How One Tweak to the Internet Led This Guy to a BDSM Dungeon

Summary

Podcast Summary: "How One Tweak to the Internet Led This Guy to a BDSM Dungeon"

Podcast: Question Everything
Host: Brian Reed
Guest: Davin Addison (aka Davin Strong)
Date: January 15, 2026

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Overview

In this episode of Question Everything, host Brian Reed investigates the real-world impact of changes to Section 230, the law shielding internet platforms from liability for user-generated content. Focusing on the 2018 FOSTA-SESTA amendment—which aimed to fight online sex trafficking but ended up drastically and controversially affecting legal sex work—Reed shares the story of adult performer Davin Addison, whose livelihood and safety were fundamentally altered by the legislation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Section 230: What It Is and Why It Matters

• Section 230 (Communications Decency Act, 1996) protects platforms from lawsuits over user postings, enabling the modern internet (00:00).
• Reed advocates for reform, acknowledging the risks that change might bring (00:00).
• The 2018 FOSTA-SESTA bill rolled back some protections to combat sex trafficking but had significant unintended effects (00:42).

Davin Addison’s Journey into Sex Work

• Davin begins sex work during a tough period in college, after mental health challenges and quitting his wrestling team (02:18–04:28).
• Moves from fitness modeling to cam work, then expands as he discovers how online platforms can be monetized (03:33–05:23).
• Uses Instagram to drive business to his OnlyFans, capitalizing on the broader reach to build a substantial following (09:03–09:45).
• The model: post playful, non-explicit photos on Instagram, link to explicit paid content on OnlyFans (09:45).

“It’s like the more followers I can get, the more eyes that are going to be on, you know, this link.”
— Davin Addison (09:03)

The Fallout from FOSTA-SESTA

• After FOSTA-SESTA, Instagram and other platforms start aggressively removing adult content and accounts, decimating Davin’s business (10:25–14:14).
• Davin’s income drops from $3–4k a month to $500–$1,000, and his Instagram account (100,000 followers) is deleted (14:14).
• Major platforms overcorrect, banning even legal sex work content to avoid liability (14:26).

“This is the section 230 butterfly effect in action.”
— Brian Reed (14:26)

Increased Risk, Hard Decisions

• With online promotion avenues gone, Davin is forced into more dangerous, in-person sex work and escorting, confronting legal gray areas and personal risk (17:47–19:05).
• Reed outlines how the crackdown on platforms also eroded support systems and harmed sex workers, making their work less safe and more underground (25:14–26:16).
• Davin shares harrowing stories of in-person encounters gone wrong—panic attacks, physical danger, and being forced into risky situations for income (22:54–24:25).

“I’m meeting up with random, mostly men…Still makes me uncomfortable. I mean, I’m just meeting a dude, you know.”
— Davin Addison (17:57)

Did FOSTA-SESTA Fulfill Its Mission?

• Reed describes how, while FOSTA-SESTA allowed for lawsuits against enablers of sex trafficking, it hasn’t produced big wins for victims, and enforcement remains confusing (21:37).
• The shutdown of Backpage (a hub for trafficking) is often cited as a win, but legally didn’t rely on FOSTA-SESTA and might even hinder law enforcement now (21:37–22:20).
• Reed and Davin discuss how laws intended to help victims resulted in more risk for workers like Davin and little change for actual trafficking outcomes (31:25–32:05).

Coping, Advocacy, and Adaptation

• Davin tries rebuilding his audience but encounters algorithmic restrictions (“shadowbanned”), so pivots to doing hardcore porn with collaborators to share audiences (28:46–30:28).
• He earns more (sometimes up to $10k/month), but only after moving further from his preferences due to regulatory crackdown (30:54).
• Returns to more selective, mixed sex/escort work, focusing on “boyfriend experience," massages, and “pro doming” in Las Vegas (31:25).

“I started doing hardcore porn as a result of that.”
— Davin Addison (30:28)

The Broader Ethical and Policy Dilemma

• Reed and Davin reflect on the complex, often contradictory outcomes: the law was designed to fight trafficking but pushed legal adult trade into riskier territory (32:05).
• Reed resists simplistic takeaways; FOSTA-SESTA had real victims, but Section 230 in its unchanged form is also problematic (32:05–34:27).

