CovOps
Location : Ether-Sphere Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator Humor : Über Serious
| Subject: Ugh: A Quiet War Rages Over Who Can Make Money Online Sun Dec 02, 2018 9:51 pm | |
| Over the past year, two popular forums for men who identify as involuntary celibates, or incels, have been banned by Reddit and a domain registrar in response to members’ history of toxic misogyny and celebrating violence against women. Now some of these men are trying to turn the tables. Members of the incel community—including the official Twitter account for incels.is, a central hub for adherents—have joined with other men’s rights activists, using the content policies of online payment companies such as PayPal as weapons to block female pornographic actors and sex workers from making or spending money online.
The campaign is called the “ThotAudit,” in reference to the derogatory term “thot,” which stands for “that ho over there.” It began over the Thanksgiving holiday as a grassroots effort to intimidate sex workers and women who sell access to private pornographic social media accounts by reporting them to the Internal Revenue Service for tax evasion—without evidence of wrongdoing. But it quickly morphed into a battle over who has the right to make money on the internet.
The harassers are taking advantage of user reporting tools made available by companies like PayPal, Venmo, and CirclePay, in an attempt to force their targets offline and freeze their finances. The tactic has far-reaching implications beyond adult entertainment. Foreign governments and other groups have abused the policies to silence opponents on platforms like Twitter and Facebook for years. Attacking through the payment processors is a new wrinkle on that approach.
https://www.wired.com/story/quiet-war-rages-who-can-make-money-online/
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