The adult industry was left panic-stricken by Thursday’s news that OnlyFans would no longer be allowing “sexually explicit conduct.”
As the news spread across the internet, confusion and fear were met with misinformation and anger. Content creators immediately took to Twitter in hopes of finding answers or details about the upcoming changes beyond the headlines. Many pointed to a new report on Axios detailing how, despite swimming in cash, OnlyFans was struggling to find investors.
OnlyFans attempted damage-control with the following statement, first reported by XBIZ’s Gustavo Turner:
“Effective 1 October 2021, OnlyFans will prohibit the posting of any content containing sexually explicit conduct. In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of the platform, and to continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines. Creators will continue to be allowed to post content containing nudity as long as it is consistent with our Acceptable Use Policy.”
“These changes are to comply with the requests of our banking partners and payout providers. We will be sharing more details in the coming days and we will actively support and guide our creators through this change in content guidelines.”
They also boasted of how they “remain dedicated to our community of 130 million users and over 2 million creators that have earned over $5 billion on our platform.”
As for this new policy, “sexually explicit conduct” is vague terminology that hasn’t been deployed before when it comes to censoring content creators. So, creators and content managers are having a difficult time deciphering exactly what sort of material would violate the so-called “Acceptable Use Policy.”
Over the last few years, OnlyFans’ relationship with its adult creators has been the concern of many. As the platform began to fill with celebrities like Bella Thorne and Cardi B, and even featured in a Beyoncé song, adult creators grew worried that OnlyFans would follow the paths of Tumblr and Patreon, casting out the workers that helped build their fame and fortune. Many workers—especially during the ongoing pandemic—depend on the lucrative platform for their sole income, with adult content accounting for the vast majority of their posts.
While performers wonder what content they may need to remove in an effort to remain compliant, numerous companies have emerged to offer their platforms as potential successors, such as ManyVids. It’s become a bit of a feeding frenzy, and there is the potential for danger. As content creators look to migrate their business to alternative platforms, they must also be on high alert for potential phishing opportunities. Because creators must provide age-verifying identification, they should make sure the platform they’re joining is legitimate, lest they fall victim to fraud or identity theft.
Even though there are many established options to replace OnlyFans as a platform hosting adult content, if the company’s decision is rooted in banks, as OnlyFans mentioned in their statement, what will become of future platforms?
An open letter to MasterCard, published here on The Daily Beast, called into question the upcoming removal of consensual adult content. For those that missed it, back in April, MasterCard announced a policy change set to take effect on Oct. 15 requiring “the banks that connect merchants to our network… to certify that the seller of adult content has effective controls in place to monitor, block and, where necessary, take down all illegal content.”
These “controls” include:
- Documented age and identity verification for all people depicted and those uploading the content
- Content review process prior to publication
- Complaint resolution process that addresses illegal or nonconsensual content within seven business days
- Appeals process allowing for any person depicted to request their content be removed
The decision left sex workers wondering how it would affect past content, and whether it was merely the first step toward banning payments for sex work entirely.
And MasterCard did not act alone. It was pressured into this decision by groups like Exodus Cry and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), both of which have waged years-long campaigns against sites like OnlyFans and Pornhub with the ultimate aim of abolishing the sex-work industry entirely.
Following the OnlyFans announcement, NCOSE did a victory lap, releasing a statement saying “the announcement made by OnlyFans that it will prohibit creators from posting material with sexually explicit conduct on its website comes after much advocacy from NCOSE, survivors and allies.”
You see, Exodus Cry and NCOSE have targeted these sites claiming that they’re hotbeds of child sexual abuse when, according to an independent study released earlier this year by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, MindGeek—the parent company of Pornhub, which also runs RedTube, YouPorn, and several other adult tube sites—accounted for 13,229 instances of what they deemed “child sexual abuse material,” while Snapchat had 144,095 instances, Google had 546,704, and Facebook topped everybody with 20.3 million.
OnlyFans recently released its first Transparency Report for the month of July, and claimed to have deactivated a total of 15 accounts for alleged child sexual abuse material.
So, if child sexual abuse is their primary concern, why aren’t Exodus Cry and NCOSE going after the Googles and Facebooks of the world? The answer is clear.
Three weeks after The Daily Beast published the open letter to MasterCard, on June 30, MasterCard executives met with the performer union the Adult Performance Artists Guild (APAG) to discuss concerns that platforms like OnlyFans would remove adult content due to MasterCard’s own policy changes set to take effect on Oct. 15. During that meeting, MasterCard stated it had no intention of having legal adult content removed from its clients’ platforms. We reached out to MasterCard for its response to the OnlyFans announcement but have not yet received a reply.
