Eden Alexander/WePay Update: Crowdtilt Saves The Day, And More About WePay's Decision Exposed

[Crossposted to Red Garter Club 3.2 as well] 
 
Since I broke the news (also here) of the unfolding controversy involving cam model/porn director/sex worker Eden Alexander and the actions of payment provider WePay and crowdfundraising site GiveForward.com, events have been breaking early and often. So, here's an update on what has happened and what may happen next.

First, some wonderful news: Eden Alexander did tweet on Saturday that she is out of surgery and now recovering in her hospital bed; she is getting the treatment and the rest that she needs, and she is, from every indication, in good spirits (albeit ovewhelmed and exhausted from all the physical and emotional strain of the past few days).

Secondly, some more wonderful and pretty heartening news: The porn/sex work disapora has, to say the least, responded to Eden's plight the way the Allies responded in Normandy in World War II. Since the alternate fundraising site was set up over at Cloudtilt.com, it has raised more than $8,500 in all of nearly 48 hours...and is currently about to hit $9K. Not too shabby, if I may say so. Those wanting to give their contribution can still access Eden's page here if they choose.

Amazingly enough, one of the more significant contributions came from the head of GiveForward, the crowdraising site which operated Alexander's original fundraiser. Attached to it was a message from GiveForward representative Michael Powell, apologizing to Eden for their role in the disaster and contributing the equivalent of their and WePay's donation fees as an atonement. (Screenshot of Powell's donation statement courtesy of Chris Lowrance's Twitter page)



Unfortunately, no such atonement has as of yet come from the actual instigators of the whole controversy, the payment processor WePay. As of right now, they are still sticking to their story that they were simply forced by their regulations and rules to axe Eden's account because she allegedly violated their Terms of Service involving using their account for "pornographic services". They did clarify, though, that they have released all of the funds collected from the fundraiser; funds raised before May 14th were processed and transferred to Eden's account; while funds raised after that were returned to their respective donors.

A bit more clarity has now been opened on WePay's processes since this first broke. Vice.com's Motherboard blog on yesterday posted their perspective on the whole controversy, which opened up some new revelations about the controversy.

We now know that WePay's backdoor processor for all its financial dealings is a company called Vantiv, which was described as one of the largest processers of bank card payments in the United States; as well as the owner of nearly 12,000 ATM's (Automated Teller Machines) nationwide. No one as of yet has asked their spokespersons whether those who take out money at those ATM's are screened for their outside activities the same way that Eden Alexander was screened for hers, or whether they even care that the money pulled from ATM's or other transactions could be used for porn or other illicit or even illegal purposes.

And that's kind of a relevant question, because, according to the Vice.com article....

On Twitter, WePay's cofounder Bill Clerico explained a bit more. Many of things banned in the service's terms (like porn anything) are required by processors because "they are prone to fraud and abuse." WePay is required by its partners (financial partners, presumably) to actively monitor (surveill) its users for policy violations, which includes combing through Twitter accounts, a task done by actual humans. "We must enforce these policies or we face hefty fines or the risk of shutdown for the many hundreds of thousands of merchants on our service," said Rassa.

This begs some huge questions: How can private firms and banks and other financial institutions retain the power to sanction and fine or even shut down payment processors for the mere "crime" of association with certain types of transactions...even if such transactions are perfectly legal and above board? Does the mere suspicion of abuse or fraud warrant dropping the hammer, the anvil, the Rock of Gibraltar, and a million gallons of genuine Niagara Falls on a woman raising funds for her medical bills?? And, more importantly, are these rules being enforced equally, or are they selectively enforced based on mere personal bias or selective prejudice against.....oh, I don't know....sex workers and porn performers?

This also brings us back to that "Operation ChokePoint" thing that the US Department of Justice is now doing to target banks and financial institutions to combat all sorts of shady activities. The initial educational material that the DoJ pushed out to Big Finance did label "pornography" as one of the subset activities warranting suspicion and further investigation, alongside other, more traditional activities such as subprime lending, online payday loansharking, telemarketing, and other sources of possible chargeback/usury abuse. There is still plenty of furious debate whether the real responsibility lies with the government for "overzealous" regulation (the theory of the Libertarian Right and the traditional conservatives who oppose all regulation on general principle); or Big Finance for misinterpreting and twisting the regulations around for their own purpose, and using sex workers and porn folk as human shields and stepping stones to get back at the regulators (the more liberal/progressive view).