“If you fundamentally have an issue with sex work, then I think you have to address the issue of poverty.”
— Davin Addison (33:55)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• On Starting in Sex Work:
  “I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna go jerk off on camera now. I’m doing it.”
  — Davin Addison, recalling a pivotal decision (05:21)

• On Losing His Business Overnight:
  “With the flick of a switch, literally, shit just started getting pulled down.”
  — Davin Addison (10:25)

• On Sex Work and Social Attitudes:
  “A collaboration means porn.”
  — Davin Addison (30:26)

• On the Complexity of FOSTA-SESTA’s Impact:
  “It kind of knots up his brain, like, what can I do other than be a voice that’s like, sex trafficking is bad. Obviously, sex work means for people to make money, good.”
  — Davin Addison (33:30)

• Why FOSTA-SESTA Matters to Everyone:
  “People should be concerned about the poor and people who have had to make, you know, hard choices to make money. And...that would be me or sex workers.”
  — Davin Addison (33:55)

• Host’s Final Reflection:
  “Where you come down on it depends on what you think is the least worst option.”
  — Brian Reed (34:27)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Background on Section 230 and FOSTA-SESTA: 00:00–13:24
• Davin’s Backstory, Becoming a Sex Worker: 02:18–06:39
• Loss of Online Income Post-FOSTA-SESTA: 10:25–15:39
• Shift to Riskier, In-Person Sex Work: 17:22–24:25
• Discussion of Legislative Effectiveness and Unintended Harms: 19:46–26:16
• Navigating Platform Censorship, Adapting the Business: 28:46–30:54
• Big Picture Policy Debate & Final Takeaways: 32:05–34:27

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Tone and Style

• Conversational, introspective, and frank. Brian Reed’s reporting brings empathy and nuance, while Davin Addison’s storytelling is candid and sometimes darkly humorous, with underlying vulnerability.
• The episode blends policy analysis with lived experience to illustrate why every tweak to tech law affects real people in unexpected ways.

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Takeaways for New Listeners

This episode provides a human face to a heated tech policy debate, breaking down legal changes in Section 230 through the story of Davin Addison, whose digital and real-life hustle highlights the trade-offs impacting marginalized workers when internet law changes. The discussion is nuanced, avoiding easy answers, and invites listeners to question their own assumptions about tech policy, sex work, and morality.

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For deeper discussion, listener comments, and related stories, visit the show’s Substack at questioneverything.substack.com.

Transcript

[Brian Reed]

Many of you regular listeners know I've been arguing that it's time to make changes to a law called section 230 for the new initiates among you. Section 230 of the Communications Decency act of 1996 is the law that protects websites, apps, social media platforms from lawsuits over posts made by their users. It has shaped almost everything we experience on the Internet, for better and for worse. Today on the show, a cautionary tale about what can go wrong when you tinker with this law. I think it's time to update section 230 for the powerful algorithmic and AI driven Internet of today to strip back the immunity that the law currently gives to tech companies who can more or less do what they want right now without the threat of being sued. Now, there is one time when Congress did this. In 2018, lawmakers rolled back a teeny bit of Section 230. They did this with seemingly good intentions. They were trying to stop websites from being used for terrible crimes, but that ended up causing things to go bad in a different way. It hurt a group of people who are already in a risky line of work, people in the sex industry. This whole situation, it definitely gives me pause. I'll say up front that it hasn't thrown me off my mission. I still believe there's a way to reform section 230 that can do more good than harm. But the story of what happened when Congress did change the law slightly, you can't ignore it. And in fact, there's plenty to learn from it about how trying to plug one leak on the Internet can spring another. So today we're gonna hear from someone who lived through those consequences. A guy who was making a living on OnlyFans, whose life got harder and more dangerous when Congress changed section 230. At that moment when, like, the money plummeted, how did it affect your life?

[Davin Addison]

Well, like, I guess, urgency. It's like, what am I going to do? I had to make hard decisions.

[Brian Reed]

From KCRW and placement Theory. I'm Brian Reed. This is question Everything. Stick around. This change in 2018 to section 230. It just so happens my producer, Sam Egan, is close with somebody whose life was turned upside down by it.

[Davin Addison]

I'm Davin Addison. My stage name is Davin Strong.

[Brian Reed]

Davin does porn, among other things, in adult entertainment, hence the stage name. He's 30. An old wrestling teammate of my producer Sam's from college in Wyoming, which is where Davin's from. The three of us got on a call one Friday night recently you're in Vegas now. What's that like?

[Davin Addison]

Oh, man, Vegas is cool. It's like more low key than people like to imagine it is. It's not. Yeah, it's not anything crazy.

[Sam Egan]

Although last time I went, we ate like $200 worth of sushi between, like, each.

[Davin Addison]

Each, probably, yeah.

[Brian Reed]

Part of why I was eager to talk to Davin. He's just a regular guy whose life and livelihood got upended by a policy change in D.C. that he didn't even know about. Well, I guess a regular guy who's 6ft tall and 280 pounds with thighs the diameter of telephone poles. Devin's ripped, covered head to foot in tattoos. Dev. Not intimidating, though. In fact, he's kind of a softy. Devin first tried sex work when he was a junior in college. He was going through some pretty serious mental health challenges and had quit the wrestling team, which had been a huge part of his life. He's broke, was never great at class, but where he excels is fitness. He loves working out.

