Our Why

At Privy Labs, we believe all people have the Right to Self Expression, the Right to Privacy, and the Right to Consent when engaging on the internet. The genesis for Privy Labs is informed not only by these philosophical values but personal experience with marginalized communities, sex-positive communities, and sex work communities. Members of our founding team are intimately familiar with the issues presented by piracy in the broad and acute sense, including explicit or discreet media that affect these groups. We’ve dedicated our time to engage in deep proprietary and third party research on the history of privacy, media sharing, human connection, and piracy on the internet.

The history of these cannot be untangled from our collective quest as humans for social connection, intimacy, and sex – which played a key part in developing many fundamental technologies on the internet. Sex workers, in particular, have helped build, popularize, and monetize the internet — yet were (and are still) ejected from the very spaces they created. What we now know as key features of the $100 Billion dollar “creator economy” have roots in concepts that have long-reigned supreme in the offline and online world of sex work – such as tipping, patronage, pay per view/minute, and custom content subscriptions. AI, now a key focal point in conversations about how we process information on the web and the difficulty in determining fact from fiction or manufactured vs original, is another area where Sex Workers voices need to be amplified. Sex workers have been among the first to sound the alarm on the consequences of unchecked AI, vocally speaking out about deepfake pornography, image-based sexual abuse, harassment, and non-consensual image use.

With this consideration in mind, our founding team conducted our research, design, and product development in tight fellowship with the sex work community. We are dedicated to to serving the community for whom privacy violations are dire and who have the most to gain from well-built, Web3 solutions. As we build our vision for a consent-focused internet, we are excited to embrace and support the sex work community.