11 ms·

India’s sex workers turn to WhatsApp, Instagram to find clients safely

62 points by vinnyglennon 3y ago

andsoitis 3y ago
> When Dhokne’s friend lent her a smartphone to find work online, she didn’t know how to use it. “I had always used a black-and-white [feature phone],” the 35-year-old told Rest of World. Incredible to read so vividly about the digital divide. Glad there are organizations geared towards connecting people with more digital tools, lest them and their children get left behind.
- mighmi 3y ago
  In India, voice-based UIs are extremely important in the local app ecosystem, because of wide illiteracy in rural areas.
  - andsoitis 3y ago
    I've heard that too. Do you have an example of an app that has a particularly great VUI? Preferably something with a discovery component, not just executing commands.
  - fooker 3y ago
    Do you have evidence for this? As far as I understand, speech recognition accuracy for Indian languages is basically non existent outside research demos.
    - xNeil 3y ago
      I believe parent is talking about a focus on Voice UIs like Voice Notes and Messages. Not transcribing the voice into text, but the voice itself.
      - fooker 3y ago
        This too doesn't exist in a form usable by people outside the anglosphere.
    - mighmi 3y ago
      https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-all-top-e-commerce-apps-india-adding-voice-kumar-rangarajan https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-all-top-e-commerce-apps-i... > already added in-app voice assistants to their apps - Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket, Udaan, P&G, and JioMart > Voice technology has finally caught up and can now understand Indian dialects and language reasonably well https://www.trinityaudio.ai/the-audio-and-voice-revolution-in-india https://www.trinityaudio.ai/the-audio-and-voice-revolution-i... > India is the second quickest nation to adopt voice-activated technology, just behind the US. More than three-quarters (76%) of the users are familiar with the speech and voice recognition technology. As a result, Hindi is the second-most commonly used language on Google Assistant, behind the English language. > Voice assistants can understand accents and vocabulary not just in Hindi but also in other regional languages, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/marketing-branding/branding/indian-consumers-are-using-voice-technology-to-get-things-done-brands-are-you-listening/articleshow/78072966.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/marketing-bra... > Voice is enabling access even for users in India who cannot afford a smartphone. Voice technology works even on a simple Jio feature phone running KaiOS. Priced between Rs 700 to Rs 1400 price range, these phones are used by 100 million people. While these entry level phones don't have the fancy capabilities of touch, they still come equipped with technology that is helping ordinary Indians in far-flung villages and towns use voice as their primary interface to navigate their phone and access a ..
mise_en_place 3y ago
> She could not meet her clients outside due to movement restrictions in her city Sangli, nor bring them home as she didn’t want her daughter to know she was a sex worker. It must be wild to have a sex worker as a parent. Maybe I’m getting older but there’s no way that’s a good environment to be raising a kid in. Like that adam22 guy, no way his daughter will turn out normal. Especially when they were using her for content like his wife breastfeeding her.
- chimeracoder 3y ago
  > It must be wild to have a sex worker as a parent. Maybe I’m getting older but there’s no way that’s a good environment to be raising a kid in. Plenty of people are raised by parents who did sex work. There's no inherent reason it has any effect on parenting.
- s5300 3y ago
  [dead]
- throwawayadvsec 3y ago
  It's just a job. If you're independent, mentally sane, and not blowing your money on drugs, you could actually give a better to life to your kids that 99% of people. I knew someone who invested enough of the money she made that way so that her daughter would never have to work a single day of her life, and she was like 40yo.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - maxilevi 3y ago
    And how many people are like that? You are basically discard most of the population
    - DennisP 3y ago
      Independent, sane, and drug-free doesn't seem like that high of a bar to me.
pratik661 3y ago
As opposed to sex workers in other countries? This article has a “every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes” or “In Japanese culture, killing someone is frowned upon” vibe to it.
- capableweb 3y ago
  The article is in a "South Asia" category, the author seems to be based in New Delhi and all the people interviewed in the article are based in India. Seems it would be irresponsible for the author to draw any conclusions about things outside of India when the focus of the article is in India. I don't think the article seems to claim that this doesn't happen elsewhere, but at least they've verified it is happening in India.
known 3y ago
[dead]

