MENLO PARK, Calif. — During a recent interview, Facebook founder, Instagram owner and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg doubled down on his platforms’ total ban on “pornography” and flatly denied the existence of “shadowbans” against specific users.

The rambling three-hour interview, which took place on Joe Rogan’s Spotify podcast, was called by The Independent’s reviewer, “one of the most excruciating things I’ve ever seen.”

Zuckerberg pontificated on a variety of topics, including his background, the history of his material and professional success, his self-image now and his predictions for a metaverse-intensive future.

At one point during the chat, Rogan pressed Zuckerberg on his companies’ moderation policies, especially concerning free speech, which for the podcaster, comedian and MMA announcer mostly involves the deplatforming of his friends and associates from the political right.

Twitter vs. Meta

Rogan was also particularly interested in Zuckerberg’s opinion about Twitter, which is currently at the center of a debate involving would-be purchaser Elon Musk, Rogan’s friend. Zuckerberg demurred from commenting, stating that he is “not super deep on Twitter’s policies.”

“Twitter has pornography,” Rogan said out of the blue. “I mean, they have hardcore pornography. You could just accidentally stumble onto someone you follow’s page and they’ll have hardcore pornography.”

“Pornography is a thing that we don’t allow,” Zuckerberg decreed with automated precision. “I think it’s somewhat controversial because, I mean, you could make a pretty good argument, I think, that this isn’t doing physical harm to people. I know that there’s arguments on both sides of that, so I don’t want to go super deep on that, but I’d say our reason for not wanting pornography is more for the feel of the community than the sense of harm.”

Zuckerberg’s companies’ terms of service define “pornography” to include any images of “female nipples,” and lump it together with content featuring violence, terrorism and self-harm.

The Meta CEO added, “Obviously, child pornography is different. That’s obviously real harm, but I think that’s one category of content where it’s kind of more of an editorial moderation decision. I don’t think it’s a political decision.”

Expanding on why Meta platforms reject “pornography,” Zuckerberg said, “We want the feel of the service to be about people connecting with their friends and family and not necessarily coming across that kind of content.”

In Zuckerberg’s opinion, “Most of the stuff that I think gets taken down, actually most people would agree needs to get taken down. Then I think there’s mistakes and then there’s stuff like how do you handle misinformation, which I think society as a whole doesn’t agree on.”

Shadowbans? What Shadowbans?

Rogan then pressed Zuckerberg on the topic of “shadowbans,” which erase individual users from searches, autofills and even appeals forms. This phenomenon has been experienced by a variety of users, from political commentators to virtually every sex worker, including adult performers.

“One thing that people freak out about, and oftentimes I’m a little skeptical of their concerns, is people think they’re being shadowbanned always,” Rogan said with some trepidation. “People think they’re being shadowbanned. Is shadowbanning a real thing and what does that mean?”

“There’s no policy that is ‘shadowbanning,’” Zuckerberg claimed. “I think it’s sort of a slang term, but that maybe refers to some of the demotions that we’re talking about. If someone posts something that gets marked as false by a fact checker, then it’ll get somewhat less shown in the feed.”

“Just that post or all of their posts for the future?” Rogan asked.

“If you do it once, then it’s that … there’s kind of different rules for pages and groups and different things. Then there can be some kind of broader policy that applies, but when I look into this stuff — a lot of my friends and people I know just send me examples, because unfortunately there are a lot of mistakes.”

To the likely surprise of thousands of sex workers who may have felt like they were being gaslit by one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men, Zuckerberg then added with a straight face, “As it relates to concerns about shadowbanning, a lot of the time when I look into stuff, people attribute some motive or Meta has some stupid policy in place that blocked this, or they’re banning this thing. A lot of the time it was either just a mistake, so nothing was supposed to happen, but there was some bug in the system or some system didn’t work the way it was supposed to, which is a real issue, but it’s not an ideological issue.”

‘Just Work Out’

The Meta CEO added that some perceived shadowbanning might be explained this way: “Maybe their post just wasn’t as good or something, and it just didn’t get the distribution that they wanted it to.”

