“Your post has been removed. It goes against our community guidelines.”
If you’re a sex worker, queer content creator, or an LGBTQ publication, chances are, you’ve gotten this message on at least one of your social media platforms. Internet censorship is on the rise and disproportionately affects sex workers and queer people, especially those at the intersections of these communities. Sex workers have been fighting against censorship and oppression since the dawn of time, but as the digital age plummets deeper into surveillance and algorithmic control, the threat of censorship affecting the safety and livelihoods of sex workers only increases. “Terms of Service” is a Pornhub podcast exploring these very topics, asking and answering questions about the politics of free speech, co-hosted by Asa Akira, a Pornhub brand ambassador and renowned performer, and Alex Kekesi, Pornhub’s Head of Brand and Community.
Asa and Alex work to illuminate how adult entertainment—and the censorship surrounding it—is inextricably tied to the broader cultural fabric. They invite guests from diverse fields—academics, fashion icons, and even notorious scam queen Anna Delvey—to create meaningful dialogue about how all of our issues are intertwined. TOS has a large and dedicated following. Asa has 2.2 million followers, and Alex has 12.8k followers. But where TOS would reach most of its listeners, Pornhub’s Instagram, is currently suspended, playing out a live look at how censorship unfairly impacts the sex industry.
Alex has taken to posting Pornhub’s promotional content to her personal Instagram, but algorithms frequently flag or ban accounts associated with sex-positive content or advocacy – even if there is no nudity. Whether it’s a holiday-themed post or a discussion about bisexual awareness, Alex recounts how even innocuous material is often labeled inappropriate on her Instagram.
“We’re not trying to hide or sneak around,” she tells GO. “We’re simply trying to communicate with our community, but it feels like a guessing game against systems that don’t understand our context.”
“One of [the banned posts] is a Christmas sweater. It’s a model just wearing our [Pornhub’s] Christmas sweater. She’s completely covered. The only thing I can think of there is our logo. There’s been this really interesting emergence of people using the black and orange heart emojis, or the black and orange squares or circles to act as code [for our logo]. But we see how, even at a certain point, algorithms will pick those up,” Alex explains. “When people were using the eggplant emoji or the peach emoji or the little sweat droplets, those [emojis] get dinged now. Because people have come hip to the fact that, ‘Oh, we know that people are using those to mean other things now.’”
Asa faces the same mysterious loopholes.
“My [Instagram] account got taken down once. And then it came back because I appealed [the ban]. I don’t know if a human being is doing this, but it’s just so obviously not porn we’re posting. And when we started promoting ‘Terms of Service,’ suddenly I was getting flagged all the time,” Asa shares.
I tell her that GO’s accounts have been flagged for sexual content as well as hate speech for using the word ‘lesbian.’
“That’s so offensive. How is ‘lesbian’ … Next, we won’t be able to post ‘woman’,” Asa replies, offering a stark reality check on our dystopian time.
Despite the challenges—from legislative battles to social media shadowbans—Alex and Asa remain hopeful about the future of sex work. They celebrate the creativity and resilience of sex workers and adult industry professionals, who constantly find ways to adapt and thrive.
“There’s so much innovation in our community,” Alex says. “But it’s exhausting to always have to work around systems that treat us as problems rather than legitimate creators.”
“On one hand, I always want to be optimistic. I feel like that’s one thing that the adult industry, and sex workers specifically, are so creative and so resilient in terms of finding workarounds [like emojis] to these kinds of things,” Asa shares. “But it also just gets really exhausting. I don’t want to invent code words to circumvent the filters. I don’t want to be feeling like I’m breaking rules. Because I know that what we’re putting up is completely fine, and would be totally cool if it was any other brand talking about this stuff.”
TOS does the important work to undo the mindset that porn creators are not legitimate creators, and to show that issues of censorship, sex, and free speech impact everybody. “It’s been really cool […] to have these conversations in the context of something outside of porn or sex work. Because it can really start to feel like we are just yelling into the echo chamber,” Asa shares with GO. “It is validating to speak with people in other industries, to get the feedback that, ‘Oh, these are not necessarily just unique issues to us all the time.’”
Social media isn’t the only obstacle facing the adult entertainment industry– the government is at it as well. Alex tells GO about the growing challenges posed by new age verification laws targeting adult websites. While these laws are marketed as measures to “protect children,” Alex reveals the troubling reality: they create a façade of safety while introducing significant risks. These regulations demand sensitive personal information—such as IDs or passports—from users, raising concerns about privacy violations and potential data breaches. Alex emphasizes how these laws inadvertently push users toward unregulated, unsafe platforms while penalizing compliant websites like Pornhub, which voluntarily upholds robust safety and consent protocols.
The window dressing of harmful laws protecting children is a disappointing but familiar reality: “It’s kind of similar to anti-trans legislation, laws that are dressed up as “protect the kids–” I offer. “It’s like, from what?” Alex interjects. Exactly.
“We’re up to 14 states right now where we’ve completely stopped offering service in opposition to these laws, because we don’t think that it is the right thing to do, to ask our users for that kind of verification. There’s a lot of misinformation out there that says we’ve been banned or we’ve been blocked. And that’s not the truth. The truth is we have voluntarily made that choice, also to the hit of our bottom line,” Alex shares. “That means that’s traffic that we’re voluntarily surrendering because we don’t agree with these laws.”
