Dr Carolina Are / Blogger On Pole

Thanks @louisedonovan.bsky.social for speaking to me :)

Another nice bit of press showing how social media censorship of SW tends to lead to censorship of educational content. Gave my 2 cents connecting s*x ed, censorship & the broligarchy, showing how difficult a space this is to navigate for content creators. fullerproject.org/story/these-...

In the immediate present however, already so many users in my network are finding themselves unable to pay for age ID services, or overly censored after the already significant censorship on their accounts and content had devastating impacts on their earnings and wellbeing.

Their 'move fast and break things' approach may result in several privacy and safety headaches in the near future.

While age verification has potential, it’s being adopted like every other technology: with little to no oversight because governments outsource it to private companies with tech expertise, but not enough ethics.

Internet regulation is entering its hall pass era Sweeping new age verification laws in the U.K. and U.S. aim to protect children—but critics warn they could undermine privacy, harm vulnerable users, and end the last remnants of online anonymity.

I'm back from leave, a few days after the #ageID requirements came into force in the UK. I spoke with @stokel.bsky.social about my ID verification concerns in a world where so much of our lives are already affected by unaccountable, private, techbro led companies www.fastcompany.com/91370158/int...

It's apt that corporations/governments divided the internet into SFW and NSFW & are now making it all Safe For Work, because that is the defining frame they want to place on the world--everywhere you go is for Work, not pleasure or art or love or culture. You must always Work for Them, or die.

The Age-Checked Internet Has Arrived Starting today, UK adults will have to prove their age to access porn online. Experts warn that a global wave of age-check laws threatens to chill speech and ultimately harm children and adults alike.

Happy Age Verification Day! I'm quoted in this vg Wired piece on why it's all sort of a hot mess. www.wired.com/story/the-ag...

I’m so tired of responding to consultations, speaking to governments and regulators while the transparency over processes that could result in meaningful oversight is not even being pursued.

No effort at online safety is gonna be meaningful enough if we don’t compel platforms to care even about the users they may not want in their spaces. Content moderation as it is is becoming more unjust by the minute.

Governments demanding transparency over platform data but not over their processes are not gonna fix anything. This system is unfit for a democratic society, and I have research to prove it.

I’m desperately trying to disconnect during the last precious paid leave I have during my precarious research job and I keep doing this because I care about people’s lives and livelihoods, but I’m burning out.

If I wanted to, I could monetise this, like many who exploit Meta’s dysfunctional appeals do - this is a dangerous system that endangers desperate users and their followers.

What happens in these situations is that appeals on Meta don’t work, so people come to me and others with contacts to try and intercede bc we helped others in the past. I’m getting so many requests that I’m losing track. I send these to Meta daily (for free, I don’t work for them).

When you advocate for “more AI” in a system that is broken and starved for more human contact to educate users and fix AI mistakes, people who wanna help get overwhelmed, and people who are looking for help (and their followers) get scammed by hackers and impersonators.

In the past month, there’s been an uptick of SWs / educators / creators / small businesses / activists even outside the s*x space getting deleted without warning, in an entirely automated fashion, in a global cost of living crisis, under times of g*n*cide.

This is not directed at anyone in my network, just at Big Tech and at anyone who thinks more AI and less humans will improve online safety and content moderation: I am SO TIRED.

What are powerful AI CEOs, people like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk really after?

Are they ACTUALLY propelled by christianity and "transhumanism", or is theirs a much more banal quest for money and power?

I ask @nsrnicek.bsky.social, author of Silicon Empires 👇🏻🧵... (link in thread)

Got a new interview up on the blog, with one of the most accomplished pole performers, trans activists and event organisers I know - and she's only 19! Read my interview with the founder of the Italian pole competition Erotic Hell here: bloggeronpole.com/2025/07/elvi...

Thanks @stokel.bsky.social for speaking to me about my worries regarding age ID - in great company too, with @mattnavarra.com & Myles Jackman 💪🏼

Grazie Guido Smorto e Letizia Palumbo per quest'opportunità :)

Come sempre quindi, chi fa s3x w0rk e che ci ha avvertito di come la censura sarebbe arrivata da tutti (vedasi i contenuti sulla Palestina) rimane la mia ispirazione in ricerca, pole dance e attivismo.

The Shadowban Cycle: an autoethnography of pole dancing, nudity and censorship on Instagram This paper contributes to the social media moderation research space by examining the still under-researched “shadowban”, a form of light and secret censorship targeting what Instagram defines as b...

A quei tempi il mio studio fu il primo a dimostrare nei dettagli come lo shadowban si manifesta sul profilo dell'utenza. Senza la pole dance - l'arte che pratico da quasi 9 anni, un'arte che viene dagli strip club - non avrei potuto scriverlo. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Per una volta scrivo in italiano perché il mio studio sullo shadowban di Instagram pubblicato da Feminist Media Studies nel 2021 è stato finalmente tradotto nella mia lingua per un'edizione speciale di Diritto e Questioni Pubbliche :) www.dirittoequestionipubbliche.org/page/2025_sp...

Finally landed in Sardinia to work remotely for the remaining stretch of my postdoc, take a lot of annual leave & enjoy good food & my family's company. For more life updates + the behind the scenes of my life as a pole dancing academic, you can read my latest #newsletter: mailchi.mp/e0e856d2f53b...

But "investment" means more and more supportive hiring, treating moderators like workers platforms should vaule instead of exploiting them

Although my participants have often expressed the wish to control what they see on social media, putting the onus of them in terms of filtering out words and content is not always effective, and lets Big Tech off the hook. More investment in human moderation is needed.

Thanks Chris for featuring me in this @wsj.com story! Content moderation is 1 of the biggest challenges of our time. While the volume of content posted on social media platforms makes an AI attractive solution, my research shows context is crucial for effective moderation - and that requires humans.

I don't see it tbh. Because of global legal and financial regulation, it's very risky for companies to do it - even OF, which is behind a paywall, is always on the cusp of banning it. Until we force platforms to be transparent it's gonna be very hard

Yup - and scammers are getting into that, charging desperate users thousands of pounds and disappearing. Wild