Sex on Facebook

Escorting agencies, escort girls, call girls; Facebook and Twitter have become the ideal place for the sex industry to make business. Just type “escort girls” in the search engine of Facebook and you are going to find countless categories, groups, applications, people, and pages related to escort services. Try the same operation on Twitter and a same constant stream of tweets proposer’s appointments, places and dates will pop up on your browser.

Is it that important for escorting agencies to be present on the internet? “Yes, it is necessary, although we have a strong presence on the web“, Adalaïs replies, ex-escort and director of “Platinum Escorting” in Geneva. The agency was founded in 1999 and has been working in Switzerland and internationally since.

Official Facebook page of “Platinum Escorts”

The Facebook page of this agency is new and is still under construction. What sort of benefits can Escorting find on Facebook? “The social network can be developed easily while keeping the user masked, thus confidentiality”. Adalaïs says.

There are many groups and profiles pages like Platinum Escorts. All are seeking to use the exceptional range of users offered by Facebook. How standing out? One way would be to offer a “serious” service. A variable that make sense: “it is very important because the page is the image of the agency.”   Adalaïs informs. As an example, take the notion of “group“ on Facebook.

This is a group that display some girls who offer their services and locations.

When we click on “about“, the page is very poor. We find only the picture of some girls and others who are quite anonymous. We cannot find out real information.

Facebook, group “Escorts Girls”, about. Because I get no answers about the usage of these images. I personaly masqued the faces.

It seems clear that on this group, girls are directly visible and show their profiles.

In “files” we find a short description:

Facebook, group “Escorts Girls”, file page.

“Elegance, charm, beauty, sensuality, culture, etiquette and discretion, our escorts accompanies you for various occasions, whether for a relaxing time, a dinner, or any other applications as desired.” 
This group is actually a link to a French website. We do not know if this is an official page. Are all women escort girls in this group? Is it a problem if we would come to see the girls’ faces like here in “Escorts Girls” group?

On “Escorts Girls” everyone see the faces girls. Because I get no answers about the usage of these images. I personaly masqued the faces.

Adalaïs is attentive to this delicate situation: “Internet (especially Facebook and Twitter) does not stop in Switzerland or at a specific location, but it can be accessed from anywhere. Their friends, family, the employer, or some people could use their profiles to do bad things”. In his agency we will never see faces on a webpage.

“Platinum Escorts” website, girls are anonymous.

“Platinum Escorts” on Facebook, girls are anonymous.

Is it to say that girls of Platinum Escorting do not have Facebook profiles? “Our employees have private pages on Facebook. To my knowledge, few young women have their professional pages on Facebook and Twitter, but this is just a plus, because they are primary working with the agency and with special escorting platforms“.

A lot has been said about Facebook, but Twitter is also a popular platform. Again, if you type “Escort Girls” in the search engine you come across countless tweets.  There is a continuous flow of information, very often more than four tweets per hour.

“World escort 411″ a very active escort network.

Escorting Platinum is planning to move there too. Why? To Adalaïs : “The benefits are the same as for Facebook, but with a twist: the live.” In other words, Twitter provides a platform that links to the website of the company that offers the opportunity to give information fresh and direct to potential customers.

The future for escorting on social networks has many facets. This article deals only with the aspect of “agency”, but many other forms exist. For example self-promotion (dangerous in terms of images), especially for women doing it for a short period of time. But other phenomenon, more curious, have been recently coming up, such as  paying five dollars to be friends with someone on Facebook. A kind of  2.0 escorting. Young women proposing to be friends for money.

A (virtual) girlfriend ? It’s possible for 5$.

Sometimes the contract stipulates that she will post messages on the wall of his client. The ultimate goal is to show an exciting social life as traditional escorting.

Jason Huther

 

Why this theme?

 Before the success of Facebook and Twitter, prostitution on the Internet was not under the spotlight. We always forgot this part of the economy and it is still true for social networks. In the case of social Networking it’s the same.

