“When we were talking with workers, all they wanted to talk about was cockroaches, how studio owners charge them for toilet paper or make them work when they're on their periods. I couldn't get people to talk to me about the platform, and that's totally valid because of course you're angry at the person you know,'' Kilbride told WIRED. “But there is also a whole other layer that has been left completely invisible. It's a billion-dollar industry that is able to protect itself from rebuke.
WIRED attempted to contact BongaCams, Chaturbate, LiveJasmin, and StripChat to request comment regarding the research findings. Nobody replied.
HRW's report outlines key recommendations to improve conditions at both the studio and platform levels. This includes occupational safety standards for studios enforced with regular inspections. Models should be able to take breaks and receive minimum wage for their work, studio management should not force models to perform specific sexual acts or agree that they will perform any work on the model's behalf . Additionally, models must have access to confidential reporting mechanisms so they can notify law enforcement or other authorities about workplace violations.
Developing recommendations for the platform itself is even more nuanced. Kilbride says most, if not all, popular adult streaming platforms have stringent authentication requirements for creating accounts and typically prohibit studio owners or anyone from accepting terms of service on behalf of someone else. . However, in practice, companies are not doing enough to offer terms of service in a simple, understandable format in different languages, including Spanish.
Researchers say platforms also need to provide channels through which content creators can report violations and receive timely responses. And, importantly, platforms must establish policies that enable models to take over and transfer ownership of their accounts from studios. The researchers found that the current status quo on many platforms includes policy language that could confuse their users or have technical complexities that content creators say prevent them from being able to claim ownership of their accounts.
On top of everything else, the stakes are especially high for account ownership issues, as researchers found that studios often use “recycled” accounts – ones that were authenticated and set up by a camerar and then by a studio. Was maintained – to bypass minimum age requirements and stream child sexual exploitation material.
Kilbride says, “We found that even though the platforms are quite strict and have completely clear policies about not having kids stream, studios are still hiring and streaming kids using fake IDs or, more commonly, recycled accounts. “Manage to do.” “Our research looked entirely at adults, but many of the people we spoke to started streaming as kids, ages 13 to 17.”
Kilbride emphasizes that the situation reflects an important principle of sex worker advocacy and labor reform in general: listening to workers about their needs and the protections that will help them do their jobs most effectively and equitably. Will help, as well, protect other vulnerable populations. In this case, by allowing cammers to control and move their accounts and their followers, the adult streaming industry can also substantially reduce the spread of child sexual exploitation material.