LOS ANGELES — Right-wing news site Breitbart.com is attempting to derail the confirmation of Gigi Sohn, President Joe Biden’s nominee for a seat on the FCC, by attacking her activism against censorship of sexual content.
Breitbart’s Senior Technology Correspondent Allum Bokhari called Sohn a “far-left nominee for the FCC” and referred to leading digital rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), on whose board Sohn has served since 2018, as “a nonprofit that defends online ‘sex work’ and gave an award to a dominatrix who boasts about urinating on people’s faces.”
This was a reference to sex worker and advocate Mistress Blunt, an EFF Pioneer Award recipient. Bokhari’s salacious, sensationalistic and reductive description of Sohn’s anti-censorship activism derided Blunt as “Gigi Sohn’s favorite dominatrix.”
The far-right outlet denounced Blunt for calling for “digital freedom for sex workers,” but did not hesitate to titillate readers by highlighting that Blunt “sells explicit pictures on the subscription platform OnlyFans, and has posted about urinating on people’s faces and teaching ‘c**ksucking techniques.’”
Despite Breitbart's tendentious characterization, Sohn is widely considered a highly qualified candidate for the FCC post. She is a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy, a senior fellow at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and “one of the nation’s leading public advocates for open, affordable and democratic communications networks,” the EFF noted.
A Pattern of Demonization of Sex Workers
FSC Executive Director Alison Boden, herself a longtime member of the EFF, told XBIZ that she believes it is “unfortunate but not surprising that pro-censorship extremists would sink to the level of vilifying Mistress Blunt, an incredible activist for sex workers’ rights, to oppose the nomination of a woman who has devoted her life to advocating for consumer protections and free expression.”
FSC’s Director of Public Affairs Mike Stabile told XBIZ that the inflammatory Breitbart article fits into a pattern of “anti-porn activists trying to demonize the sex industry and taint anyone who recognizes our fundamental right to exist.”
For Stabile, the strategy has far-reaching ramifications.
“This is no longer about chilling our speech; it’s about chilling the speech of those in mainstream organizations who defend us,” he noted. “They want people to be afraid. They want organizations to distance themselves from us. If they’re going to succeed in criminalizing the industry, they know they need to split us from our allies.”
Stabile urged industry members to support FSC more than ever, adding, “We need to make sure the relationships we have with groups like EFF and others remain strong.”