We talk a lot about the influence of social media in everyday life and in the economy, about enterprises that are created on social media, about the opportunities that are generated by the companies which see it as a form of future. Escorting agencies are part of these companies. Escort girls are among those who benefit from these opportunities.

It seemed to me interesting to talk about this particular business. Nowadays it has become a common thing for students to practice this activity. This is also why I wanted to talk about this subject. How those women take ownership of these networks? Are they sensitive to their dangers? Has it become necessary to be present on these networks to practice this profession?

 I tried to get answers from girls working in “Escorts Girls”, but I have not been able to obtain them. As my article is built up only on information I can get through social media, I did not search further. It was frustrating, but it shows one of the limits of the use of Facebook when trying to do real investigative journalism.

 Thanks for reading.

 

How media compagnies use Facebook

“Extreme reactivity. Infinite pool of employees: all of us. A new permanent community of interconnected through Iphone and BlackBerry. It’s no longer possible to ignore the strengths and weaknesses of these new information channels” Said Janic Tremblay of Radio Canada at the beginning of huis clos sur le net, an experience invented by the Radio Publiques Francophones (union of public radio in French).

The experiment took place from first to fifth of February 2010. The goal: to see how five journalists imprisoned for a week could produce information only with Facebook and Twitter as source. The rules: no smartphones, no additional web sites, no radios, no TV. The ultimate goal through this experience: what information will emerges from these social networks? The reading of the world, under these conditions, is it relevant? Are we aware of the same kind of information as whit traditional media? How to collect information?

The media are rethinking the way they work and this experience proves it. They ignored all other resources and a fundamental principle of journalism: overlapping information. This experience has shown that social media are interesting source of information. Their are not beeing used anough by the journalist. The utility and strength of this technology is in the way we used it. Only using Facebook or Twitter is nonsense, especially on the internet, a interconected and cross-media

world.

There is two kind of ways to use Facebook for media companies. Use it to get information, or to diffuse information. I had a very interesting example about the use of Facebook in the regional press. The Newspaper Aargauerzeitung used Facebook in both ways. For Thomas Roethlin, chief editor for Aarau, Facebook is fantastic, especially for local information.

Interview : Thomas Roethlin.

“  We made a report about night life in Aarau. It’s a small town, but it is in the center of the region. So many young people come here to parties in pubs and clubs. We decided in the local section to speak about that. For 12 hours, 6 on Friday night at 6 on Saturday morning, a journalist equipped with a smartphone went all over town. He took pictures and wrote short comments. All that was published live on the Facebook wall of the newspaper. The work did not stop there. We wrote an article on Monday in the journal recounting the best parties, hot spots, or where the places whit most atmosphere. This experience has been good, funny and important to be aware of the value of social networking.”

Jason Huther: will you repeat this kind of investigation?

“Yes of course. I am currently on a new project. I have a same kind of investigation about the station of Aarau and its dealers. Some people are afraid and explain there stories. We would like to see what is real in those stories. But shhh … it’s still a project.”

Jason Huther: Here you used Facebook to diffuse information, but do you use it to get information?

“Of course! It’s a fantastic source of information. We use it  to find people, get more info about an event. We are connected with the region. That’s a very important point. Friends on Facebook are often from the same area. So, they talk about what is happening around them. This is an advantage for regional journalists.

As we can see Facebook is useful for the regional press, but as always problems exist. Some newspapers use Facebook to steal pictures of people. This raises ethical issues for example in murder cases. The protection of privacy, fair manner to obtain information are central to this debate. Everything that is posted on Facebook falls into the public domain because there are no effective filters. People are not necessarily aware of that. The journalists must be especially careful because they are in the presence of an audience that does not control all these aspects. This is the base of the spirit of journalistic ethics.

With this technology, we can have the best and the worst. The professionals and the public have an obligation to set limits and decide in which information world we want to live.

Jason Huther

Finally I propose you a video that explain how to protect your phoos on Facebook: