm saying this because it's exactly what I What I wanted to say is that actually, it's important to have more and more people, uh, just to speak up and try to to do what they can on on these issues, because this is exactly what what? What does the trick. So anyway, these two litigations now are awfully in the point of merging together because what happened is that in Italy, the DP. The data protection authority asked PAB for clarification on the violations that were, uh, uh, contested, and, uh, they hired a lawyer. The lawyer presented some, uh, legal, uh uh, some defence statement. We presented our counter arguments to the statement that they made, and and now we are waiting for the Cyprus DP a to allow the Italian DP a to continue Because, as I said, it's the cyber DP a that is leading the proceeding, and they will decide what happened in Cyprus is that, um we have been informed, uh, very recently, a few few few weeks ago that, uh, a huge file has been opened by the Cyprus Data Protection Authority regarding, uh, porn, Uh, something that according to what the data protection authority said to, uh, some journalists a few weeks ago goes even beyond the the the simple, uh, the the the the the simple part that we were able to to see from a user standpoint, because, you know, we could only see the outside of the platform and we could only represent the interests and the rights of the individuals. Uh uh uh, protected by the GDPR. But that protection authority themselves, they have so many more tools. They have they they have a stronger power. They they can, of course, use, uh, they they can, uh, forcibly obtain, obtain access to documents, uh, and and to to other resources. Um, So what is going on in Cyprus right now is that, um, our complaint has merged, as has been merged into this bigger investigation, this bigger audit that they that they have done. And the proceeding is starting. Uh, now, possibly to issue a decision that will, uh, will will basically, um, list all the violations that have been, uh, spotted. There will probably be a fine if porn A will not be able to justify the the the claims that that have been raised against them. Uh, but as I said, everything is still is still, uh, is still happening, but it's it's getting closer to it. I could say that it's already in the second half. The the the game is is is is already going to the to the second half. So we are getting closer to the end of it. Um, but yeah, no. And just to just to get back to to this thing, because I really I can't stress that enough. It's very important to understand that the more the merrier and the more we are, the the stronger we can be. Um, what happened? Uh, with with the with the with the movement that then, uh, came after the the coalition based on the S A is that right now we have this this group, this network, this mu ST or their alliance that is putting together digital rights activists, sex workers, rights defenders, survivors of gender based violence, Builders of sex tech, Which is, in my opinion, an amazing category often underrepresented, Uh, because of the problem that I was saying before, There are so many small but amazing, uh, projects that that try to to to spread their wings and try to to position themselves on the market. But they are It's very difficult for them to to actually survive longer than, uh, four or five years because, um, as as, um, another very famous person in this field, Cindy Gallop as Cindy Gallop would would tell you, uh, the the the the the Is is really underfunded. And and it's very difficult to to to find people that have the vision to understand what has to happen. And so in the meantime, these few tech giants that often, uh, also represent not exactly the best portion of this industry are just there sitting on their strategic advantage. And they don't allow anything to thrive. Anything new to to grow and and to to to to just even a fair chance to compete. And and so so this network. Right now, what we are trying to do is basically work exactly on that. We don't want to push necessarily for new regulation because we don't believe that the solution to the problems that we've talked, uh, today, um, can come only from legal solution. Of course, we need new policy. We need new best practises. We need new guidelines. We protection for the the the the the weak part of this this ecosystem from these big sharks, of course. Um but but but at the same time, we also understand that the solution can can come from other sides, some, some from other fields. Some people would say that it comes from a technological standpoint. If we only would develop more open source software for this field more, uh, decentralised platforms or, um, simply, uh, new technological solutions. Also, to protect users from this other I, I mentioned gender based violence, and this can totally be initiative. There is the big problem of image based sexual abuse. That is absolutely, uh um, uh, present on this platform. There is also the the the Yeah, there is a problem at the same time of, uh, the stigmatisation of of those who work in this field And then and and then the fact that sometimes when we try to, um, yeah, change the platform either technologically so adding new technical requirements or legally so adding new new new um, yeah, new new steps, new loops to jump through mo mo. Most of the people that work in the field then get kicked out, and they they they basically have to to give up. They they lose the safety that they normally would enjoy, uh, taking advantage of this technology. So in the case of sex workers, for instance, they have to go back to the street. So it's It's it's It's very complex and convoluted, but the point that I want to make here is that the solution the actual key to this whole issue it must come from a cultural standpoint. It cannot be legal, only legal. It cannot be technological or only technological. There must be a a paradigm shift a shift of paradigm in in In How we see, uh, intimacy, how we experience sexuality and and how we talk about it. And ultimately, this is also the reason why today we have the huge, huge problem that because we don't have a meaningful and serious um, uh, access to sexual education, these poor tech giants have become the the the the the the point of reference, especially for the younger generations. And so you see a problem this big, uh, that that that it is connected to a part that is so important of everybody's life can only be solved with the contribution of many, many people working together and coming from different, uh, from different direction from different uh um experiences I 111 thing that I always like to repeat, uh, quoting the protesters of Hong Kong back then, some years ago, climbing the same mountain. I always say that to to to to during the meetings of our coalition, because I like to to speci to state and to to, uh, repeat that, uh, sometimes we speak different languages. Sometimes we are representing different interests, but we're all trying to probably unblock an important new stage for humanity. And I maybe I'm I'm maybe being a bit romantic here. But this is this is how much I believe in what we are doing in the coalition because it's it would be unprecedented if only we were able to have on a global scale an healthy conversation on sexuality. I think we will be able to see the difference in the in in how the world goes immediately. I love the fact that you bring up the culture shift piece because, as as a sex therapist as a sexologist, that's a huge part of the work that I do that you know, we we can't heal sexual trauma. We can't build healthy sexual relationships unless we have a safe and positive culture around our bodies and around our sexuality. And I love the fact that you are trying to do that in a way that isn't saying Ban all erotic material. What you're saying is make erotic material safe and positive. And that's exactly where mm. I try to put my work. That's I know where our podcast is focused. And I so appreciate you carrying that message forward into litigation in this case. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you so much for tuning into Securing Sexuality. Your source of information need to protect yourselves and your relationships. And hopefully at least today, at least on this episode, your source for the information to come along and climb this mountain with us Securing Sexuality is brought to you by the bound together Foundation of 501 C three nonprofit From the bedroom to the cloud. We're here to help you navigate what safe sex looks like in a digital age. Be sure to check out our website Securing Sexuality.com for links to more information about the topics we've discussed here today as well as our live events. And among those links will be a link to stop data porn because if you are that rare delusive. California attorney Alessandro Polidoro wants to hear from you. But until then, join us again for more fascinating conversations about the intersection of sexuality and technology. Have a great week, everyone. Comments are closed.
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