A new federal law called SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) has endangered sex workers and resulted in their erasure from online platforms that once provided work, community and safety.
Organized in collaboration with Melissa Gira Grant and Danielle Blunt, Hacking//Hustling: A Platform for Sex Workers in a Post-SESTA World is a two-day program of conversations and tactical skill sharing led by sex workers to generate knowledge that has been erased in the wake of SESTA. Hacking//Hustling is a space for digital rights advocates, journalists, and allied communities to come learn from sex workers and better understand the developing effects of SESTA on internet freedom for all. This program was organized with the belief that sex workers are the experts of their own experience and an internet that is safe for sex workers, is an internet that is safe for almost everyone.
A panel organized and moderated by Melissa Gira Grant and Danielle Blunt, will feature presentations from sex workers and sex worker rights advocates with a discussion on censorship, discrimination and policing in the wake of SESTA.
Following the panel, a half-day workshop (in collaboration with t4tech) will take place Saturday, September 22. Sex workers and digital rights advocates will work together to address the harms of SESTA legislation with a collaborative approach grounded in principles of harm reduction. We will learn how to to protect data, have safer communications, and build stronger online communities.
“Whores Will Rise: Protest Art & Resistance Ephemera Against FOSTA/SESTA”
There will also be a community art show, curated by Brit Schulte, highlighting protest art/resistance ephemera from recent demonstrations against SESTA/FOSTA and calling for decriminalization, and labor rights for all sex working/trading people.
Thursday, September 20, 2018