Content moderation as worker management: digital labour on erotic webcam platforms

This paper examines how content moderation operates as de facto labour management on digital platforms. Through a case study of webcam platforms, where the service provided and monetized constitutes sexual content, we demonstrate how content rules function as workplace regulations. On these platforms, webcam performers livestream to clients to sell private shows and/or earn tips. Webcam platforms occupy a unique analytical position at the intersection of gig labour and content creation platforms, enabling direct monetization of content while subjecting performers to intensive control over that content. Using LiveJasmin as a paradigmatic case, we show how detailed content guidelines and moderation operate as workplace rules, governing performer behaviour, labour output and client interactions. Our methodology combines document analysis of platform policies with 17 expert interviews with industry stakeholders and in-depth interviews with 67 webcam performers across three European countries. The findings reveal that platforms exercise granular control over working conditions through content moderation while framing these controls as safety and compliance measures rather than labour management. This enables platforms to avoid accountability towards performers as workers despite creating strict managerial relationships. The stigmatization of sex work has often excluded adult platforms from platform labour discussions, yet they illuminate worker control mechanisms that operate more implicitly across the creator economy. These findings contribute to platform studies by demonstrating how content moderation and labour management operate as unified systems of labour control, with implications for regulatory frameworks that currently separate content governance from platform labour regulation.