After discussing a specific example of a friend of Rogan’s that Zuckerberg had looked into, the podcaster suggested that people are responding to “a lack of transparency as to how does this all work. They assume there’s nefarious intentions and that someone’s censoring them.”

Zuckerberg attempted to get the host to empathize with him.

“I’m curious how you’d think about this if you were in my position,” he pled, without a hint of emotion in his delivery.

“I’ve thought about it,” Rogan admitted. “I imagine it would be incredibly overwhelming, and I’d probably be on Xanax. I don’t know.”

“Or you’d just work out more,” counseled Zuckerberg, who visibly buffed out his scrawny programmer’s physique as he entered middle age. “Just work out.”

Aug 31, 2022 2:24 PM PDT

New York — Jenna Love and Alana Luv, along with Lucy Sunflower, guest on a new episode of Gas Digital Network’s “The SDR Show” with hosts Big Jay Oakerson and Ralph Sutton at 9 p.m. tonight.

The trio will be playing a game of “Naked Twister” on the popular comedy podcast. 

“I am so excited to lose my SDR cherry tonight, especially because I’m playing with my girl Alana Luv,” said Love. “I don’t mind spending an evening naked going red foot right, blue hand green, with that cutie pie.”

“It’s great to be back on The SDR Show again; I love Lucy and Jenna, we are going to have so much fun, and I have a special announcement too,” Luv added.

“I love playing games; I think I will take this game of Naked Twister and maybe have an orgasm while I’m doing it, too,” offered Sunflower. 

Live episodes of “The SDR Show” can be found here.

Follow Jenna Love, Alana Luv, Lucy Sunflower, and “The SDR Show” on Twitter.

DALLAS — Personal lubricant manufacturer Sliquid has instituted a minimum advertised price policy for all resellers.

Applying across all platforms, including brick-and-mortar stores, company websites, and third-party reseller sites, including Amazon, the policy sets the MAP at 20% below the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. Sliquid sets the MSRP in its official price list.

“We recognize that our high-quality retailers invest time and resources to deliver an extraordinary customer experience through knowledgeable staff and compelling vendor presentation,” said Colin Roy, Sliquid senior VP. “To support these efforts, Sliquid wishes to establish policies that allow our resale partners to earn the profits necessary to maintain the high level of customer excellence people have come to expect from Sliquid retailers.”

A rep further explained the reason for the new policy.

“The purpose of the MAP policy is to encourage fair competition across all distribution channels, preserve brand identity and value, permit smaller retailers to compete with larger retailers, mitigate underpricing and foster reasonable retailer margins,” the rep said. “While this new MAP policy takes effect immediately, the company is providing a courtesy grace period of one month for retailers to implement the policy. Full enforcement of the policy will take effect at the beginning of Q4.”

To read the new policy’s terms and conditions, click here; follow Sliquid on Twitter.

Aug 31, 2022 1:43 PM PDT

LONDON — Atlantis Deep has launched her official site, AtlantisDeep.live, that will live stream 24/7 from her home.

The site also includes Deep’s roommate Molly as well as her friends in every room of her house.
 
Deep was motivated to stream unfiltered and uncensored from her house due to being “bored with glossy edits of photos and videos,” a rep said. This allows subscribers look at her everyday life via a total of eight cameras.
 
Deep took a moment to share her excitement over this project.

“This is a huge undertaking, but I’m ready for it. Living your life on camera 24 hours a day is pretty wild, but my fans love the idea. When I saw how much my fans enjoyed my amateur content more than the polished studio-quality photos and videos, I knew I was onto something,” she said.

“Molly and I are so excited the site is finally live and can’t believe how many subscribers we already have. My fans should definitely subscribe now, so they don’t miss a moment of the action,” Deep continued.

For more information about the site, visit AtlantisDeep.Live.
 
Follow Atlantis Deep on Twitter.

FLENSBURG, Germany — Orion Wholesale is now shipping the Your New Favourite line of pleasure products from You2Toys.

The new line includes the Wand Massager, the Licking Vibrator, the Double Vibrator, the G-Spot Vibrator and the Penis Vibrator. 