And then, you wonder whether even WePay understand their own Terms of Service. The alleged acts that triggered Eden Alexander's account to get pulled were two retweets that she did of a couple of porn sites which attempted to give some...ummm, incentives to donate to her fund....namely, some free pics and reduced prices on some porn videos that Eden had starred in. Forget the basic fact that retweets are not necessarily endorsements of what is tweeted, and that nowhere in Alexander's initial funding pitch or any of her own tweets does she offer anything in quid pro quo for donating to her fund. And, never mind the basic fact that the whole point of the fundraiser was to pay her medical bills and help her through a potential life threatening situation. You could make the case that she really did not violate their ToS at all..and yet WePay (perhaps under pressure from Vantiv or maybe OCP) simply decided they had to pull the trigger and nuke Eden's account for "consistency's sake".

The fact that WePay is induced (by their contracts with their financial partners, they say) to essentially spy on their paying customers' personal social media accounts in order to detect even the smallest excuse for dismissal...errrrrrrr, the slightest indication of "fraud and abuse", does not induce much comfort for those who care about privacy or free expression, either.

More likely, it looks like WePay/Vantiv is engaging in the same old tired bullshit act of slut shaming, sex shaming, and porn shaming that other financial institutions like PayPal, Amazon, JPMorganChase, and a few others have mastered. Considering that a major antiporn summit just concluded this weekend, alongside of a just as major confab of "movement conservatives" bent on imposing similar moral values on the rest of America. Between that and the ongoing "sex trafficking" panic that is scaring plenty of liberals into compliance with antisex legislation, that's more than enough to keep Big Finance and the politicians they buy to keep holding the line against "those dirty sluts and whores" using "their money" to "corrupt" fair patriotic American society.

It may be that Eden Alexander is simply a small victim in this major war of financial wits. Thankfully, due to the generosity of her fans and those who actually think that sex workers are as human as everyone else, she will survive and recover.

WePay, for its part, has backslid a bit since getting absolutely singed by the social media firestorm. They did offer to provide Eden a new fundraiser page, but by then her followers had already moved over to Cloudtilt. They also promised a review of their ToS and procedures for shutting down accounts, though they didn't say whether or not they would change their procedures for reviewing accounts or even their surveillance of customer's social media accounts.

It should also be noted that while Cloudtilt's ToS does not mention porn at all; their own payment processing company, Balanced.com, does have a Sellers Agreement with their clients that does ban "sexually-oriented or pornographic products or services". (Raising the question of whether a company like, say, Lovability Condoms could use their services.)

The main issue in all this remains that sex workers who practice a legal profession (and in California and New Hampshire, porn is fully protected as constitutional free speech) should not face any Scarlet Letters when they attempt to raise funds for whatever reason they choose for legal purposes....and especially NOT for the purpose of paying their medical bills. Why they should have to resort to crowdfunding for essential healthcare in one of the richest countries in the world is an issue in and of itself....but that's another issue to tackle.

It all comes back to the basic ideas:

Sex workers and porn performers/cam girls are human beings; "sluts" are people, too; and if you exchange money for sex in any way, then you might be as much a "whore" as an actual sex worker....they just only are open and out and honest about it.

Why Anti-Sex Worker/AntiPorn Discrimination Matters: The Eden Alexander/WePay Debacle

[also crossposted over at Red Garter Club]

[Update: Eden Alexander's new fundraising page has now raised over $6,000; you can add your contribution, if you are so inclined, over at her page.] 

There has been plenty of ink spilled recently over how sex workers, porn performers, and adult models are being targeted for discrimination and abuse, but this week has now focused this issue much more intensely through an ongoing situation that could turn potentially tragic.

