adult industry reports

In October 2021, Mastercard updated their adult content merchant guidelines in response to misguided public pressure. The concerns of those who would be most impacted by the updated policy — adult industry workers — were ignored. The resulting policy was extremely detrimental to porn workers’ incomes, employment stability, and occupational health. Marginalized creators (BIPOC, fat, queer, kinky) were disproportionately harmed. This publication reports the survey responses of 100+ adult content creators.

(updated July 2024)

Reddit is one of the only platforms that allows adult content and creators to commingle with ‘mainstream’ social media users. So it was especially disturbing when, in the Summer of 2022, sex workers and adult content creators reported an increase in moderation of their accounts and posts. While no one clear policy seems to be responsible, a series of developments appear to have resulted in the increased removal of NSFW content on Reddit in recent years. This publication reports on survey data garnered from 150+ NSFW Reddit users.

In March 2023, Pornhub, along with the entire suite of MindGeek (now Aylo) properties, was acquired by the Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners. One of ECP’s initial steps was to engage in a ‘what we heard’ project, resourcing consultations with various industry stakeholders. This publication reports on the rich feedback received from 18 adult content creators, covering major industry concerns as well as platform-specific suggestions.