A great example of this fruitless–and ultimately harmful–legislation is FOSTA-SESTA, U.S. Senate and House bills which became law on April 11, 2018 that made it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking. The bills, however, failed to differentiate consensual sex work from trafficking and brought down vital websites, like Backpage, that sex workers relied on to screen and approve clients.
“That legislation[ FOSTA-SESTA], on the surface, looked like it was going to completely eliminate trafficking. It was going to save women, it was going to protect children. And what we’ve seen, in fact, is the complete opposite has unfortunately happened: where we’re seeing an increased amount of violence specifically as a result of trafficking because of these laws. Because what they’ve done is they’ve eliminated or criminalized platforms that sex workers were using to recruit and vet clients, to keep them safe and to exchange information…”
Alex is also outspoken about the oversimplification of the concept of “ethical porn,” a term often wielded in feminist and queer spaces. “I think that the question of ethical porn is a very subjective one. Because what could be viewed as ethical in terms of content to some people might not be for others. […] Some people take issue with scenes that might depict certain power play dynamics or BDSM or rougher content. Sure, that’s not everybody’s cup of tea. But it doesn’t mean that it’s not ethical. On our platform, the people that are engaging in that kind of thing, we have the documentation to show that everyone’s having a good time. Both people are legal consenting adults that have elected to make this content and to monetize it.”
She challenges the binary thinking that assumes big platforms lack ethical practices, emphasizing the robust consent and moderation protocols Pornhub employs. She likens Pornhub’s role to platforms like Spotify, offering discovery and exposure for creators while enabling them to monetize their content directly or link to other platforms like OnlyFans.
“I can’t even count how many times I’ve discovered a band on Spotify. Then I’ll go to their show, I’ll buy their merch. […] So that’s how I like to compare it, because someone can find talent on Pornhub and be like, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen this person before. I really like their stuff. Oh, cool. I can go to their profile. There’s a link to their OnlyFans. I can subscribe there.’ We see that that’s something that’s happening more and more. Because people are thinking about how to creatively look at porn and their different income streams as not these singular buckets, but more as this ecosystem where things feed into each other.”
The difference is, Pornhub creators actually make more money from Pornhub than artists do from Spotify.
“We do pay creators much better than Spotify. No shade, but our kind of per-viewer per-listen, I guess, rate is better than Spotify’s.”
Oh, and another vital difference is that Pornhub creators have the constant threat of their platform being eradicated.
With years of experience in the adult industry, Asa is no stranger to the precarious nature of this work. Reflecting on the political and social climate, she admits that sex work often exists in a constant state of vulnerability.
“I can’t say that I’ve ever felt safe in sex work,” Asa acknowledges.
I ask her about her fears with Trump’s looming second presidency. “I mean, obviously Project 2025 is a very scary prospect. I think with the election, I don’t know that it’s that much scarier for sex work per se. Just because sex work feels like it’s always in danger. I can’t say that my work is guaranteed in 12 months from now,” she says. “Under pretty much any party, I’d be scared.”
It’s true. We don’t see Democrats necessarily championing sex worker rights either. So how can we get the general public to respect sex work?
TOS is one way to add dimension to conversations about porn, and get people to realize the nuances and realities of the sex industry. “It would be so cool to live in a world where porn is really seen as another form of entertainment and art. That has not really happened thus far. And I think maybe this is a first tiny step in putting ourselves on the map in that way, or maybe opening people’s eyes to another way of looking at us.”
Asa is deeply committed to reframing porn as a legitimate form of entertainment, distinct from education but no less valuable. She envisions a world where adult content is acknowledged as another branch of creative expression.
“Porn is not education. It is strictly for entertainment,” Asa asserts.
While Asa and Alex tackle heavy topics on TOS, like censorship, stigmatization, and the precariousness of sex work, they remain hopeful about the industry’s future. They see their podcast as a platform for advocacy, education, and celebration. Their conversations are so enthralling, it’s easy to forget they are about censorship, and ultimately, oppression. They’ve had guests from the likes of PR mogul Kelly Cutrone, to filmmaker Mike Stabile, to Gender and Sexualities Professor Lynn Comella.
“The fact that we have such a diverse range of guests is definitely by design. When we’ve had people like Cherie DeVille; people that are true industry folks; or Paul Cambria, we want those people on there because they’re experts. But we knew that we couldn’t have only that kind of guest on because that would feel really alienating, and not relatable to anybody that’s not in the industry,” Asa says.
“And one of the things that we’re really trying to do is make it so that people are finding relatability or an ability to view or understand issues that might feel like they’re very specific to the adult industry, but in fact really touch everyone.”
So what’s next for TOS?
“I really hope that we’re able to take on slightly less doom-and-gloom-type topics in the future. At the end of the day, the stuff that we’re taking on is heavy, because it’s talking about people’s livelihood, their general safety, ability to exist in society, however you slice or dice it,” Asa says. “I hope that a day comes where the podcast won’t be necessary, because we won’t have this stuff to talk about anymore.” Until then, you can tune into TOS here.