“All the sex toys from ‘Your New Favourite’ are made out of silicone, which feels great against the skin during pleasure and play,” said a rep. “They can be recharged with the included USB cable.”

The Wand Massager features three speeds and five vibration modes; each of the other vibrators features 10 vibration modes. All come in yellow.

“‘Your New Favourite’ sex toys are delivered in high-quality packaging with a description of the product in various languages,” said the rep. “The packaging can also be stood up or hung up with the hanger in the middle. More products will now fit into the sales space because they’re more compact. They also take up less space when they’re in storage.”

For more information, visit Orion online or email wholesale@orion.de.

SACRAMENTO — The California legislature on Tuesday passed a highly controversial bill mandating sweeping yet vague age verification measures for any web site “likely to be accessed by children,” now waiting to be signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom.

AB 2273, also called the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, was drafted and lobbied for by  British noblewoman, philanthropist and filmmaker Beeban Kidron. 

If signed into law, the bill would require websites — including all websites containing adult content accessible in California — to determine the age of all users with “a reasonable level of certainty.”

The legislation further mandates that websites and platforms must overhaul privacy and safety standards based on the age verification requirement.

Ostensibly aimed at “making online platforms safer for children,” the bill requires “web services ‘likely to be accessed by children’ to conduct a survey assessing the potential risks for users under 18,” tech news site The Verge reported.

“Among many other measures, the sites must limit using personal information from minors and avoid collecting geolocation data unless ‘strictly necessary,’” the report continued. “It similarly restricts using ‘dark patterns,’ a general term for manipulative design features that isn’t defined in the text.”

A British Baroness With Hollywood Ties

The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act was patterned after the U.K.’s “Children’s Code,” a set of regulatory standards devised by a British aristocrat with California and Hollywood ties, the Baroness Beeban Kidron.

Kidron funds a nonprofit called the 5Rights Foundation, which backed the California bill. One of its goals is to expand the scope of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and change the definition of “child,” for online purposes, from anyone under 13 to anyone under 18.

The push for AB 2273 comes in the wake of a media panic campaign spreading the notion that “Instagram and other services ‘hook’ children with addictive features and can make them vulnerable to exploitation or bullying, among other harms,” The Verge reported.

Baroness Beeban Kidron is a 62-year-old former photographer, film producer and director, philanthropist and self-appointed “advocate for children’s rights in the digital world.” She has founded and chairs charities the 5Rights Foundation and Into Film.

Her U.K. feature films include “Vroom,” “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit” and “Antonia and Jane.” In 1992 she moved to the U.S., where she worked with Miramax Pictures’ Harvey Weinstein. She directed “Used People,” the sex work documentary “Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps and Their Johns,” “Shades of Fear,” “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar” and romantic comedy sequel “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason,” starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.

In 2012, Queen Elizabeth made Kidron a Baroness and she was introduced in the House of Lords. She was appointed on the recommendation of the House of Lords Appointments Commission and is an unelected “life peer,” legislating in the U.K. as a member of the House of Lords Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee.

Kidron spoke at length to The Guardian in 2021 about what she sees as her crusade for “children’s rights” online, which she took up immediately after being elevated as a noblewoman by the Queen.

“When she first began talking to her peers in the House of Lords about the rights of children on the internet, Baroness Kidron says she looked like ‘a naysayer,’ like someone who was ‘trying to talk about wooden toys’ or, in her husband’s words, like ‘one middle-aged woman against Silicon Valley,’” The Guardian gushed. “It was 2012 and the film-maker and recently appointed life peer was working on her documentary ‘InRealLife,’ spending ‘hundreds of hours in the bedrooms of children’ to discover how the internet affects young lives. What she saw disturbed her.”

“I did what they were doing — gaming, falling in love, watching pornography, going to meet-ups, making music — you name it, it happened,” Kidron told The Guardian. “Digital services and products were treating them as if they were equal,” she said. “The outcome of treating everyone equally is you treat a kid like an adult.”

Digital Rights and Privacy Groups Sound the Alarm

The Baroness’ successful interventions in U.K. and now California online policy, however, have raised the alarm for privacy, civil liberty and digital rights activists.

In a series of articles, Mike Masnick of tech news site Tech Dirt has been highlighting the dangers of Kidron’s crusade and of the strict but vague measures in AB 2273, which she helped draft.

Calling the situation “incredibly dangerous,” Masnick warned that the bill “is not just extremely problematic, but at the same time it’s also impossible to comply with. I hope Governor Newsom will veto it, but it seems unlikely.”

Masnick quoted Section 230 and digital rights expert Eric Goldman, an outspoken academic, who provided the following breakdown of what he characterizes as the bill’s censorship-happy, privacy-busting overreach:

• “First, the bill pretextually claims to protect children, but it will change the Internet for EVERYONE. In order to determine who is a child, websites and apps will have to authenticate the age of ALL consumers before they can use the service. NO ONE WANTS THIS. It will erect barriers to roaming around the Internet. Bye bye casual browsing. To do the authentication, businesses will be forced to collect personal information they don’t want to collect and consumers don’t want to give, and that data collection creates extra privacy and security risks for everyone. Furthermore, age authentication usually also requires identity authentication, and that will end anonymous/unattributed online activity.
• Second, even if businesses treated all consumers (i.e., adults) to the heightened obligations required for children, businesses still could not comply with this bill. That’s because this bill is based on the U.K. Age-Appropriate Design Code. European laws are often aspirational and standards-based (instead of rule-based), because European regulators and regulated businesses engage in dialogues, and the regulators reward good tries, even if they aren’t successful. We don’t do “A-for-Effort” laws in the U.S., and generally we rely on rules, not standards, to provide certainty to businesses and reduce regulatory overreach and censorship.
• Third, this bill reaches topics well beyond children’s privacy. Instead, the bill repeatedly implicates general consumer protection concerns and, most troublingly, content moderation topics. This turns the bill into a trojan horse for comprehensive regulation of Internet services and would turn the privacy-centric California Privacy Protection Agency/CPPA) into the general purpose Internet regulator.
• So the big takeaway: this bill’s protect-the-children framing is designed to mislead everyone about the bill’s scope. The bill will dramatically degrade the Internet experience for everyone and will empower a new censorship-focused regulator who has no interest or expertise in balancing complex and competing interests.”

“It is astounding to me that the legislature appears to have just wholly ignored all of Goldman’s clearly laid out and explained problems with the bill,” Masnick commented.

Both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and tech industry trade group NetChoice have questioned the constitutionality of the bill.

“At this stage, we’re focused on Governor Newsom vetoing this dangerous legislation. When it comes to what happens if he doesn’t, we have nothing to say about that at this point,” NetChoice spokesperson Krista Chavez told The Verge.

LAS VEGAS — UnlockedXX has introduced performance upgrades to its fan site platform, in order to offer what a rep called “an improved, more secure user experience for both models and their followers.”

According to brand ambassador Brie Nightwood, UnlockedXX is home to taboo content that other fan platforms don’t allow.

“With new online features such as StripTok and Instagram insurance,” Nightwood added, UnlockedXX provides “a rather unique new experience. Ease of use, superior tools and trust in the company you’re working with goes a long way towards building better products.”

UnlockedXX, Nightwood said, is “part of the next generation of platforms that is committed to utilizing premium digital tech to deliver the very best service for creators.”

For more information, visit UnlockedXX.com.

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. — Swiss Navy has completed the last of the 10 training modules in its Certified Expert program.

The program launched in June, National Adult Sex Education Month, and was completed in August, Sexual Health Month.

“We are always very intentional with our planning,” said M.D. Science Lab VP of Sales and Marketing Briana Watkins. “We knew that we wanted to provide our retail partners with a way their staff could be trained extensively, and we also knew the training had to be dynamic, self-paced and fun.

Watkins added, “Feedback we’re receiving about our expert certification program is that it’s helping staff members feel more confident and capable in their roles, which is helping with employee retention.”

The online Swiss Navy Certified Expert course, a rep noted, may be accessed online on multiple devices “at any day and time to fit into retail staff schedules.”

The course covers subjects such as types of consumable goods, in-depth knowledge of uses and solutions and “Did You Know” tidbits to help initiate conversations with consumers. The course was created in a bite-sized format so that retail staff can easily navigate their way to certification on any time schedule.

Upon successfully completing all 10 modules, each trainee receives a certificate announcing them as a Swiss Navy Certified Expert, and a certification pin.

Retailers and their staff can sign up here.

For more from Swiss Navy, visit its B2B Resource Center.

LOS ANGELES — After two instances of anti-sex-worker discrimination last week, Adriana Chechik has been reinstated to gaming platform Twitch and has received an apology from Epic Games, makers of Fortnite.

Last Thursday, Chechik revealed on camera that she had been banned from a Twitch event shortly before its kickoff.

“There’s two types of approval processes that you have to go through for these competitions,” a visibly emotional Chechik explained to her fans. “The first approval is Twitch Rivals, and Twitch approving you. The second one is the game company that’s hosting the event, and I guess last night they decided to not approve me because of my adult work. Because of my past and my adult work, I’ve been bumped from it.”

“Epic Games didn’t approve of my background,” Chechik added, on the verge of tears. “But this is fine. I’m used to this, so that’s fine.”

For the past few years, Chechik has been steadily rebranding away from her adult career and towards gaming and mental health advocacy.

On Friday, after mainstream media reported on Chechik’s experience of discrimination, she was reportedly banned from Twitch, apparently for wearing a translucent outfit with pasties underneath. However, she has since been reinstated to the gaming platform.

Meanwhile, the official Twitter account for Fortnite publicly apologized to Chechik, saying, “We’re so sorry this happened. The request to @TwitchRivals was to work with you to remove adult references from your stream’s background due to our game’s rating. We have no issue with you participating in events or streaming Fortnite.”

As gaming site SVG noted, “In the aftermath of both her ban from Twitch and her not being allowed to participate in the Twitch Rivals ‘Fortnite’ event, Chechik received a massive amount of support from those who claimed that both Twitch and Epic Games were operating under a double standard. @Yelashot on Twitter pointed out that other streamers have worn nothing but body paint without receiving bans in the past, while others posted clips of rather ‘suggestive’ dances being present on ‘Fortnite.’”

Aug 29, 2022 2:59 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES — Wicked Sensual Care (WSC) has selected Emily Cattafi of Fantasy Gifts in Turnersville, New Jersey as the Retail Superstar.

Each month, a new “superstar” in the pleasure products space is interviewed for the WSC newsletter.

Reflecting on her career, Cattafi talked about how she entered the industry and why she stayed with it.

“I got into adult retail like a lot of people — by accident,” Cattafi said. “I was a 19-year-old new mom and needed a job that would allow me some flexibility to raise my daughter Kenzie. I was fortunate that my aunt, Kathy Randazzo, was working at Fantasy Gifts. When I first interviewed, I was hired as a retail sales clerk working part time.”

“I found I really liked the job and my co-workers, and I was fortunate that they were pretty good about giving me a flexible schedule. Over time, I started working more and more in the back office and warehouse,” Cattafi continued. “From there, I was promoted to warehouse manager. In three years I have now worked my way up to General Manager and I’ve been going to tradeshows as the buyer for both of our New Jersey locations.”

Wicked Sensual Care Sales Director Jennifer Brice took a moment to praise Cattafi’s career.

“Emily Cattafi is enjoying an inspiring career in the pleasure space,” Brice said. “Many retail buyers don’t work directly with customers on the sales floor, so the kind of retail experience Emily possesses gives her invaluable insight into consumer tastes and how they’re tied to the latest trends and market conditions. We’re thrilled to see her thrive at such a wonderful company.”

A potential “retail superstar” may be nominated by sending their name, store name, location/city, store social media handles and a brief paragraph — a photograph is optional — about why they deserve to be a superstar to team@wickedsensualcare.com. Superstars may also self-nominate.

Visit WSC’s B2B portal and follow the company on Twitter.