Is Facebook a safe haven for sex workers? The time to change the rules of the internet for kids and the age of millennials

Since the FBI seized Backpage in April of last year, all major social media platforms have allowed sex workers. Even in the absence of direct payouts, Twitter has long been a safe haven for sex workers (adult content creators as well as in-person providers) in an increasingly puritanical digital landscape. But in order for monetization to work, Twitter must overhaul its content moderation practices and intensify them, in direct contrast to Musk’s oath to protect “free speech.”

Since the earliest days of the internet, there’ve been conversations about what, exactly, kids are being exposed to when they go online—and what might be done to better protect them from websites they’re not ready to see. The July 1995 issue of Time Magazine featured a story about the dangers of cyberporn. Though some of the most shocking claims within the piece (like the assertion that 83.5 percent of images stored in Usenet groups were both pornographic and easily accessible to children) were quickly debunked, it still helped set the tone of the conversation about kids and the internet for the years to come.

Not really. If we want kids to grow up with healthy ideas about sex, we actually need to offer them more than just censorship. Even though censors may fail to protect them from all available adult content, they can still be resistant when they have healthy sex messages.

“A big thing that I hear from parents with concern about pornography is the way that it presents gender roles,” says Heather Corinna, founder and director of the youth sex education site Scarleteen. “OK, let’s think about it: What kind of education and support have you already given your young person about gender roles? Have you done a good job of teaching them about sexism? If you know how to respect people’s bodies, then there’s a good chance that your kids will follow suit when they watch a porn movie featuring a sexist story line.

Start the conversation early. Many people assume that kids don’t need to start learning about sex until they’re about to hit puberty—or, potentially, even later. Experts recommend starting sooner than that. “I taught preschool. I can’t imagine not talking to toddlers about their body parts, about where to put their hands,” says Corinna. When kids are old enough to learn about body parts and personal space, they should have the discussions that will form the basis of their life-long sex education.