Censoring Sex: Payment Platforms’ Regulation of Sexual Expression

Abstract Purpose – This chapter examines the role of payment platforms in the United States in sex censorship in which platforms have a pattern of denying financial services to people and businesses involved in publishing legal sexual content. It answers the following questions: what explains paymen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Media and Law: Between Free Speech and Censorship Vol. 26; pp. 63 - 79
Main Author: Tusikov, Natasha
Format: Book Chapter
Language:English
Published: Emerald Publishing Limited 2021
Subjects:
Media/mass media
Sociology
Sociology of culture, media, sport & communication
financial discrimination
risk
surveillance
censorship
Payment platforms
sexual expression
ISBN:180071730X, 9781800717305
ISSN:1521-6136
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Abstract Purpose – This chapter examines the role of payment platforms in the United States in sex censorship in which platforms have a pattern of denying financial services to people and businesses involved in publishing legal sexual content. It answers the following questions: what explains payment platforms’ regulation of lawful sexual content and what are the consequences? Methodology/Approach – Drawing from the platform governance literature, this chapter closely examines the corporate policies for PayPal and the credit card companies that prohibit certain types of sexual content and services. Findings – This chapter argues that payment platforms’ censorship of sexual expression is shaped by the distinctive nature of and market concentration within the online payment industry. Payment actors’ systematic campaign of sexual censorship disproportionately affects small businesses and individual operators in the sex and adult entertainment industries and amounts to “digital redlining,” a form of financial discrimination. Originality/Value – Payment providers’ role in regulating sex online has received considerably less scholarly attention than research on social media platforms. This gap in scholarship is notable as big payment actors have systematically denied services for about a decade relating to sexually oriented goods and services (see Blue, 2015a).
ISBN:180071730X
9781800717305
ISSN:1521-6136
DOI:10.1108/S1521-613620210000026005