In recent years, Tinseltown’s fight against sex trafficking has involved advanced technology like AI, with celebrity-led campaigns shedding light on complex ethical dilemmas – and highlighting their own Hollywood sex scandals and ethical failures. The author Robert Barclay, a consistent voice against the vile trade of trafficking children, reviews the chequered history of Hollywood’s much-publicised efforts.
Thorn’s Spotlight tool, a well-known AI-powered search engine, is pivotal in the tech-driven battle against trafficking but faces criticism over potential misidentification.
In the case of Ashton Kutcher’s anti-trafficking organisation, Thorn, and its flagship product, Spotlight, the deployment of AI to track and identify victims of trafficking reveals profound ethical dilemmas. And entwined in this moral labyrinth is a sinister subplot—the scandals involving powerful figures like Sean “Diddy” Combs, whose own sexual exploits have raised questions about Hollywood’s role in perpetuating the very exploitation it claims to fight.
AI and Sex Trafficking: Spotlighting Bias in Algorithms
The growing use of AI in combating sex trafficking raises critical questions about bias and effectiveness. At the heart of the growing momentum against sex trafficking in Hollywood is technology—specifically AI-driven systems that scour the internet for illicit activity. Robert Barclay writes that these systems promise efficiency and scale, using machine learning algorithms to track patterns in online ads and identify potential victims of trafficking, but also vacuum up the innocent.
The most well-known of these tools is Thorn’s Spotlight, an AI-powered search engine designed to detect trafficking victims by analysing vast swaths of data, including images, phone numbers, and online ads.
The tool has been lauded for its potential to rescue vulnerable individuals by enabling law enforcement to track and identify perpetrators quickly.
One particularly high-profile case saw Spotlight deployed to locate a missing 14-year-old girl, known in the press as “Jessie,” whose phone number had appeared in a sex ad. The ad contained explicit images of her, and through Spotlight’s AI-powered search, the police were able to locate her and bring her trafficker to justice. The quick success was celebrated as an example of technology’s potential to make a real difference in the fight against trafficking.
Yet, while Spotlight’s impact cannot be ignored, its deployment raises uncomfortable questions about privacy, surveillance, and the potential for misidentification. The most glaring issue with using AI in sex trafficking cases is the potential for misidentification. AI is only as good as the data fed into it. While tools like Spotlight might effectively identify clear cases of trafficking, they can also, as critics argue, sweep up consensual sex workers who are not victims of trafficking but are instead practising voluntary sex work.
This conflation between trafficking and consensual sex work is dangerous, not only legally but also socially. It perpetuates a narrative in which all sex work is seen as inherently exploitative, thereby stripping agency from sex workers who choose to engage in the profession voluntarily.
In a 2022 report by Forbes, it was revealed that law enforcement databases armed with facial recognition and AI-driven systems like Spotlight are harvesting data from online sex ads indiscriminately, lumping together exploited children and consenting adults. When a tool is fed a phone number or a name, machine learning attempts to piece together a map of trafficking networks based on online ads. However, this kind of data collection raises significant concerns. Consenting sex workers, many of whom are already marginalised, find themselves at risk of being misidentified as victims—or worse, as perpetrators—due to flawed algorithms or overzealous law enforcement.
Privacy concerns in AI policing are paramount as these tools, including Spotlight, risk sweeping up consensual sex workers alongside trafficking victims.
In these cases, AI’s perceived objectivity crumbles under the weight of human error and bias. A system designed to help vulnerable individuals can easily become a tool of oppression, exposing those already on society’s fringes to legal jeopardy, stigma, and violence.
Moreover, the ethical implications are more far-reaching. When AI is used to track individuals based on their online activities, it risks creating a surveillance state where privacy is compromised and innocent people are unjustly accused. This danger becomes even more evident when considering the persistent issue of racial and class biases in AI. These biases, if unchecked, can lead to the disproportionate targeting of marginalised groups—further entrenching inequalities in the system.
The Illusion of Heroism: Hollywood Sex Scandals and Advocacy in Combating Trafficking
Complicating these ethical issues, Hollywood tends to glamorise its involvement in social causes. Ashton Kutcher’s testimony before Congress and Thorn’s high-profile partnerships with companies like Google, Amazon, and Twitter created a narrative in which technology, combined with celebrity activism, was the silver bullet for solving trafficking.
