Interview with Lips Founder, Annie Brown

We are excited to give our DDA community this exclusive interview with Annie Brown about Lips, feminism online, and why spaces for marginalized creators are more important than ever. 

1. How is Lips different, and why do we need something different?

With lips, we did a lot of very intentional co design work from the very beginning. So we worked with users to determine what they liked about social media, what they don't like about social media. So the things they liked about social media, we kept the same, you know, the ability to share images, likes, you know, the ability to repost things, things like that. And then things that they didn't like, like the algorithm promoting certain people over other people. The rampant hate speech and exploitative content, the removing marginalized users from the platform's those things we addressed. While you might log into lips and see, okay, it looks a lot like Instagram. There are a lot of small things and big things that are different. And those were all intentional and designed alongside with the community. I'll give you an example. When you log into the app, you’re walked through the community guidelines before you get into the app. So it's not like the community guidelines or something you go out of your way to try to find the community guidelines set the foundation for what the space is intended to be.

2. Recently there was much excitement over Meta’s Oversight Board’s decision having to do with the notorious “female nipple ban.” Contrary to common perception, though, the nipple has certainly not been freed on Instagram, and probably will not be. But the spotlight and the decision by the board brought up a lot of concerns over gendering bodies based on perception, and whatsmore, sexualizing them. Is the nipple free on Lips? How do you deal with sexualization of bodies, and either perceived or real sexual solicitation?

We at lips are more concerned with preventing harmful content and exploitative content, then, you know, nudity as this perceived taboo thing that should just not be allowed. So we do allow nudity on Lips - nipples, and even genitalia of all genders is allowed. That being said, we do have stipulations to keep ourselves our platform online and keep the community as safe as we possibly can. So we can't allow for hardcore pornography on the site, and we can't allow for nudity that is “non artistic.” We have a very broad understanding of what art means. Art can be a form of self expression, it can be a way of helping your own mental state. But everything on Lips, has some artistic value. And that helps us stay on line. Because in in legal theory, that helps everything on Lips fall under the First Amendment. So if there are any challenges to content on lips, we can stay afloat legally. Especially for genitalia, the content must have artistic value to remain on the platform. We allow for artistic value, and we don't allow exploitive content. So exploitive content for us goes a bit beyond than other platforms and considers the history of nudity online, and how nudity can be used to shame others, exploit others, or intimidate others. For example, you'll see on lips that there are penises visible on lips, but those ones we allow, because we said we looked at the image and when we also looked in the broader context of the artists work, and we (alongside the community) determined this is an artistic statement, or this is something that is helping this person's mental health or is beneficial to others beneficial to the community - so this post can stay.  I think the difference is, instead of these broad understandings of nudity of you know, something that's always explicit or always pornographic, we instead look at harmful versus helpful.  I think Lips has done a really good job of navigating those very tricky areas. You’ll notice when you are on the lips website, it's an inverted gaze - a gaze that is different from the typical white, cis male, heterosexual gaze. Because of that, even if an image is sexualized, it’s more empowering and interesting. Another example: There is  a history of people using dick pics to intimidate others to harass others, especially women from marginalized groups. So that's not a form of nudity that we allow for or accept. If you do see genitalia on the app, then it's in an artistic way, or it's somehow inverting the male gaze, inverting that history of intimidation through nudity. The last thing I'll add here is that through our one-time approval process for posting, we're actually able to make sure that the people that are posting on lips that are engaging with lips are not bad actors. We've only had a few people who have gone through that process and then had to be removed from the app. But that's a very rare thing. And for the most part, the people that go through the approval process, they they understand the community guidelines and therefore understand, you know, the, what we're trying to do on lips is they understand our mission of trying to create a unique and empowering space for self expression.

3. As more creators, artists, and bodies are facing difficulties online, the term “Deep Deplatforming” has been floating around. Could you explain a bit about it and how it effects marginalized creators?

We hear a lot about deplatforming, and we just think, okay, being removed from Instagram or Twitter. Lately, that is becoming less of a term that is dismissed as “boohoo, you're removed from social media - big deal,” but instead, people looking at the phenomenon considering that social media is where people make money and get the word out about themselves. More often, the question is being asked “Why are some people allowed to express themselves on these platforms, and others aren't? And why are marginalized communities - women, the LGBTQIA+ community, bipoc creators, much more likely to be deplatformed? However, what is still not discussed too often is that this trend continues as you go deeper down into the stack. And when I say stack, I'm talking about online technologies beyond social media. For example, one thing I'm very passionate about is financial sovereignty for marginalized creators, especially sex workers. A lot of creators, especially sex workers, but also artists, LGBTQ educators, and activists are pushed off of PayPal and Stripe, not because they violate any laws, but just because their terms of service are so vague that it gives companies the freedom to push off who they want to push off. If you don't have that access to a widely used financial tool or a way of exchanging money online, it makes it very difficult if not impossible to run a small business. I'm currently working on a project with a great founder, Morgan Stewart, who has built an alternative to payment processors like PayPal and Stripe. Sigil is doing a great job at creating a crypto first solution for marginalized creators and I highly recommend looking into that. Being deplatformed from PayPal and Stripe are examples of deep deplatformling, but there are other platforms that target marginalized creators that might surprise you such as Airbnb and Calendly. That's why I believe fighting this battle for marginalized creators to remain visible on social media platforms is so essential, because it's just one part of a much bigger trend in marginalized creators being pushed to the margins of the internet.

4. What has your experience in the tech sector been like in your ambition to build feminist spaces? How can your work be supported?

Well, I would say it has been a mixed bag. On the one hand, I have found a wonderful community of creators, tech nerds, investors, and academics who are incredibly excited and supportive of what we are doing. We've gotten much farther than I even thought was possible, now being at 50,000 users. That being said, it has taken a lot of effort and heartbreak to get to this point, because there is a lot of resistance when it comes to building platforms that challenge the status quo. I think things are getting better. But the thing is, it seems to have gotten better for marginalized founders and communities that adhere to certain norms. So if you are an LGBTQ founder, or an LGBTQ creator, who has a lifestyle that fits into what I would call a middle class, capitalist, perhaps “vanilla” world-view, then it is much easier to find support. There is this growing support for marginalized founders and marginalized people in tech. And yet, if your identity, your lifestyle or your beliefs don't fall into what is determined to be normal or palatable to those in power, then it is going to be a very difficult road to financial and technical success. In my opinion, Lips is a bit ahead of its time as far as pushing the boundaries of how we understand sex and sexuality on the internet and how we define and value self expression. And because of that we have struggled a bit as far as high level partnerships and investor backing. However, because we have the momentum from users who have shown there's a need for this, we have been able to overcome a lot of prejudice to get where we are today. As far as support, we are currently looking for investors to help finance improvements on and growth of the app. We're also currently hiring full stack and machine learning developers, so any help getting the word out for those roles would be much appreciated. And also just anyone who wants to get involved – we have chapters across the United States made up of creators who volunteer their time to help us out. We are very intentional about doing our best to give back to those who support us however we can. •