I have posted previously here on the ongoing saga of JP Morgan Chase, the major financial conglomerate, and its efforts to cancel the accounts of porn performers, citing "reputational risk". For those who have missed it, Chase started mailing cancellation notices to several porn performers (Teagan Presley among others) around mid-April, warning them that their accounts would be pulled by May 11th due to unstated violations of their Terms of Service.....even though they didn't provide any evidence that any of the accounts were used for unsanctioned purposes.

I've also posted on the recent program by the Department of Justice, "Operation ChokePoint", which began as a guide for financial regulators and banking institutions for seeking out and screening potentially suspectible practices and illegal activities through third-party payment processors. The program did list "pornography" as one of many forms of activity warranting added scrutiny, but it did not endorse specifically going after adult transactions for proscecution; it was designed as more of a broad-brush means of regulation. Nevertheless, banking institutions such as Chase has used this program as a justification for their current blacking out of porn performers and other adult transactions; and opponents of regulation have cited what they see as the overreach of Operation ChokePoint into porn accounts as a critique of regulation per se.

But...all of that, for what it's worth, merely pales to the human tragedy now unfolding that exposes the cold heart and the ultimate consequenses of what discrimination against adult sex workers can lead to.

That would be the human tragedy that Eden Alexander is now facing.

Eden Alexander is a cam model, producer, and independent artist whom recently faced a series of medical emergencies that nearly cost her her life and required her to undergo multiple bouts of hospitalization. First, she suffered an allergic reaction to a common prescription drug. When her original doctor refused to offer proper medication and treatment for her condition, effectively citing her profession and hinting of "drug abuse", that condition elevated into a full-flared MRSA/staph infection, which then triggered other reactions that nearly killed her. Due to the delay in getting proper treatment, her infection even further spread to the point where she was further incapacitated...to the point where she was (and still is) unable to provide for herself or her family through her work.

Thusly, she and her friends opened up a fundraising drive through GiveForward.com in order to solicit funds for her to essentially stay alive until she recovers. (You may know about GiveForward from here earlier, because it was the same fundraiser site that Nina Hartley used nearly four years ago to raise funds for her fibroid surgery recovery.) The fundraiser managed to suceed quite well, with nearly $5,000 raised from friends and performers alike.

And that's when WePay, the payment processor for GiveForward.com, decided to intervene in a very bad way.

This morning, Eden Alexander tweeted this to her timeline:

Got this email from @wepay saying they CANCELLED my medical fundraiser bc ill use the money for porn. LITERALLY. pic.twitter.com/Sa8tohWaDe
— Eden Alexander (@EdenAlexanderXX) May 17, 2014

The email, which she attached to her tweet, did not state explicitly how they determined that she was using the fundraising for "pornographic activities"; it simply noted that the account was in violation of their Terms of Service, and abruptly cancelled it without notice.

Shaken enough by her condition, this new shock to her system may have pushed Eden off the cliff. She subsequently tweeted even more disturbing thoughts of ending her life, and then disappeared off the timeline; prompting real concerns of suicide. She has since been hospitalized and is currently in ER treatment.

The adult world has also been shaken to its own core by all this; a new fundraiser for Alexander has been launched through Crowdtilt.com, which has recouped more than the share of funds that the original GiveForward fundraiser did; it is still ongoing as of now.

And, the rage of the adult performer diaspora has been raining down on WePay like the eyewall of Hurricane Katrina over the Louisiana coast. Kitty Stryker, a close friend of Eden and one of the creators of the first fundraiser, let loose a furious retort to WePay and its inconsistencies in its ToS that is must reading. A sample:

What WePay (and therefore GiveForward) is effectively saying is that because Eden is a cam girl by profession, raising money for medical funds is suspicious and banned.

Because we all know sex workers can’t be trusted, and we’ll probably blow our money on porn rather than self care, and we all have robot bodies that never get ill, right?
However, and here’s where I’m really, really fucking angry, here’s some other areas they ban.

Oh yeah, WePay? Like “revealing the evils of the homosexual agenda“? How about going to other countries to spread imperialist Christianity among communities of colour? AWESOME SO GLAD YOU FUND THAT

Yeah cool so you’re totally not helping fund “love donations” for psychic readings. Cause science has totally explained that.

But you’ll totally help people go to fat camp, or get post-weight loss surgeries. Even if it’s someone raising money for their partner because he’s decided she’s too fat.

If they seriously ban everyone who has ever worked retail from using WePay, I’ll eat my hat. Not for selling the products through WePay, but ever selling licensed products ever.

For their part, WePay did attempt a public response to the firestorm of criticism...which only fanned the flames that much more. WePay CEO Bill Clerico tweeted an attempt to defend their actions, stating that Eden Alexander violated their ToS and justified her cancellation by retweeting a post from her supporters offering free porn for donating to her fund. (To which the proper response by anyone with a shred of decency and humanism should be: "So?? Does that justify denying a sick woman funds??")

Then, WePay issued a written press statement "apologizing" to Alexander for all that took place, but still defending their actions due to compliance with "back end processors" such as Visa and MasterCard. (Riiiight, because they don't do business with porn sites, either, as my inability to use my paycard to join porn sites can attest.) Here's WePay's "statement" (via Cyborgology):


One Clerico tweet even went so far as to admit that WePay screens and monitors' their customers for suspicion of "fraud and abuse", but only "because they have to"....an oblique reference, perhaps to Operation CheckPoint and the DoJ's initiative.

P. J. Rey of The Society Pages' Cyborgology blog cuts through that bullshit most adequately:

WePay’s response, predictably, amounts to the old “don’t blame us, blame the market” strategy of denying responsibility. This is the same pattern we recently witnessed with Paypal and Chase: Rather than working to find ways to conduct business without discrimination, execs shrug their shoulders and point to the markets as supposed justification for what, in this case, is not only unjust, but downright inhumane, treatment. We, the public, are expected to just resign our democratic values when the market deems them inconvenient.
Fuck that. The discriminatory practices of a back-end processor and concerns about fraud do not and will not ever justify denying medical care to a very real human being, regardless of her occupation.

And , Rey adds this depressing thought about how all this feeds into general stigma and slut shaming and sex shaming in general, as well as how even libertarianism isn't enough in defending sex workers/porn performers/adult models:

What is perhaps most shocking about this tragedy is that it illustrates how readily we dehumanize sex workers. Whether it is the doctor (who reportedly dismissed the severity Alexander’s condition, assuming it to be the product of drug abuse) or WePay shutting down her donations page because she is connected to the production pornographic content, institutional policies and practices reduced Alexander (as they do all sex workers) to being nothing more than her work. Unfortunately, this too often how stigma works. From the perspective of this institutionalized stigma, you can’t be a sex worker and a person in need of medical treatment because when you’re a sex worker, you are only a sex worker. A person’s humanity is flattened and they are seen only as their stigma. This is an observation that Kitty Stryker and Melissa Gira Grant both made pointedly:

What market logic does–when we fail to intervene demanding that humanitarian values be respected–is to reduce humans to mere risks and opportunities. Risk is stigma in market terms. Both flatten a person and mark them for exclusion. When a CEO says “sex workers are a risk,” they always, implicitly, mean “a risk–and nothing more.” The purpose of such language is to depersonalize and dehumanize and, thereby, to remove the moral impediments to exclusion.
What we, collectively, need to do is present new impediments to exclusion–to create conditions where exclusion itself is risky business. I know I, for one, won’t be using WePay any time soon for any of my projects.

I would say that it's not just "whore stigma", but simple sex hate and slut-shaming, combined with the additional stigmatization of keeping their money while denying them their humanity, that drives institutions like WePay, JPMorganChase, PayPal, and all the rest. (It wasn't until the protest tornado hit WePay's pig farm that they finally decided to release the funds from the GiveForward fundraiser over to Eden Alexander, and offer to "help" her restart her original fundraiser. Otherwise, they would have probably even kept those funds in their back pocket, or at least pocketed the commissions and fees from processing it.)

If the funds raised so far end up ultimately funding Eden Alexander's funeral, then WePay, Chase, the Department of Justice, and all the other financial institutions endorsing this gratituous discrimination have blood on their hands. And they need to pay, through their wallets. Slut/whore/sex stigma has got to be opposed and stomped out, by any means necessary.