The new FOSTA/SESTA laws have caused tension and stress in our community. Red Files has been working hard to keep you informed about these upcoming U.S based laws. We have worked to collate strategies, ideas and tricks.

But we have a solution that might interest you.

With the new laws, website host companies are at risk of shutting our websites down. Rather than sitting on our hands, we're toying with the idea of starting our own server to host our websites.

If you run a website for your work, a new server might be of interest to you. This server would be:

- created for and used only by sex workers and industry peeps
- based in Australia for maximum speed
- maximum speed ensures a higher SEO ranking
- daily backups of your website
- completely anonymous (only contact email needed)
- payment anonymous through bitcoin or cash deposit (paypal also an option)
- and most importantly FOSTA & SESTA PROOF!

To make this happen we would need 20 sex workers to commit to a years hosting ($200/yr). This will cover all of the start up costs.

And after that? Any additional hosting and profits can be funnelled back into Red Files to assist in our financial sustainability issue. That means 100% of the profits are going back to fund a sex worker organisation and your community. You can read our financial report here.

You can easily transfer your website over if you use Wordpress - however, if you use Wix or Squarespace, it's a little bit troubling.

Wix is affordable and easy to use and is based in Tel Aviv, however, they have offices in San Francisco and New York. It is unclear if they will continue to host us or not. Squarespace, a similiar service, is U.S based also. We've suggested backing up websites to avoid closure - but unfortuntely Wix and Squarespace purposefully make it so you cannot back up or migrate your website with anyone but them, making it impossible for you to seamlessly change servers.

First check your hosting provider and make sure they're offshore.

Case depending, here are your options:

• If they're offshore based and have servers outside the U.S - you're all sweet. 
• If they're U.S based, you can either backup your website and hope nothing comes of it or consider using this new server and not worrying about it again. 
• If you use Wix or Squarespace you can back up all your content and as above, just wait and see what happens. Or take action into your own hands and use this server.

Even if you use an off-shore server, you might consider this new one as it's Australia based and faster (therefore better SEO ranking).

Either way, if you want to get onto this server as a way of supporting your community while getting maximum value, put up your hand!

Win-win-win for everyone, am I right?

Please respond back to us by leaving a comment, emailing [email protected] or leaving a message at the bottom right if this is a solution you'd like to try out.

We need 20 sex worker to get started! I hope one of them is you!

If you're a bit lost about the FOSTA/SESTA issue, we go over them in these two articles here and here.