Webcam work Policies, practices and platforms

This report outlines the main findings from a four-year-long research project plexxxi (The Platformisation of the Global Sex Industry) conducted at the University of Amsterdam, focusing on the webcam industry. The report offers important insights into how the webcamming industry is organised and regulated and how performers do their work within these structures. Based on extensive research, this report presents findings on policies, platform design, and performer practices to comprehensively outline labour issues in this industry. It shows how the webcam industry functions by examining performers’ perspectives, the different regulations affecting the industry, and how platforms operate. To address these issues, the report also offers recommendations to improve webcam performers’ labour conditions.

The report is based on research carried out by Rébecca Franco on policies and regulations, Emilija Jokubauskaitė on platforms, and Hanne Stegeman on worker practices in the webcamming industry. All three researchers conducted fieldwork in the industry and interviewed its insiders as well as worked with other data collection and analysis methods, presented in each one of the chapters. We draw on our analysis and the creative, resilient, and resourceful solutions and improvement suggestions online sex workers brought up during our research to formulate recommendations for platforms, payment intermediaries, civil society, and policymakers.

In June 2024, these suggestions were further discussed with academics,
activists, and experts, including those with lived experience of sex work.
We formulate the resulting recommendations at the end of this report.