[Davin Addison]

I never really knew how I was going to move to the world in any way that wasn't, like, something physically. And I'm like, so how can I still find a way to, like, make money and move through the world and do so in a way where I can, like, still do things I enjoy, which is, like, be in shape, you know? So I was like, I'm gonna go be, like, a fitness model.

[Brian Reed]

Devin shoots off some bodybuilding photos to a few magazines, and they get back to him. He starts doing some fitness shoots, gets hooked up with a modeling agent.

[Davin Addison]

He was like, yeah, we run this.

[Brian Reed]

Campsite, a cam site, not a campsite, like, where people pay to watch models live online, flexing, doing other stuff.

[Davin Addison]

So I'm like, okay, this seems like better than making, like, minimum wage or.

[Brian Reed]

And you're still in college at this point?

[Davin Addison]

I was in college, yep.

[Brian Reed]

Living with our producer Sam, and another.

[Sam Egan]

Guy I remember really vividly, like, you kind of like half joking about us for a couple of weeks. For context, we lived in this, like, awful, disgusting apartment on South 11th street in Laramie, Wyoming, on the literal edge of town.

[Davin Addison]

Nothing there.

[Sam Egan]

It's like, town nothing. And he quit the team. And for a couple weeks he'd been like, ah, I don't know what I'm going to do.

[Brian Reed]

I think I.

[Sam Egan]

Maybe I'll just, like, jerk off on camera or something like that.

[Davin Addison]

It's like, what was I saying? That that's what you're saying. That's funny. No, that's real.

[Sam Egan]

I Remember when you finally were like, we. We're in the middle of the living room, we're all playing Battlefield, and Devin just stands up and, like, stands in the middle of the hallway and there's a short hallway, and then it goes left to his room and right to my room. He's quiet for a minute, and then he just kind of looks at us and we all stop because he's, like, stood up, like he's gonna make an announcement. And he's like. And he's like, all right, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go jerk off on camera now. I'm doing it. And then you went in your room.

[Davin Addison]

And that was it. That was the.

[Brian Reed]

I was like, wow, that was your.

[Davin Addison]

First day at work? I guess so. Yeah, I guess so.

[Brian Reed]

He goes back for a second day at work. A third people online seem to like Davin. He starts getting fans, particularly men. You're straight, gay. Like, how do you identify?

[Davin Addison]

For a long time, I identified as bi. And now I'll joke and be like, I'm like, spicy straight. Or I'll be like, you know, I'm just like, I'm just queer. Like, you know, whatever. Just like, you know, generally prefer. Have a preference, like a heavy preference for women can enjoy men in certain contexts and was like, very open minded.

[Brian Reed]

Devin had a tough upbringing, a lot in the shadow of his dad, a big, intense guy who was also abusive. Devin always felt forced into a lot of limiting stereotypes about what it means to be a man, how important it was to prove that you were tough. His dad was a marine. Davin grew up wrestling, but the world of wrestling, the whole macho scene. He was in out west. It started to bother him, these systems.

[Davin Addison]

That alienate men and teach men to be, you know, push their feelings down and teach men that this is the only way to be a. And I was just like, yeah, tired of getting beat up. You know, wrestling culture, just like cowboy culture.

[Brian Reed]

Devin is in the middle of figuring out how to make enough money to support himself in college when something terrible happens. His dad, who had been facing charges of sex crimes, is killed by police after he points a rifle at them. Davin believes it was suicide by cop. It's all over the news.

[Davin Addison]

All that very much traumatized me. Oh, you know, many moons. But I was able to quickly pinpoint, like, well, why is my dad dead? Like, why feel so lonely?

[Brian Reed]

Devin drops out of college. His mom has her own struggles and isn't a big part of his life. He's poor, with nowhere to go home. To he's trying to land on what, quote, unquote, normal career might be available to a guy like him. But none of the paths feel right.

[Davin Addison]

I was like, seeing people like, you know, join the military or go be cops. And I was like, well, I don't really fuck with that. Like, what can I.

[Brian Reed]

These were the jobs that seemed available to you as, like, a buff dude? I think, basically, yeah.

[Davin Addison]

So I was like, I can't go be a cop. I can't be. Can't go be a Marine. Like, that won't work.

[Brian Reed]

That won't do a career in gay sex work. It feels transgressive to Davin, his way of giving the finger to toxic masculinity, which he believes his dad got trapped by. So Davin decides to start an OnlyFans. In case you're not familiar, OnlyFans is for porn what Patreon is for podcasts or substack for newsletters. It's a site for creators. Anyone over 18 can start an OnlyFans page. And then people pay performers directly to see their content, mainly explicit photos and videos. It's direct, it's legal, and it lets people like Davin work independently from home. What I learned from Davin is how important Instagram, obviously a totally separate platform from OnlyFans and much more mainstream, how important it can be for an adult performer like him as a marketing tool. Because I guess OnlyFans doesn't have a for you page that recommends other accounts you might be interested in following the way apps like Instagram and TikTok do. So in order to build an audience, Davin would use his account on Instagram, which has much broader reach, as an advertisement, to drive followers over to his OnlyFans page, which is where they could pay to get more explicit photos of him. Instagram has guidelines about how graphic you can be. So the posts there are teases.

