How Porn Performers Fall Victim to Twitter Impersonators

Adult entertainment workers count on social media to connect with fans, but the platform’s opaque rules leave them vulnerable to impersonators

Photo: Peter Dazeley/Getty

A few weeks ago, a porn performer friend of mine tweeted out a seemingly simple request. Someone had created a Twitter account impersonating her, one that not merely used her name and image, but copied her bio verbatim, creating a page that could easily be mistaken for the real thing at first glance. She wanted her friends and followers to report it.

Eager to assist her, I made my way to the offending account’s page, clicked the button to start the reporting process, and, as I got to the final page, noticed something odd. When prompted by the system to note who was being impersonated, I couldn’t fill in my friend’s account as the genuine article. As I began to type in her handle, she did not appear in Twitter’s list of suggestions. Even typing in her full username resulted in an error that informed me that my friend’s Twitter account — the very same one that had just tweeted out the request I was fulfilling — did not exist. I could report the account, but without the ability to vouch for my friend as the genuine article, the utility of the report was limited.

“I have had fans come up to me at conventions wanting to know why I did not show up for a date they set up.”

The glitch I noticed while trying to report my friend’s impersonator is one that is widely known to sex workers on Twitter. Commonly referred to as “shadow banning,” the act of delisting accounts from search can have serious effects for Twitter users. (You can find out more about shadow banning from my OneZero colleague Will Oremus’ stories on it here and here.)

It’s not merely that it makes it harder for fans to find their account; in many cases, erasing a real account from search gives added legitimacy to impostor accounts, which show up in place of the actual account when someone types in a person’s name. (When reached for comment about the original reporting issue that drew my attention, a Twitter representative informed me that the team was “aware of this issue,” noting that there was “no specific timeline for when it’ll be fixed, but we’re working on it.”)

For porn performers, who are uniquely vulnerable to both being delisted from search and being impersonated online, this toxic combination can have deeply damaging effects, opening up the door for scammers who trade on a performer’s popularity to manipulate their fans — and leave the performers themselves holding the bag when those finally realize they’ve been taken for a ride by a fake.

When I asked porn performers to explain how fake accounts had harmed them, a number of people came forward with horror stories. In some cases, spam accounts copy and paste a performer’s tweets offering access to custom scenes or personal items, changing only the payment information. When fans attempt to purchase the item in question, the scammers pocket the money and, of course, provide nothing in return. “People will post my exact tweets, word for word, on their Twitter, so that it looks super legit,” says Khloe Kapri, who began performing in 2017. “They’ll try and sell my pictures, and obviously, they don’t have those to sell.”

Other performers spoke about scam accounts taking things even further, offering fans dates in exchange for money, or encouraging them to send cash to pay for plane tickets to their town. “People tell me that they sent a deposit to book me for sexual services in New York, and I have never been to New York,” says Kapri. She’s not the only one with this experience: “I have had fans come up to me at conventions wanting to know why I did not show up for a date they set up,” says Cory Chase, an award-winning performer who’s been producing her own clips since 2007.

“When I see an account talking as me, I get the heebie-jeebies.”

Not infrequently, scam accounts will target fans through direct message, convincing their targets that they’re in a unique, special relationship with their favorite porn performer — before hitting them up for money. “Fake accounts reach out to my fans, add them, friend them, and message them, [while the fans] assume they are talking with the real me,” laments Chase. “A rapport is built and then the money is sent, dates are set up, and fraud and abuse happen with my fans.”

Janice Griffith, who’s been performing since 2013, has witnessed multiple instances where scammers sext using her name and image, going so far as to convince fans they’re in an actual relationship with her. “When I see an account talking as me, I get the heebie-jeebies,” says Griffith, who’s watched fake versions of herself pop up on Twitter, Instagram, and even Tinder (“They use a fake name and say, ‘Yeah, I’m really Janice but don’t tell anyone,’” she explains.)

And while its true that porn performers aren’t the only celebrities plagued by fake accounts, the specific nature of the relationship between porn performer and fan makes it easier for scammers to successfully con their marks. A fake Brad Pitt account encouraging fans to pay for a custom film, or send money to fly Pitt to their hometown for an intimate encounter, would likely raise a few eyebrows. But it’s not uncommon for porn performers to make a sizeable chunk of their living through direct appeals to fans — whether they’re selling custom clips, worn lingerie, or, yes, even dates. The special position that porn performers occupy in society — famous yet accessible, a total stranger with whom fans create a sense of intimacy — creates fertile ground for scammers to exploit.

And yet even as scammers are raking in cash by trading on the names and likenesses of porn performers, social media platforms have been slow to offer any kind of concrete help. Fake accounts stay up long after they’ve been reported, while legitimate accounts are hidden from search and denied access to tools that might help them defend themselves. Verifying the accounts of porn performers would certainly make a difference, but that status seems to be reserved for only a handful of porn performers, and mostly the ones who’ve attained some degree of mainstream success. (Verification isn’t a panacea, either: Joanna Angel’s Twitter account is verified, but the performer still doesn’t show up in search, leaving her vulnerable to some of the same problems as her unverified colleagues.)

Unsurprisingly, many porn performers wind up feeling as though scam accounts are more welcome on social media platforms than they are. And from what I’ve seen, they may have a point. Weeks after I reported that fake account impersonating my friend, the account is still active. When you attempt to search for my friend, Twitter doesn’t include her in its list of suggested accounts. The account I reported? It shows up second.