Sex Workers Say Porn On Google Drive Is Suddenly Disappearing

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Porn performer Avey Moon was trying to send the lucky winner of her Chaturbate contest his prize -- one of her videos, titled "POV Blowjob" -- through her Google Drive account. But it wouldn't send, and Google wasn't telling her why. "I thought there was something wrong with my file and I got rather worried," Moon told me in a Twitter message. "I had promised this guy his content and he was so good to me. I was panicked because I thought if I couldn't give him his prize, he would feel like he got ripped off and never come back again or worse, he could actually file a complaint with Chaturbate about me and they can take money from me." She's not alone. Six porn performers I talked to and more on social media said that they suddenly can't download adult content they keep on Google Drive. They also said they can't a share that content with other accounts or send to clients. In some cases, the adult content is disappearing from Drive without warning or explanation. The porn performers I talked to started sounding the alarm on Twitter last week. They said that Google Drive no longer seemed sex-trade friendly, detailing error messages and sharing cloud storage alternatives with each other.

When I asked about sexual content being blocked on Drive, a spokesperson for Google directed me to the Drive policy page -- specifically the section on sexually explicit material, which says, "Do not publish sexually explicit or pornographic images or videos.... Additionally, we do not allow content that drives traffic to commercial pornography." Writing about porn and sex is permitted, the policy states, as long as it's not accompanied by sexually explicit images or videos. According to Google, Drive uses a combination of automated systems and manual review to decide what's in violation. One worker said they've been using Google Drive for most of the last five and a half years but just recently received an error message when sending a video, saying that the item may violate Google's Terms of Service, with a link to request a review. In this case, the video title was explicit, but other adult performers report similar messages when sending content with non-explicit titles. "Some sex workers are wondering if this has something to do with the impending vote on the SESTA-FOSTA bill," reports Motherboard. We now have learned that the Senate has passed the bill.