[Davin Addison]

You couldn't post, like, full nudity, but, like, you figure out how to be, like, playful and, like, you know, cheeky. I could just like, post pictures of, like, ass out on Instagram. And it was crazy. Like, the amount of traffic I was getting, it was pretty easy. But yeah, really basic concept. It's like the more followers I can get, the more eyes that are going to be on, you know, this link.

[Brian Reed]

A link from Instagram over to OnlyFans, this business model using clever posts on Insta for free to advertise his paid only fans. It allows Davin to build a business pretty fast.

[Davin Addison]

I was probably making like three, four grand on an Only fans page, that's.

[Brian Reed]

Three or four grand a month. How much are you working? Is it a 40 hour a week gig or.

[Davin Addison]

I mean, shoot, like, I was just taking dick pics, dude. Like, I wasn't really, you know, like, I wasn't particularly working a lot.

[Brian Reed]

And he's doing it without a boss. It's his business. He's in control. OnlyFans takes a cut, but he's working when he wants, weight training when he wants. By this point, Devon has left Wyoming, he's living in Idaho, Things are going pretty well. He's got a girlfriend, he's built up about 100,000 followers on Instagram, a legit audience. And then suddenly, as if with the.

[Davin Addison]

Flick of a switch, literally, shit just started getting pulled down. Like, things just started getting pulled down. They'd be like, we're going to ban your account if you keep doing this. And then.

[Brian Reed]

And that happened kind of abruptly.

[Davin Addison]

Abruptly? Yeah, like abruptly.

[Brian Reed]

Little did Davin know, some decisions have been made in D.C. that were about to dramatically affect his life. On April 11, 2018, in his first term, President Trump signed a new bill into law.

[Davin Addison]

Thank you very much for being with us today as we signed this crucial legislation to combat online sex trafficking and bring criminals to justice.

[Brian Reed]

It was called Fosta Sesta, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act. That's the Fosta and Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act. Two bills, one from the House, one from the Senate, mushed into one. The legislation was Congress's response to years of anger over sites like Backpage.com Backpage was a classified ad site where people advertised sexual services, stripping, escorting. But traffickers used it to advertise prostitution, including of minors. In 2014, a group of women who'd been trafficked as kids sued Backpage. They said the company knew what was happening and even gave traffickers tools to cover it up. But multiple courts blocked the women's case. The reason? Section230. Judges said the allegations were horrifying, but ruled that the law still shielded Backpage from being liable for content posted by its users, even when those users were regularly sex traffickers. People were outraged, including members of Congress like Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio.

[Senator Rob Portman]

The Communications Decency act is a well intentioned law. It was originally enacted back in 1996 when the Internet was in its infancy.

[Brian Reed]

Senator Portman and others wanted to change section 230. For the first time, they would strip the immunity from lawsuits away from platforms if they knowingly helped sex traffickers.

[Senator Rob Portman]

It's past time we update this 21 year old law for the 21st century and allow victims who have had their most basic human rights violated get justice against those who facilitated these crimes.

[Brian Reed]

There were other parts of the law too, not directly related to section 230 that were aimed at making it easier to go after sites criminally when they enabled sex traffickers. It's the kind of law that seems like a no brainer on the surface. Who doesn't want to stop sex trafficking, give victims some recourse? It passed overwhelmingly in the House. In the Senate, only two lawmakers voted against it. Some legal experts warned Congress that changing section 230 in this way would lead to unintended consequences, that platforms wouldn't just target traffickers, they'd overcorrect, go after lots of other speech that was totally legal but sex adjacent, and that this could put sex workers in more danger. And that did happen.

[Davin Addison]

I could no longer toast my butt cheeks.

[Brian Reed]

Davin wasn't clocked into the debate over section 230 happening in Washington. He didn't tune into the signing of Fosta Sesta on C Span. All he knew was that suddenly Instagram started taking down his booty shots. These were images that until a day before. Davin says Instagram was not only allowing, but encouraging. He says they were boosting these same posts with their algorithm.

[Davin Addison]

It was very overt. You know, the cute, cheeky pictures would get tons of likes and huge traffic. I was getting huge boosts in followers.

[Brian Reed]

And then overnight censored. Those same photos were blocked. Instagram's terms of service stated that they do not allow. This is a direct quote, fully nude close ups of buttocks. And when they started enforcing that with Davin, his traffic plunged.

