The introduction and passage of ignorant and misguided anti-sex and anti-LGBTQIA+ policy and legislation around the world has only increased since 2018. Switter existed as a place where moderation decisions were made with consideration of how they would impact sex workers, rather than seeing them as an expendable user base. The introduction of US packaged bills FOSTA/SESTA, the seizure of popular ad site, and the political and economic instability felt in the ensuing years led to wider, unintended, negative consequences to workers existing online. Switter quickly became a lifesaving refuge for sex workers around the world. In those early days, Switter was famously booted off Cloudflare without so much as an email notifying us, though the service continued to protect white supremacists and other hate groups. This was particularly true during COVID-19, allowing some workers to move to or augment with online work. The internet, and utilisation of platforms like Twitter and Instagram, allowed sex workers to work safer by giving them the ability to screen their clients, connect with community, share resources, and organise. We’ll be collecting posts under the hashtag #FarewellSwitter` on Twitter and Mastodon to display on here. While we’re sad to say goodbye, we are eager to preserve your farewells. 3rd biggest Mastodon instance in the fediverse.Within the first week, we had over 13,000 users, and by the end of our first month we had 56,000 workers, clients, and allies on the platform. Switter ran on the open source social media software, Mastodon, and quickly became a popular and easy to use alternative to mainstream social media sites who were increasingly implementing punitive, misguided, and carceral content moderation frameworks largely in response to moral panic. Switter was a sex work-friendly social network that launched on March 18th, 2018 by Assembly Four, a small team of technologists and sex workers in Melbourne, Australia, in response to the shadow banning and deplatforming endured by sex workers on websites such as Twitter and Instagram.
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