Is Congress really trying to outlaw all sex work? That’s what some people fear the Preventing Rampant Online Technological Exploitation and Criminal Trafficking (PROTECT) Act would mean.
The bill defines “coerced consent” to include consent obtained by leveraging “economic circumstances”—which sure sounds like a good starting point for declaring all sex work “coercive” and all consent to it invalid. (Under that definition, in fact, most jobs could be considered nonconsensual.)
Looking at the bill as a whole, I don’t think this is its intent, nor is it likely be enforced that way. It’s mainly about targeting tech platforms and people who post porn online that they don’t have a right to post.
But should the PROTECT Act become law, its definition of consent could be used in other measures that do seek to target sex work broadly. And even without banning sex work, it could still wreak major havoc on sex workers, tech companies, and free speech and internet freedom more widely.
There are myriad ways it would do this. Let’s start by looking at how it could make all existing online porn against the law.
Hellbound and Down 