[Davin Addison]

It probably went down to like 500 to like a thousand dollars.

[Brian Reed]

Monthly, you're talking monthly?

[Davin Addison]

Yeah, monthly.

[Brian Reed]

From three to four thousand a month. Pre2018.

[Davin Addison]

Yeah.

[Brian Reed]

And then Davin's Instagram page was shut down completely, probably because of this line. Instagram added to its policies after Fosta Sesta passed. We allow for the discussion of sex worker rights, advocacy and sex work regulation. We draw the line, however, when content facilitates, encourages or coordinates sexual encounters or commercial sexual services between adults. Instagram wasn't the only one to react. After Fosta Sesta, Tumblr banned porn. Craigslist shut down its personal section which was being used to advertise sex work. This is the section 230 butterfly effect in action. Congress changed the law in a way that was supposed to hold companies responsible if they were knowingly allowing sex trafficking. But the companies were like, we're not going to risk this. We're going to nix anything that might look like sex trafficking. It's just easier and safer for us that way. And so Davin, out in Idaho suddenly finds that the Instagram account he spent years amassing 100,000 followers on is gone. He can no longer use it to advertise his onlyfans with those cheeky posts. His business is decimated at that moment when, like, the money plummeted. How did it affect your life?

[Davin Addison]

Well, like, I guess urgency. It's like, what am I going to do? That's when I started having made hard decisions, which I guess that's really the topic of this is like, I had to start making hard decisions because I didn't have that ease of income that I saw that was going to happen for me from just being like a fitness model posting dick pics. And I was like, well, I might have to do to speak to my capacity for insane. I might have to do harder things now. You know, I might have to expand my. My boundaries.

[Brian Reed]

What expanding his boundaries entailed after a quick break. Had you done hardcore porn before that?

[Davin Addison]

No. No.

[Brian Reed]

Okay.

[Davin Addison]

No.

[Kim Masters]

This is Kim Masters, host of the business on kcrw. Every week we take a deep dive into the deals and the drama that shape Hollywood. From the power plays in the boardroom to the creative battles on set, we bring you the inside stories behind the interior entertainment headlines. Check out the business part of the NPR podcast network.

[Brian Reed]

With his online business throttled by Instagram, Davin starts looking for other work. He tries out for the WWE but doesn't make it. He moves to Vegas and gets a spot in Chippendales, but he slips a disc in his back and has to stop dancing. He still wants to work in the sex industry. He feels it suits him. Plus, he's been able to make more money doing that than he would flipping burgers. He dabbled over the years with some in person escorting. So he decides, you know, when in Vegas, why not try to make a living as a male escort?

[Davin Addison]

It was just like, what else am I gonna do? You know, what else am I gonna do? I'm just gonna buy into escorting.

[Brian Reed]

You're saying it like it was no big deal, like, I'll just buy into escorting. How did you feel about it?

[Davin Addison]

Yeah, these are important. You're bringing to light some of my disassociation.

[Brian Reed]

Okay.

[Davin Addison]

This is important where it's like, how did I feel? Yeah, I must have been scared. Yeah, I was. I think I was scared.

[Brian Reed]

Devin's work on the cam site on Instagram, on OnlyFans. He was always working from the safety of his own apartment. In person, escorting is a whole different world, much riskier.

[Davin Addison]

I'm meeting up with random, mostly men. I've had like, I've had hundreds of men hire me and I probably had like three women, but so many, many just strange men. Still makes me uncomfortable. I mean, I'm just meeting a dude, you know, and I didn't know really how worked. I'm like, is this guy a cop? Most of the time they, like, scared and they think I'm a cop. Right? Like, you know, you meet up with them and like, I was less like, yadded at that point. And so I didn't have the face tattoo. I just looked like jarheaded.

[Brian Reed]

And is it kind of a gray area of legality or not, what's happening?

[Davin Addison]

Yeah, I mean, like, you try to like, talk around, like, what's actually happening, like in these messages. And I knew better at this point too. I started taking people off Instagram. So I'd like send them to like a burner number because even in the DMS and Instagram, they'll flag you for like solicitation or so I'd be like, oh, yeah, you're interested in this service? Like, you can talk with me here. Oh, like, oh, you want to meet up? That's how I started advertising. It was like, oh, you can do paid meetups, you know, you can meet up with me because, you know, nothing, nothing illegal about meeting up.

[Brian Reed]

These kinds of escorting gigs can range from simple companionship, going with somebody to see Les Mis to sex. But there's no real vetting process. Devon is flying by instinct. And before we go any further, it's important to say Fosta Sesta was responding to real harm. People were being trafficked online, children included. According to federal authorities, Backpage.com made $500 million in prostitution. Related Income Section 230 had prevented victims from getting compensation from Backpage by suing them. The mother of one of these victims, Yvonne Ambrose, gave searing testimony to senators about what happened to her daughter, Desiree.

