LOS ANGELES — The Daily Beast published on Sunday an op-ed by Adult Performance Artists Guild (APAG) President Alana Evans calling out Mastercard’s “hypocrisy” over draconian identity verification rules for adult content that would further stigmatize it and threaten its existence in comparison to adult-oriented mainstream content.
“On October 15, the careers of thousands of adult performers will be wiped out,” Evans’ op-ed began. “Every bit of our performing existence will disappear,” she argued, because Mastercard announced that it would require “the banks that connect merchants to our network […] to certify that the seller of adult content has effective controls in place to monitor, block and, where necessary, take down all illegal content.”
These controls are to include documented age and identity verification for all people depicted as well as those uploading the content, a content review process prior to publication, a complaint resolution process that addresses illegal or nonconsensual content within seven business days and an appeals process allowing for any person depicted to request their content be removed.
But, as Evans pointed out, responsible adult content makers have been keeping rigorous records since 1995, when the federal government established the obligation to maintain 2257 documents.
When these guidelines were created, Evans wrote, “the federal government ruled that content created prior to the enforcement of 2257 would be exempt. However, your upcoming regulations threaten to supersede the government ruling that verified creators have been following for 26 years thereby creating a law on their own, without any input from the very community it oppresses.”
“The [proposed] requirement [to update] identification on scenes filmed in the past means that once a performer’s identification on file expires, the entire scene or film they appeared in must be removed,” Evans added.
A Heartfelt 'Open Letter'
Evans spoke directly to Mastercard in the format of an “open letter.”
"We understand your intentions are to help protect our community from trafficking and abuse; however, some of the pending changes may actually force law-abiding, tax-paying workers into... potential trafficking [situations]," she wrote.
"By forcing the removal of outdated content which falls outside the scope of federal regulations," she warned, "our workers would lose their incomes. Many have already faced removal from platforms, [had] content deleted and income taken away as companies begin to follow your new rules.”
Evans also noted that, as APAG president, she has already “received numerous reports of workers being removed and having no way to pay the bills because their income was taken away” after Mastercard began spearheading the financial de-platforming of sex workers.
This financial strangulation of online sex workers was one of the demands put forth by Nicholas Kristof in his sensationalistic December 4, 2020 New York Times article “The Children of Pornhub.” Kristof’s demands to Mastercard and other financial services coincide with campaigns by religious anti-porn groups NCOSE (formerly Morality in Media) and Exodus Cry, both of which have taken explicit credit for inspiring and influencing the New York Times article.
Evans ended the open letter by urging Mastercard not to leave the voices of online sex workers out of their decision-making process. She called the current situation “an opportunity for you to have a conversation with the actual workers who you are hurting, instead of just the bad-faith groups claiming to save us —or as they put it, ‘help victims.’”
“If you are only listening to one side, you are missing half of the conversation,” she added.
To read Alana Evans’ “Porn World: We Are Sick of Mastercard’s Hollywood Hypocrisy,” visit TheDailyBeast.com.
