LOS ANGELES — Cherie DeVille has penned a new op-ed for The Daily Beast that offers advice to prospective Twitter buyer Elon Musk on how to protect adult performers, and other sex workers, who rely on the open platform in order to have a voice online.
Musk’s concerns about free speech on social media have sparked a valuable debate, wrote DeVille.
“Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and other social media platforms censor us every day," she said. "Instagram seems to boot porn actors on a whim. Every girl in Porn Valley knows someone who lost their TikTok for posting a bikini pic, although every co-ed in Arizona can seemingly flash her belly button and shake her ass as much as she wants.”
DeVille has personally observed that her verified account often doesn't appear when her name is typed into Twitter's search engine.
"You can argue all day if this is ‘shadowbanning,’ but the term doesn’t matter," she said. "The fact is: Silicon Valley censors adult performers, full stop."
If Musk wishes to protect free speech, he will “need to enshrine the speech of the porn club nobody wants to hear from, even if they disagree with our profession. The fact is, Porn Valley screamed about free speech way before libertarian Silicon Valley,” DeVille explained, citing Larry Flynt’s activism as a prime example from adult industry history.
DeVille then lists three areas where Musk could lead Twitter to "protect pornographers’ speech and, in the process, the speech of all Twitter users," including age verification, drawing the line at legality and making a commitment to end deplatforming of sex workers.
So far, DeVille acknowledges, “Musk has pushed for an end to deplatforming and discussed identity verification. He’s yet to mention porn, but if he’s serious about free speech, he needs to protect the controversial, stigmatized community of pornographers that manufactures all the content people use for masturbation.”
After all, she concludes, "pornographers are the basis of the First Amendment Musk loves so much. So, it’s time someone protects our free speech for once.”
To read the full op-ed, visit TheDailyBeast.com.
Main Image: Cherie DeVille (Photo: Gustavo Turner)
