ESPU To Stand with APAG during #instastrike Demonstration TODAY

San Francisco, CA — When the Adult Performers Actors Guild (APAG) comes to Menlo Park today, members of the Erotic Service Providers Union (ESPU) will be on hand to add their voices. The demonstration in opposition of Instagram’s uneven terms of service and policy enforcement will take place today, simultaneously at Instagram’s corporate headquarters in California and New York.

On June 19, ESPU will welcome members of APAG, who are organizing a demonstration known as #instastrike, to the San Francisco Bay Area. Content performers, dancers, cam models and all other types of sex workers will come together to demand a meeting with Instagram to discuss having over 800 accounts deleted for “violating the Terms of Service agreement.” Demonstrators will be demanding Instagram reinstate the accounts.

Event details — Occurring on Wednesday June 19, 2019 in two locations

Instagram headquarters, California (10am to 1pm PDT)

1 Hacker Way Menlo Park, California

Instagram headquarters, New York (1pm-3pm EST)

770 Broadway New York, New York

“Adult performers, exotic dancers, webcam performers and sex workers are being wrongfully deleted from the social media platform Instagram. For two months, we have been organizing those wrongfully deleted to stand up and fight the social media giant owned by Facebook,” said Alana Evans, president of APAG.

“At this time, we have nearly 1000 people signed on to our legal fight. We have a team of lawyers looking into a class action lawsuit against Instagram because of their blatant discrimination against sex workers across the world,” Evans added.

Of particular concern are recent reports that Instagram has reinstated some deleted accounts when the performers attached to them have paid money to a third party.

“Many folks in the sex trades have been arbitrarily targeted by these social media companies under the guise of complying with the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA),” said ESPU organizer Maxine Doogan.

“Its just too convenient that the whole Internet was monetized on the backs of the adult film performers… Now these Silicon Valley giants just decide anyone they don’t want is in violation of their overboard terms of agreement, which really positions them as a third party boss deciding who gets to work today and who doesn’t,” Doogan added.

APAG and ESPU suggest reading the following articles for additional context:

https://jezebel.com/instagram-s-solicitation-policies-are-exposing-porn-per-1834765381

https://thenextweb.com/tech/2019/05/29/creepy-programmer-builds-ai-algorithm-to-expose-adult-actresses/

For more information, contact Maxine Doogan (415-265-3302, info@espu-usa.com) and/or Alana Evans (818-963-0862, alanaevans@yahoo.com).