[Yvonne Ambrose]

Desiree was a good person who just wanted to be loved and accepted by all. She was only 16 years old and just wanted to make friends. We now know that adult men found Desiree on social media, reached out to her, pressured her, and used her to make money. She was preyed on and sold online by pimps who took advantage of her. On December 23, 2016, a 32 year old man by the name of Antonio Rosales was looking through backpage.com for a child to have sex with, just like countless others before him, they knew that this was a website that they could go to to engage in sex with minors. During his search, he came upon a picture of my 16 year old daughter. Desiree was driven to Antonio's residence by the pimp with the intent of having sex with this 32 year old man, a man twice her age. This was the last night of my daughter's life.

[Brian Reed]

The man murdered Desiree.

[Yvonne Ambrose]

The truth is, Backpage.com and other sites are making millions of dollars by exploiting our children. I struggle to believe that a loving and talented girl such as Desiree is gone from this earth because an act such as 230 allowed the Internet to exploit her. And now section 230 is standing in the way of justice for my child and other Jane does out there like her.

[Brian Reed]

As Fosta sesta was being passed, the government shut down Backpage and prosecuted its founders and executives. One was convicted of a money laundering count and sentenced to five years in prison. Another died by suicide before his trial. Two others cooperated for lighter sentences, pleading guilty to conspiracy to facilitate prostitution. The DOJ also set up a $200 million compensation fund for victims. They didn't need Fosta sesta to do this, to go after the company criminally. But now, because of Fosta sesta, victims of sex trafficking can directly sue websites like Backpage that are used to exploit them. And there have been lawsuits like this, but so far they have not resulted in some huge victory for victims. There have been no big wins of damages. Judges seem confused by how to interpret fosta sesta honestly, which critics say was poorly written. Meanwhile, some cops have complained that it actually got harder to do investigations into sex trafficking under Fosta Sesta, that they'd been using Backpage as a trap for catching human traffickers and pimps. And now that activity is harder to uncover. And it also made it more difficult for many sex workers, Davin included, to make a living putting them in more dangerous real life situations. One time, a client Davin met online flew him to Florida.

[Davin Addison]

This guy just seemed weird, but he was gonna give me probably only like, probably like two grand or something, but I was like, I need two grand. So I flew to Florida.

[Brian Reed]

And this.

[Davin Addison]

Guy, he had like, he had strange energy about him. He, he seemed generally anxious and maybe had very, I think he had very conservative politics, which is also always like, kind of unsettling when it's like a gay closeted man with like, you know, super conservative Politics. He flies me down there, and so I'm just uncomfortable. And he wants me to sleep on top of him the whole night.

[Brian Reed]

Okay.

[Davin Addison]

That's like his thing. He's like, I just want to feel the pressure of you on top of me the whole night. So, like, I'm sleeping, I'm like, laying on this dude, and I'm like, you know what? I think I'm having a panic attack.

[Brian Reed]

Oh.

[Davin Addison]

So I stand up and I'm like, hey, I'll just be back in a minute. And I go sit on his couch. And he comes out, like, fuming, pissed off. That, like, that I've, like, stopped laying on top of him. Oh, wow.

[Brian Reed]

And he's like, I paid for you to do this.

[Davin Addison]

He's like, I paid for you flew your ass out here. Like, what are you doing? Quote for quote. He said, you could be digging ditches somewhere and you're getting paid money to come sleep on me. And now you're acting like this. And I'm like, man, like, I'm like, I'm, you know, like, what can I say, brother? Like, I'm doing my best. And he's like screaming at me, get the out.

[Brian Reed]

Why do you think you had a panic attack?

[Davin Addison]

Justify. I think that's a general discomfort and, you know, Yeah, I just wasn't feeling safe.

[Brian Reed]

Devin ends up wandering out into a rainstorm in Florida, calling a friend to book him a flight home. After googling the man and seeing he was a retired cop, he sent him his deposit back. There were other bizarre and harrowing experiences.

[Davin Addison]

I had this like. Like 1 percenter ass, like, super fucking wealthy Chinese businessman that hired me to be his pet bodybuilder, a champion pet bodybuilder. So he starts paying me a monthly stipend. It was like three and a half thousand dollars, which isn't like a ton of money, but it was to see him twice a month. So I was like, okay. Like, that's nice and easy, you know, on paper. But essentially, he wanted, like, a BDSM slave that was also winning fucking bodybuilding shows.

