Technology, Surveillance and the State

In May 2019, SWARM hosted a three day festival to celebrate ten years of organising. This included panel discussions across a wide range of topics that impact on sex workers, and which connect and intersect with sex worker rights organising as well as broader struggles for justice. The conversations and discussions from that festival lay the groundwork for the Decriminalised Futures project.

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Technology, Surveillance and the State: How We Resist (May 2019)

Online crackdowns against sex workers are on the rise. The UK’s imminent porn ban will push independent porn producers out of business; porn bans on sites like Tumblr have devastated online communities; in the US, the introduction of the FOSTA/SESTA bills led to the closure of sites like Backpage, on which thousands of sex workers relied for their living. This panel gathered together the voices of sex workers from across the industry, as well as campaigners with an interest in broader issues around the online censorship and surveillance of marginalised communities to discuss what’s happening and how we can resist the carceral, censorious agenda being played out.

Full Recording

Transcript

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Speakers: Helen Hester, Juno Mac, Gracie Mae Bradley, Camille Melissa, Amina du Jean

Technology, Surveillance and the State: How We Resist is the 14th panel discussion of the SWARM 2019 Festival of Resistance.

The topics included:

  • Imagining Feminist Futures

  • Radical Transfeminist Activism

  • Cops Don’t Keep Us Safe: When Survival Is Made Criminal

  • Sex Work and Migration in Europe

  • The Impact of Austerity

  • Sex Workers of Colour Roundtable

  • (Resisting) Systems of Violence

  • Sex Workers on the Nordic Model

  • Artists Talk Bodies, Visibility, and Violence

  • Radical Histories: Exploring the Archives

  • Aesthetics vs Ethics: Expanding Definitions of Feminist Porn

  • How Do Disability and Sex Work Intersect in the UK Today

  • The Future of Work

  • Technology, Surveillance and the State: How We Resist

  • Examining Anti-trafficking Measures: Academic Perspectives

  • Researching Sex Work

  • Strength, Resilience, and Healthcare

  • A Decriminalised Future

Year: 2019
Type: panel discussion
Series: swarm festival of resistance
Subject(s): technology surveillance vawg porn internet advertising police security sesta fosta