62 points by vinnyglennon 3y ago

> When Dhokne’s friend lent her a smartphone to find work online, she didn’t know how to use it. “I had always used a black-and-white [feature phone],” the 35-year-old told Rest of World. Incredible to read so vividly about the digital divide. Glad there are organizations geared towards connecting people with more digital tools, lest them and their children get left behind.

mighmi 3y ago
In India, voice-based UIs are extremely important in the local app ecosystem, because of wide illiteracy in rural areas.
- andsoitis 3y ago
  I've heard that too. Do you have an example of an app that has a particularly great VUI? Preferably something with a discovery component, not just executing commands.
- fooker 3y ago
  Do you have evidence for this? As far as I understand, speech recognition accuracy for Indian languages is basically non existent outside research demos.
  - xNeil 3y ago
    I believe parent is talking about a focus on Voice UIs like Voice Notes and Messages. Not transcribing the voice into text, but the voice itself.
    - fooker 3y ago
      This too doesn't exist in a form usable by people outside the anglosphere.
  - mighmi 3y ago
    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-all-top-e-commerce-apps-india-adding-voice-kumar-rangarajan https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-all-top-e-commerce-apps-i... > already added in-app voice assistants to their apps - Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket, Udaan, P&G, and JioMart > Voice technology has finally caught up and can now understand Indian dialects and language reasonably well https://www.trinityaudio.ai/the-audio-and-voice-revolution-in-india https://www.trinityaudio.ai/the-audio-and-voice-revolution-i... > India is the second quickest nation to adopt voice-activated technology, just behind the US. More than three-quarters (76%) of the users are familiar with the speech and voice recognition technology. As a result, Hindi is the second-most commonly used language on Google Assistant, behind the English language. > Voice assistants can understand accents and vocabulary not just in Hindi but also in other regional languages, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/marketing-branding/branding/indian-consumers-are-using-voice-technology-to-get-things-done-brands-are-you-listening/articleshow/78072966.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/marketing-bra... > Voice is enabling access even for users in India who cannot afford a smartphone. Voice technology works even on a simple Jio feature phone running KaiOS. Priced between Rs 700 to Rs 1400 price range, these phones are used by 100 million people. While these entry level phones don't have the fancy capabilities of touch, they still come equipped with technology that is helping ordinary Indians in far-flung villages and towns use voice as their primary interface to navigate their phone and access a ..

mise_en_place 3y ago

> She could not meet her clients outside due to movement restrictions in her city Sangli, nor bring them home as she didn’t want her daughter to know she was a sex worker. It must be wild to have a sex worker as a parent. Maybe I’m getting older but there’s no way that’s a good environment to be raising a kid in. Like that adam22 guy, no way his daughter will turn out normal. Especially when they were using her for content like his wife breastfeeding her.

chimeracoder 3y ago
> It must be wild to have a sex worker as a parent. Maybe I’m getting older but there’s no way that’s a good environment to be raising a kid in. Plenty of people are raised by parents who did sex work. There's no inherent reason it has any effect on parenting.
s5300 3y ago
[dead]
throwawayadvsec 3y ago
It's just a job. If you're independent, mentally sane, and not blowing your money on drugs, you could actually give a better to life to your kids that 99% of people. I knew someone who invested enough of the money she made that way so that her daughter would never have to work a single day of her life, and she was like 40yo.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- maxilevi 3y ago
  And how many people are like that? You are basically discard most of the population
  - DennisP 3y ago
    Independent, sane, and drug-free doesn't seem like that high of a bar to me.

pratik661 3y ago

As opposed to sex workers in other countries? This article has a “every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes” or “In Japanese culture, killing someone is frowned upon” vibe to it.

capableweb 3y ago
The article is in a "South Asia" category, the author seems to be based in New Delhi and all the people interviewed in the article are based in India. Seems it would be irresponsible for the author to draw any conclusions about things outside of India when the focus of the article is in India. I don't think the article seems to claim that this doesn't happen elsewhere, but at least they've verified it is happening in India.

known 3y ago

[dead]