S*x in the Shadows of Big Tech
Description
In light of the recent cancellation of RightsCon 2026, SRHM, in collaboration with the Queensland University of Technology, is supporting Repro Uncensored, the European Sex Workers' Right Alliance (ESWA), and other organisations to host this session that was scheduled to take place, to ensure these important conversations continue.
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Social media companies like Meta, X, TikTok and YouTube systematically suppress sex education, harm reduction, and health promotion content through their automated content moderation systems. Their restrictive policies and practices make it extremely difficult for life-saving sexual health, rights and justice information to reach people who need it most.
At the same time, these platforms are permissive about sexual harassment and racist, transphobic, misogynist, and whorephobic hate speech. To exacerbate this, they then circulate mis and disinformation and conspiracy theories, both AI-generated and human-generated, about topics in sexual and reproductive health, including about abortion pills, contraception, and puberty blockers.
Whilst the lives of marginalised communities might be expendable to big tech, their data is valuable. Many apps and platforms collect enormous amounts of intimate data, which is frequently shared or sold to third parties and data brokers. This includes period tracking apps, dating apps, telehealth services, search engines and messaging services. Sometimes such data is shared with police and law enforcement in the absence of warrants, subpoenas or court orders, and used to prosecute people for abortion, sexual activity or online expression.
During a time of authoritarianism, digital surveillance, and increasing criminalisation, this webinar explores how social media shadowbanning and deplatforming affect sexual health educators, sex workers, and other marginalised communities.
It shows how BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and disabled users are disproportionately flagged as inappropriate or sexual compared to white, hetero, cis, thin, or able-bodied creators, how women’s health advertising is more likely to be suppressed whilst men’s health issues are medicalised and promoted, and how sex workers are treated as test populations for surveillance and censorship.
By sharing both their experiences of censorship and their strategies of resistance, the speakers seek to prompt ongoing conversations across sectors, regions and communities about how to safeguard sexual health and sexual rights online.
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A RightsCon session hosted by Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters following the cancellation of RightsCon 2026.
Read Defending Sexual and Reproductive Rights in the Aftermath of the RightsCon Cancellation by Dr. Zahra Stardust.
Speakers
Moderator: Dr Zahra Stardust
Dr Zahra Stardust (she/her) is a queer femme writer, scholar, lawyer and artist working on the stolen lands of the Turrbal and Yuggera people in Magandjin. Her work specalises in sexual media and sexual health, focusing on the politics of online sexual content moderation and the design and governance of sextech. With an international research portfolio spanning sex worker activism, LGBTQ+ health and criminalisation, she has published about sexual racism, trans prison policies, policing practices, surveillance capitalism and algorithmic whorephobia. Her work is published in journals such as The Lancet, Sexualities, and Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. Her book Indie Porn: Revolution, Regulation and Resistance (Duke University Press, 2024) investigates how governments and big tech regulate explicit media. Zahra is currently an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow investigating how digital platforms can better protect sexual and reproductive rights online. She is a Co-Chair of the World Association for Sexual Health’s Sexual Rights Committee and sits on the World Health Organisation’s Sexual Health and Wellbeing Advisory Group.
Kali Sudhra
Kali Sudhra (they/ellx/she) is a brown genderqueer sex worker, educator and activist born in Tkaronto, Canada. They are dedicated to advancing anti-racist feminist praxis through the explicit inclusion and recognition of sex-worker experiences. Their work seeks to dismantle the manifestations of white supremacy that shape mainstream feminist discourse, while addressing the persistent gatekeeping that excludes marginalized communities, particularly sex workers, from these spaces. Centering sex-worker justice and dissident sexuality, they employ culturally and politically engaged artistic practices to challenge dominant norms. Through this practice, they interrogate and challenge dominant white, ableist, cis-heteronormative frameworks, advocating for racial justice, bodily autonomy, and the meaningful recognition of sex workers in feminist futures. They have shared this expertise as a speaker at RightCon, EDRi’s Privacy Camp, the European Parliament, and academic institutions across Europe. They currently work as executive director at The European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance.
Mar Diez
Mar Diez is a Cybersecurity & Privacy Legal Counsel and a digital rights advocate. Co-founder of Espacio Seguro LGBTQIA+ Burgos, a grass-root organization that promotes the creation of safe spaces to make visible queer rural realities. As an independent researcher her work touches on human rights, specially focusing on Trust & Safety issues including censorship and women's rights. Previous relevant work includes presenting at EDRi Privacy Camp.
Maria Prendeville
Maria Prendeville is a content marketing writer for femtech, sex-positive and women's health brands. Having worked in content marketing for seven years, due to personal health issues she made the move to working with women's health companies and quickly realised the need for better digital representation of women with chronic pain. Through her marketing campaigns with sex-positive clients, censorship and shadowbanning became her sole focus as clients very frequently had social media accounts deleted, shadowbanned or reach greatly reduced, therefore affecting audience reach and income loss. Maria has worked with organisations such as CensHERship, and hosted a workshop on the effects of shadowbanning at EDRi's Privacy Camp 25.
Martha Dimitratou
Martha Dimitratou is a digital and cultural strategist and the founder and Executive Director of Repro Uncensored, the global nonprofit documenting systemic online censorship affecting sexual and reproductive health, abortion, LGBTQ+ communities, sex worker–led initiatives, and feminist organizations and activists. Repro Uncensored has documented over 450 censorship cases through tools including the Report an Incident platform and the Global Censorship Map, exposing coordinated enforcement waves across major platforms and supporting legal, policy, and public accountability efforts. The organization also documents emerging forms of AI-enabled harm, including deepfakes and other forms of synthetic media abuse, tracking how these technologies are used to target, silence, and exploit marginalized communities online. Through Repro Uncensored, Martha also leads cultural initiatives and movement convenings that bridge art, technology, and advocacy, including electronic music events at Amsterdam Dance Event and activations at South by Southwest (SXSW), the Dakar Biennial, Miami Basel, the UN General Assembly (UNGA), and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
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