The Point of Counting: Mapping the Internet Based Sex Industry

Abstract

Study Aim: This paper tries to grapple with some of the questions about counting numbers in the sex industry as an adjunct to a much larger sociological study of the ways in which digital technology has changed the commercial sex industry. The project sets out to reflect on the ethics of counting online and what this means to the sex work community. Method: The data is provided by the largest online adult services advertising platform in the UK which is compared to our own counts of sex worker profiles on that same platform to illustrate some of the challenges related to counting the sex industry. Result: The data comparisons show that using front facing public profiles of adult sex workers is not an accurate measure of the size of the sex industry, and whilst the information can be used for some purposes it must be used with caution. The findings point to the need for researchers and others involved in mapping sex worker populations to reflect carefully on ethical issues and the impact of mapping on sex workers. Conclusion: It is suggested that the usefulness of counting profiles on adult websites should be approached with caution both as a researcher analyst and also as someone who uses or requests this form of quantification. With over 40% differences between outward facing and active profiles the margins for error are high.

A Review of the Criminalisation of the Payment for Sexual Services in Northern Ireland

“…Given the move online of much commercial sex over the course of the past two decades it is now somewhat easier to estimate prevalence data for sex working populations than it was in the past. One of the most commonly utilised methodological techniques for estimating prevalence data for those involved in commercial sex is via web or data scraping (Sanders, Campbell, Cunningham, Pitcher and Scoular, 2018). This can be done by any number of commercial firms who specialise in data scraping or for those forms of data that are not particularly complex, via an extension to a web browser such as Chrome or Firefox.…”

Good Tech, Bad Tech: Policing Sex Trafficking with Big Data

“…There are numerous issues with these as a source of data, including inconsistencies, contradictory information and a lack of details. However, the most pressing issue is that they are not reflections of the lived reality of sex workers as much as they are market prerogatives aimed at attracting clients on a vibrant market characterised by heterogeneity (Sanders et al 2018b). There has not been enough systematic research on how the online market prerogatives compare across independent escorts, sex worker collectives, agencies and criminal networks.…”

“…Trade secrets, in combination with a lack of transparency and algorithmic opacity, render it impossible to assess the relationship between the data and the conclusions drawn from the analysis (Burrell 2016;Dourish 2016;Mittelstadt et al 2016). Hence, there is little reason to believe that anti-trafficking software is adequately capturing the complexities of exploitation through the analysis of online escort adverts, which are a very fragmented source of data (Sanders et al 2018b).…”