Culture Wars/Current Controversies

Who Is Ashton Kutcher’s Anti-Trafficking Organization Helping?

By on • ( Leave a comment )
That Ashton Kutcher, in the wake of his much-criticized character statement supporting convicted rapist Danny Masterson ahead of his sentencing, resigned from his anti-sex-trafficking organization, Thorn, last month shouldn’t have been surprising. But what the Cut’s features writer Angelina Chapin found in the fallout of Kutcher’s PR disaster was just that and then some. As Angelina learned, Spotlight, Thorn’s flagship Amazon-backed AI-surveillance technology, has anti-sex-trafficking advocates, trafficking survivors, and sex workers concerned it “may harm the very people it claims to protect.” “There’s really no sunlight on exactly how Spotlight operates, how its algorithms operate, and how people end up in their database,” as one legal expert put it. “‘Just trust Ashton Kutcher’ is terrible public policy.”

—Jen Ortiz, deputy editor, the Cut

Who Exactly Is Ashton Kutcher’s Anti-Sex-Trafficking Tech Company Helping? The actor’s recent PR crisis has led to scrutiny around his advocacy work.

Photo: Paul Morigi/WireImage
Read the full story
Enjoying One Great Story?
Subscribe now for unlimited access to everything New York.

More From Today
Vulture’s Jen Chaney reports from the opening-night U2 concert at Sphere, Las Vegas’ massive state-of-the-art orb venue, where even Bono seemed moved by the experience.
READ MORE »
For Eater’s debut cookbook, Hillary Dixler Canavan interviewed dozens of  chefs about how to bring restaurant-level expertise into home kitchens. Here are the 7 kitchen tools she later bought. 
READ MORE »
Art critic Jerry Saltz reviews the Whitney Museum’s retrospective to Henry Taylor, whose colorful paintings mix bravura and heroism with the humiliation of death and defeat.
READ MORE »
On the Cut, workplace-advice columnist Alison Green advises a reader whose boss thinks that management-level employees should always be available, even on their days off. 
READ MORE »
Grub Street writers and editors offer suggestions for where to eat in New York this month, including a fantastic new Thai destination, a southern charmer, and fine dining in FiDi.
READ MORE »
Introducing The City Desk, a weekly newsletter about New York. Sign up to get it every Thursday.
Get The Newsletter

Categories: Culture Wars/Current Controversies

Leave a Reply