O.School set out to be an inclusive sex ed platform, writes but now the misguided anti-trafficking law FOSTA and internal strife are tearing it apart
In April, three educators from the video streaming sex education platform O.School published posts declaring that they were no longer involved with the company. “Something is rotten in the state of O.School,” wrote one former educator, Bianca Palmisano.
Launched in 2017, O.School aimed to expand the scope of sex ed and educate its viewers on pleasure, consent, and whatever other questions they had about sex. It promoted itself as the “cure” to negative sex culture, Palmisano explained in her post, and “promised sex educators struggling at the economic margins a place to self-market and support ourselves.”
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But “the reality for most educators on the platform is far less rosy,” she wrote. According to former educators at the site, while internal tensions have been brewing within O.School for some time, those issues hit a breaking point with the passage of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), and the way that O.School has responded to it. Though FOSTA — which chips away at protections that shielded websites from liability for user-generated content — was touted as a way to fight sex trafficking, its consequences have been swift and dangerous for sex workers, who are being cut off from their online communities and valuable safety resources as companies hurry to protect themselves.
