Ms Sue
Legend Member
- Points
- 5
Sex for sale on social media as Perth brothels and escorts compete for business
That's just one of the more demure ads on the Facebook page for "adult entertainment specialist", Langtrees.
Langtrees' owner, Mary-Anne Kenworthy, says she's had Facebook pages taken down but they were not as valuable as her website forums. Photo: rohan.thomson.canberratimes@gmail.com
They are one of the bigger names in the Australian sex industry, but they are certainly not alone in using social networks to engage with their customers.
A quick search revealed a host of others including City West Massage and My Playmate.
A screenshot of one a brothel's Facebook page.
Prostitution is not illegal in WA, but many brothels, call girls, escort services and "happy ending" massage parlours are not only spruiking their wares on websites, but also on social media.
And that's a no-no for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg whose social media behemoth forbids businesses offering sexual services to promote themselves.
Facebook's community standards promises to remove any material that "offers sexual services including prostitution, escort services and sexual massage".
The Catch-22 for Facebook in carrying out that commitment, according to a Curtin University academic, is that its volume of pages is just too big.
Facebook's community standards says it forbids users from offering sexual services. Photo: Facebook
And there's also a commercial ramification in terms of loss of advertising revenue in voluntarily removing, potentially, millions of similar sex industry pages throughout the world.
Senior lecturer in internet studies, Dr Tama Leaver, said pages promoting sexual services contravened Facebook's standards.
WA brothels, call girls, escort services and "happy ending" massage parlours are advertising on social media.
"The problem is these pages are offering an X-rated services in a PG environment," he said.
"But Facebook wants someone to complain, to report a page – to actually make them aware of its existence - before they investigate and then, potentially, remove it.
"It's better for the Facebook business model to just remove pages on an as-reported basis.
"Of course, if they were really pushed they could easily come up with filtering algorithms to alert them to certain keywords that could help them quickly target a large volume of offending pages.
"But Facebook doesn't believe its role is to be a community policeman and willingly remove, potentially, millions of pages."
Dr Leaver thought sex industry pages were probably able to keep operating because of the audience they targeted – existing customers or those considering the services.
"The people who frequent those pages and, probably, the services won't be the ones to make a complaint – it would likely be someone who came upon a page by accident and was offended by it."
Dr Leaver said that even if a page was removed, it wasn't necessarily a barrier to the business opening a new page under a slightly different name.
"It's very hard to manage."
"Of course, then you have the issue where some of the individuals who are offering their services on the main Facebook page may well also have their own pages and fans," he said.
The owner of Langtrees, Mary-Anne Kenworthy, is regarded as Australia's best known madam. She acknowledged the business had Facebook pages, but she regarded her website forums as more valuable.
"Facebook did take down one of our pages some time ago and we lost about five years of history including photographs," she said.
"I'm much more interested in the "Talkin Sex" forums on our websites that have some 18,000 registered users."
"That's what I call real social media."
Ms Kenworthy said she regarded those discussion boards as having better engagement with clients and were a superb tool for sex education.
"They're where we deliver real value – we've even had at least three couples get married through the forums – I went to the weddings," she said.
Ms Kenworthy was unsure how many other Facebook pages were in her business empire.
"I have a look every now and then – I've even got one of my own where I see what my relatives and friends have been up to," she said.
The Facebook PR team has been contacted for comment.
That's just one of the more demure ads on the Facebook page for "adult entertainment specialist", Langtrees.
Langtrees' owner, Mary-Anne Kenworthy, says she's had Facebook pages taken down but they were not as valuable as her website forums. Photo: rohan.thomson.canberratimes@gmail.com
They are one of the bigger names in the Australian sex industry, but they are certainly not alone in using social networks to engage with their customers.
A quick search revealed a host of others including City West Massage and My Playmate.
A screenshot of one a brothel's Facebook page.
Prostitution is not illegal in WA, but many brothels, call girls, escort services and "happy ending" massage parlours are not only spruiking their wares on websites, but also on social media.
And that's a no-no for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg whose social media behemoth forbids businesses offering sexual services to promote themselves.
Facebook's community standards promises to remove any material that "offers sexual services including prostitution, escort services and sexual massage".
The Catch-22 for Facebook in carrying out that commitment, according to a Curtin University academic, is that its volume of pages is just too big.
Facebook's community standards says it forbids users from offering sexual services. Photo: Facebook
And there's also a commercial ramification in terms of loss of advertising revenue in voluntarily removing, potentially, millions of similar sex industry pages throughout the world.
Senior lecturer in internet studies, Dr Tama Leaver, said pages promoting sexual services contravened Facebook's standards.
WA brothels, call girls, escort services and "happy ending" massage parlours are advertising on social media.
"The problem is these pages are offering an X-rated services in a PG environment," he said.
"But Facebook wants someone to complain, to report a page – to actually make them aware of its existence - before they investigate and then, potentially, remove it.
"It's better for the Facebook business model to just remove pages on an as-reported basis.
"Of course, if they were really pushed they could easily come up with filtering algorithms to alert them to certain keywords that could help them quickly target a large volume of offending pages.
"But Facebook doesn't believe its role is to be a community policeman and willingly remove, potentially, millions of pages."
Dr Leaver thought sex industry pages were probably able to keep operating because of the audience they targeted – existing customers or those considering the services.
"The people who frequent those pages and, probably, the services won't be the ones to make a complaint – it would likely be someone who came upon a page by accident and was offended by it."
Dr Leaver said that even if a page was removed, it wasn't necessarily a barrier to the business opening a new page under a slightly different name.
"It's very hard to manage."
"Of course, then you have the issue where some of the individuals who are offering their services on the main Facebook page may well also have their own pages and fans," he said.
The owner of Langtrees, Mary-Anne Kenworthy, is regarded as Australia's best known madam. She acknowledged the business had Facebook pages, but she regarded her website forums as more valuable.
"Facebook did take down one of our pages some time ago and we lost about five years of history including photographs," she said.
"I'm much more interested in the "Talkin Sex" forums on our websites that have some 18,000 registered users."
"That's what I call real social media."
Ms Kenworthy said she regarded those discussion boards as having better engagement with clients and were a superb tool for sex education.
"They're where we deliver real value – we've even had at least three couples get married through the forums – I went to the weddings," she said.
Ms Kenworthy was unsure how many other Facebook pages were in her business empire.
"I have a look every now and then – I've even got one of my own where I see what my relatives and friends have been up to," she said.
The Facebook PR team has been contacted for comment.
