Source: NYpost.com.
USA – NEW YORK – This dominatrix is giving DoorDash a digital tongue-lashing.
Dr. Olivia Snow, an adjunct college professor in New York City and tech researcher at UCLA and NYU, is virally blasting the food delivery behemoth — claiming it arbitrarily discontinued servicing her due to her part-time gig as a leather corset-donning dungeon domme.
“It’s dehumanizing,” lamented Snow, 33, to The Post. “Sex workers bend over backwards to conceal our identities in order to [be treated fairly by mainstream society],” she continued. “And these big tech companies use special software and AI (artificial intelligence) to sniff us out and block us from their services.”
For eight hours, three times a week, the Ph.D.-holder straps herself into silky fishnet stockings and skin-tight lingerie and sexually dominates revelers with a penchant for corporal punishment.
But when it comes to enjoying contactless services like DoorDash and PayPal, she says major tech imprints have unjustly tied her hands.
In a trending Twitter post, Snow — who’s sporadically moonlighted in erotica for 15 years — castigated DoorDash for apparently banning her patronage due to a detection of unspecified “abnormal behavior” from her account, which allegedly violates the brand’s Terms of Service. But she told The Post that she’s never confronted a DoorDash delivery person in her dominatrix garb, nor has she shared the details of her profession with any of the company’s drivers.
However, her tweet, shared Tuesday, featured a screenshot of DoorDash’s vague dismissal email. And she spiced the post up with a sarcastic caption, saying: “love too be a wh0re” — written with a zero rather than an “O.”
And Snow said that the misspelling was no mistake.
“Social media sites and tech companies use various AI to monitor keywords that people type on their platform and into other apps,” she explained. “So I have to strategically misspell words pertaining to sex work in order to avoid getting my accounts shadow-banned or deactivated.”
When contacted by The Post, a spokesperson for DoorDash said: “While we have not been able to verify the posting online, we have reached out to this individual for more information and are actively investigating.
“Users are welcome on the DoorDash platform, regardless of a person’s profession or choice of work, and are required to follow our terms of service,” the representative added.
Nonetheless, Snow further claimed that cyber giants like Venmo, CashApp, PayPal, Airbnb and a slew of popular dating apps have also banned her and other sex workers from utilizing their services.
“Airbnb is uniquely creepy when it comes to surveilling sex workers,” she asserted. “I believe they use software to spy on sex workers and they cross-platform surveillance software to monitor what keywords sex workers are typing into other sites. They go above and beyond to find us out and block us.”
Snow, who’s purportedly done extensive research on the technological mistreatment of sex workers, went on to claim that Airbnb and the like use location data and text-tracking hacks in order to pinpoint sex world staffers and ban them.
However, in a statement to The Post, an Airbnb rep denied that company’s alleged prejudice, saying: “This is false. Sex workers are not prohibited from using Airbnb on the sole basis of their occupation.”
Snow, however, predicted the brand’s rebuttal.
“These tech companies will never admit to what they’re doing,” she said. “And even though Airbnb has specifically said that they don’t target sex workers, they do.”
But more frustrating than the organization’s denial of any bigotry, according to Snow, is the fact that the general public refuses to believe that these major online platforms are specifically targeting sex workers.
“It’s very difficult to get people to believe the qualitative data that proves sex workers are being [marginalized],” the saucy scholar said. “People always ask me, ‘Are you sure it’s cross-platform surveillance?’ And I’m like, ‘I am sure because I do this for a living,’ ” she added, noting her work in higher education and research.
And as a shame-on-you to the tech companies, Snow added, “When companies non-consensually out us [sex workers], and block us from enjoying basic human necessities, it feels really violating. There’s no justification.”