[Brian Reed]

Devin actually had to negotiate this arrangement down. He says at first the guy wanted to pay him five figures a month to be at his beck and call 24, 7 to keep himself in tip top shape, compete in bodybuilding competitions, and then come be his BDSM submissive whenever the guy wanted. But Davin wasn't comfortable with that. The first time Davin shows up at this businessman's house, another guy, not the client, answers the door. Devin has no idea who he is he's walking into this stranger's house all alone, trying to quickly figure out, am I safe? Who's this other dude? What's the relationship here? He would come to learn this other guy was like a kept man, had lived with the businessman for years. Part of what's particularly challenging with in person escorting and BDSM jobs. In particular, Devin's in other people's houses trying to quickly assess if he can trust them. If he's safe.

[Davin Addison]

You're in his house, his private home, and he's like torturing me in his little dungeon. I've shared my location with some people, I guess, but I'm still a weird situation tied up in some random man's home. So, yeah, a level of danger there.

[Brian Reed]

This is the kind of thing Devin found himself doing over and over again, both with this man and many other clients to get by. During this time, Devin saw other adult performers and sex workers complaining about similar problems. A 2021 Columbia Human Rights Law Review study found that Internet companies restricted more content than was probably necessary to avoid liability under fosta sesta, which drove sex workers to more dangerous situations and got rid of support systems they had previously had online. Because of this, some sex workers became serious advocates for Section 230. Here's a former dominatrix being interviewed at a protest in la. She had been making a living teaching BDSM classes online. All my classes were taken down.

[Yvonne Ambrose]

I was kicked off a bunch of sites.

[Brian Reed]

So in my 50s, I had to go back to to doing sex work because of the spill. And this is an only fans creator doing a live conversation about the impact of fosta sesta.

[OnlyFans Creator / Sex Worker Advocate]

It's getting harder and harder and harder for sex workers to survive online. We're already basically kicked off everywhere. We're shadow banned on Instagram. We get banned on TikTok for like breathing. We can't even say OnlyFans on TikTok, we're banned.

[Brian Reed]

Davin was not so plugged into the advocacy scene. He wasn't read up on section 230. He just heard there was some government push to go after sex trafficking and. And the tech companies changed their policies because of it.

[Davin Addison]

All I knew is that it changed the terms and use of like these social media pages. That was my understanding.

[Brian Reed]

No more ass cheeks because of this law, basically.

[Davin Addison]

No more ass cheeks. No more ass cheeks. Which, yeah, I'm like, what does this have to do with sex trafficking, you fuckers?

[Brian Reed]

And then did you dig into it more? Was there a curiosity there or you're just kind of like, yeah, I mean.

[Davin Addison]

I dug into it a little bit, but, you know, a lot of it over my head, and a lot of it, I think there's so much of, like, I don't know, a lot of it feels very disingenuous because there's a lot of just, like, theological bullshit that comes in that. Where people are like, oh, this is a good time for us to, you know, to attack smut.

[Brian Reed]

There's one last turn in Devin's story. He wanted to do less in person escorting, so he starts trying to rebuild his Instagram audience on a new account. He's doing his best to follow the new rules, keep his posts within the guidelines. But in the post Foster Sesta world, his content's not traveling like it used to. He says the algorithm's no longer recommending him to new users. He's just reaching the same people who already follow him. He's convinced he's being shadowbanned.

[Davin Addison]

The way these shadow bands work, you're viewable by your current following. You just can't really build a new following. So in order to get around that, you're like, okay, we need to access other people's following, that is, get his.

[Brian Reed]

Content in front of followers on other accounts. And the way to do that on Instagram these days is with collab posts. Collab posts are when you and another account jointly put up a grid post and it gets fed to all of your combined followers. After Fosta Sesta, Davin realizes this is what he needs to do to get in front of new people, collaborate on posts with other adult performers.

[Davin Addison]

I would go to West Hollywood and we'd film a porn scene, and then we would advertise that porn scene on Instagram in, like, you know, coy ways. Be like, I would always joke. I'd be like, we filmed a kissing documentary. You know, like, that kind of thing.

[Brian Reed]

So the porn itself is not on Instagram. That wouldn't fly. Just the coy ad for it in the form of a collab post with the other performer. And then if you go over to OnlyFans, that's where you can buy the kissing documentary. That's how Davin and the other performers make money. Had you done hardcore porn before that?

[Davin Addison]

No, no.

[Brian Reed]

Okay. No. Before, on his OnlyFans, Davin only posted pics and videos of him alone not having sex with other people. So before, you could be solo, you could be like a solo performer.

[Davin Addison]

Exactly.

[Brian Reed]

And then just the change in the algorithm forced you exactly. Like to kind of cunningly do collaborations, which in your work A collaboration means porn.

[Davin Addison]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brian Reed]

Like hardcore porn.

[Davin Addison]

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. I started doing hardcore porn as a result of that.

[Brian Reed]

Does that feel safer than like these in person meetups?