Kutcher’s recent PR crisis surrounding his support for convicted rapist Danny Masterson – Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs highlights, Hollywood’s involvement in advocacy can often mask deeper contradictions.
Kutcher’s resignation from Thorn in September 2023, following public outcry over his defence of Masterson, exposed the fragility of the celebrity advocacy machine.
Thorn’s mission to combat sex trafficking and child exploitation—a cause beyond reproach—was suddenly tainted by its founder’s complicity in defending someone who had violently ignored the principle of consent. This dissonance between Kutcher’s public persona as a crusader for children and his private actions illustrates the broader hypocrisy that can plague celebrity-driven causes.
The Diddy Scandal: Hollywood’s Dirty Secrets
In recent months, the media has been abuzz with accusations against Sean “Diddy” Combs, as multiple individuals, including former associates, have come forward with allegations of sexual exploitation. The accusations range from coercive behaviour to more extreme claims of abuse and trafficking. These revelations come as a stark reminder that Hollywood’s glittering façade often hides a much darker reality—one in which exploitation and abuse run rampant, even among those who publicly champion the fight against such crimes.
Combs, a mogul who has shaped much of the entertainment industry, is the epitome of the Hollywood elite: wealthy, powerful, and seemingly beyond reproach. Yet, as accusations mount, it is impossible to ignore the uncomfortable truth that many of the figures within the entertainment industry who purport to advocate for the vulnerable are themselves deeply entangled in systems of exploitation.
Combs’ alleged behaviour casts a long shadow over Hollywood’s moralising stance on sex trafficking. If the people in positions of power are not held accountable for their actions, how can the systems they support, including AI tools like Spotlight, be trusted to deliver on their promises?
The complexity of the issue deepens when we consider the dissonance between Hollywood’s public persona and its private transgressions. Figures like Ashton Kutcher, who present themselves as champions against trafficking, may have noble intentions, yet they are associated with questionable characters like Diddy, who are embedded within an industry that has historically ignored or concealed exploitation within its ranks. This contradiction is striking: the industry proclaims its commitment to justice while subtly sustaining the very systems of abuse it purports to fight.
Furthermore, Hollywood’s efforts to combat sex trafficking, including initiatives like Spotlight, often fail to address the systemic issues it has long perpetuated. Despite its public advocacy, the entertainment industry has been a longstanding breeding ground for exploitation, power imbalances, and silence in the face of abuse. While well-intentioned, Hollywood’s reliance on tech tools to “solve” trafficking risks oversimplifying a multifaceted issue, diverting attention away from its root causes—poverty, inequality, and the power structures Hollywood itself upholds.
While AI’s role in combating trafficking is significant, the biases in machine learning algorithms and Hollywood’s involvement reveal a deeper complexity.
Hollywood Sex and the Paradox of Progress
While the recent buzz surrounding Diddy has undoubtedly brought the issue of sex trafficking into the spotlight, it is crucial to recognise that this is not a new crisis; rather, we are merely scratching the surface of a deeply entrenched problem that has existed for decades, hidden beneath the gloss of power and privilege.
Robert Barclay’s Butterfly Dynasty series is a powerful exploration of the lives of survivors of trafficking and abuse. Unlike the media’s tendency to glamorise Hollywood’s anti-trafficking campaigns or sensationalise perpetrators, Robert Barclay’s narrative centres on the survivors—the resilient individuals whose voices are too often marginalised in mainstream discourse. Through his storytelling, Robert Barclay in The Butterfly Dynasty shifts the focus away from the perpetrators and instead highlights the lived experiences of those who endure the trauma of exploitation.
His work serves as a poignant reminder that the fight against sex trafficking is not solely about the technology or high-profile campaigns but about recognising and empowering those most affected. These individuals are not mere victims but survivors whose strength and agency must take centre stage.
In the end, the true battle lies in dismantling the systems of power that perpetuate exploitation—not merely deploying technology to catch perpetrators. While celebrity-driven crusades may bring awareness, they often fail to confront the complicity of the very institutions that enable such abuse.
Robert Barclay’s Butterfly Dynasty exemplifies this truth, urging us to focus on the survivors—their strength, their stories, and their ability to reclaim their lives. Until the narrative shifts to centre their voices, the cycle of exploitation will persist, and the real victims will remain trapped in the shadows, their stories overshadowed by the very forces that claim to be saving them.