[Davin Addison]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely. You know, that was a safe way to make money. It just came with like, the implications of doing hardcore gay porn. I guess that's something I hesitated to do for a while, probably due to social stigma.

[Brian Reed]

Devin gets to a place co releasing these porn videos with other performers where he's making more money than he was before Fosta Sesta was passed. Sometimes 10k a month, he says, but still he backs away from it. He'd been reluctant to do hardcore porn. He only tried it because he felt he had to. After Fosta Sesta, if he wanted to make a living again online, he'll still do it once in a while, he says. But these days he's mostly getting by, bartending at a Vegas go go bar and doing in person work again, though he's much more choosy. I guess.

[Davin Addison]

Over the years I've accumulated a client base, like a roster that's really easy. So I honestly mostly do like massage. Like guys hire me just to do massage. I don't really do anything overtly sexual. I'll do some like, pro doming stuff. They'll hire me to like, yell at them, you know, and like hit them and then like go out to dinners. So I do a lot of that. I do a lot of what's called, like, boyfriend experience, where it's not even overtly sexual, but people just want to like, banter with me. They've enjoyed me from my years of porn. They enjoyed me from, like, my presence online writing about, you know, masculinity. So guys will hire me for that.

[Brian Reed]

Still, if you feel a little confused about what to take away from Davin's story, I get it. Me too. The change to section 230 definitely messed with his life. His work got harder and riskier for a while. Then he found a way to safely make more money than he was before the change. But it was doing hardcore porn something he wouldn't have previously said yes to. Now things have kind of leveled out. There's not a clean takeaway, and I don't think there's a clean takeaway from the Fosta Sesta story either. The law is convoluted. It ties together civil and criminal laws and tech law and a web of state sex trafficking statutes. It was meant to help sex trafficking victims, but in its seven plus years, it appears to have been used once criminally to go after a website for sex trafficking victims are using it to sue companies, and they're getting further than they would have before. But still the success rate there is not good. Victims cases still get tossed out or appealed or stalled. People point to the back page shutdown as a win for Fosta Sesta. But legally the government didn't use Fosta Sesta to do that. And shutting down Backpage may have made it harder for law enforcement to stop sex trafficking. It's confusing. Davin agrees. When I asked him, what do you make of this whole situation? Congress was trying to help sex trafficking victims, but in doing that, they messed with your life. He says it kind of knots up.

[Davin Addison]

His brain, like, what can I do other than be a voice that's like, sex trafficking is bad. Obviously, sex work means for people to make money good.

[Brian Reed]

You know, this is going to sound like a callous question, but I'm asking it, just anticipating the variety of people who might listen to this. Why should we care that it's harder for you to do sex work?

[Davin Addison]

I think it all comes back to poverty. People should be concerned about the poor and people who have had to make, you know, hard choices to make money. And that, that would be me or sex workers. Right? And this is who that's affecting is people who, you know, could otherwise not make comfortable, you know, living wages otherwise. If you fundamentally have an issue with sex work, then I think you have to address the issue of poverty.

[Brian Reed]

As I've seen 1 section 230 expert put it, when it comes to these policy choices about the Internet, everyone has unavoidable major downsides. Where you come down on it depends on what you think is the least worst option, as he puts it. Some people think Section230 is the least worst option that would happen with Foster. Sesta is proof that changing section 230 is always doomed. But I don't buy that this was one specific and, yes, flawed attempt. People were hurt. It doesn't change the fact that Section 230 is still shielding a ton of bad behavior. I believe there are ways to learn from this experience and do better the next time. And to do that, you have to talk to all sorts of people who could be affected by changes to these policies, especially people who may not be top of mind for policymakers in Washington, like Yadded dudes playing Battlefield and shitty apartments in Wyoming. We're continuing the debate over section 230 and life on the Internet. Over on our substack, that's atquestioneverything.substack.com youm can join our chat there or leave me a comment. Write me There are a bunch of pushes right now to regulate the Internet in different ways. Just this week, you may have seen, the Senate unanimously passed a bill that would help victims of intimate deepfakes sue the people who make them. That's a big one. We'll keep digging into these efforts. Please rate and review us on Apple or Spotify and share it with a friend. Today's show was produced by Sam Egan and edited by our managing editor, Kevin Sullivan. Robin Semion and I are the executive producers of Question Everything. Our team also includes producers Sophie Kazus and Zach St. Louis, contributing editors Neil Drumming and Jen Kinney, and associate producer Kevin Shepard. Additional editing by Zoe Chase. This episode was fact checked by Annika Robbins, mixed and sound designed by Brendan Baker. Our music is by Matt McGinley, thanks to our partners at KCRW who include Arnie Seiple, Tejal Azumara, Natalie Hill and Jennifer Farrow. We'll see you next week.

[OnlyFans Creator / Sex Worker Advocate]

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