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OnlyFans is getting out of the pornography business.
The company will prohibit users from posting any sexually explicit conduct, starting in October. Creators will still be allowed to post nude photos and videos, provided they’re consistent with OnlyFans’ policy, the company said Thursday.
The changes are needed because of mounting pressure from banking partners and payment providers, according to the company.
“In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of our platform, and the continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines,” OnlyFans said.
OnlyFans has attracted more than 130 million users by giving online creators a platform to charge their fans for photos and videos. Many of its most-popular creators post nude photos and videos, and it has been praised for giving sex workers a safer place to do their jobs.
But sex work still has a stigma. And OnlyFans is trying to raise money from outside investors at a valuation of more than $1 billion. The company handled more than $2 billion in sales last year, and is on pace to more than double that this year. It keeps 20% of that figure.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-19/onlyfans-to-block-sexually-explicit-videos-starting-in-october
Another blow to sex workers and adult content creators. They have virtually zero labor rights in this country and many of them rely on this for their main source of income.
Edit here is an updated statement from OnlyFans
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.
https://www.inputmag.com/tech/onlyfans-is-banning-porn-the-very-thing-that-made-it-big
Final edit: It looks all of this does indeed stem from a lot stricter guidelines being imposed by Mastercard, which investors and adult content industry professionals believe will be followed by other large credit institutions. This site wrote a good write up of the new requirements being imposed by MC. https://www.xbiz.com/news/258606/heres-what-the-new-mastercard-rules-mean-for-adult-sites-producers
It reads like bad news for a lot of people with their extremely arbitrary use of "sexually-explicit content" which I'm taking as actual porn as opposed to lewd or "art" type photography. What I think is key in most of this is the requirement that every piece of media uploaded needs to be reviewed and approved before its public. This might actually be very unprofitable change for sites like OF but much easier for professional porn sites that basically already do this now and have all records of the performers on file already. That's my guess though but a lot of this is very wordy and things are going to definitely change in some ways for smaller content creators
I mean I don't really understand how it's a thing in the first place, so I'm not sure it's gonna be enough to drive them out of business or whatever. They'll probably save some server space too by reducing vids.
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By the way I just noticed that apparently they're not even banning nude videos, just "sexually explicit", so I'm guessing it's a softcore thing.
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I'm pretty sure they're not intentionally gonna destroy themselves by banning like 99% of the content there lol it's probably some "you can't post extreme closeups of you getting railed by 10 people" thing to appease investors.
This your first rodeo? This move is 100% meant to force sex workers off the platform. Nobody can earn a viable living on suggestive content alone.
It's not even gonna be suggestive, look at what they're saying. Nude content will be permitted.
I’ve read the policy. Light nudity IS suggestive content, and you can expect the reviewers to err on the side of conservative values.
Why can you expect the reviewers of a website that is known pretty much only for sexual content and doesn't really have anything else that is new to bring to the market to do that? It's more likely that they'll try to strike a balance between that and what their investors (and app store) want, mostly to keep appearances. I don't see OnlyFans being able to transition to some other type of content any time soon. They may want to do this eventually but they're not there yet, their competition already offers everything they could.
This "striking a balance" means that SWs living off OnlyFans, who are now permanently in the margins of the ToS will always be on the cutting board, ready to be banned at a minute's notice. It's not a viable platform anymore, even if they do not ban literally all their suggestive content.
Because it’s happened a hundred times before? Why are you defending payment processors and anti-sex work platforms?
I mean, OnlyFans is pretty much a sex work only platform, I'm saying it would be stupid if they banned it so I don't think that's what they are doing at all.
When was the last time a platform which almost exclusively hosts and promotes sexual content just banned it practically overnight? They'll just fail if they do that, I don't think they have a death wish, I think they will try to pivot to somewhat "cleaner" content to go more mainstream. Maybe in the future they want to pivot to SFW content only but it's not gonna happen in two months.
Tumblr, Patreon, PornHub all immediately spring to mind. All of them have made it significantly more difficult for sex workers and adult artists to make a living or even exist on those platforms. OnlyFans only rose to prominence after Patreon forced sex workers off their platform in the first place.
Neither was relying primarily on sexual content, Tumblr had plenty of other stuff going on and Patreon was the go to for youtubers.
PornHub, much like what OF will probably do, never banned NSFW content (obviously, it's called PORNhub after all...).
More difficult yes, but there is no way they'll just get rid off basically their only source of growth and revenue in 2 months.
And this is one more reason why they wouldn't do it, Patreon already fills the niche they could have tried to attack.
Estimates from the owner of graphtreon — a third party website that tracks Patreon user’s growth — said that 40% of patreon’s income came from NSFW pages.
If that’s not ‘relying’ on SW it’s pretty damn close.
Also: you claim that patreon / tumblr didn’t ban 100% of adult content. Maybe not, the the point is the ongoing harassment campaign / demeaning of sex workers.
No, I didn't really say that, I said that they could just do it and still survive or do better, because they already had a lot of other content, unlike OnlyFans which has almost exclusively NSFW. Like, Tumblr had a choice between banning porn or saying goodbye to the app store. The second would hurt them more. In OnlyFans' case, they'd just lose close to all their revenue if they just did that.
The point is the ongoing harassment campaign / demeaning of sex workers.
Yeah, that was tumblr’s reason for banning all NSFW content. To me, the excuses matter very little. There’s always some wedge the capitalist can use to justify their misdeeds. And banning all pornography was a serious misdeed.
In the case of Tumblr it was pretty minor compared to Patreon really...
Ok but you see how this is bad, right? Like how it’s unsustainable for people whose very lives rely on these platforms to keep getting caught in these payment processor/bank whack-a-mole games?
Like SESTA/FOSTA have put lives in danger. This isn’t some theoretical thing where we can afford to take a soft stance on platforms, payment processors, and regulations. Sex workers deserve and need our support and defense.
It really doesn't matter what stance anyone takes because it's not gonna make any difference. Legislation is a different thing and much more meaningful.
Ok but if it doesn’t matter why are you choosing to defend the platforms who are clearly willing to throw human lives in the thresher in the name of profit? If it doesn’t matter, doesn’t that make it even easier to make the morally correct choice to condemn them?
I'm not sure how I am defending OF, I'm saying they're not gonna instantly destroy themselves like that. I'm saying what I think they're gonna do.
I don’t care if they ever see another goddamn dime. They could implode, they can be a runaway success, it makes zero difference to me. I care that sex workers are safe and able to make a living, and this kind of shit is antithetical to those goals.
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Some twitch streamers are doing it, but you have to be really pretty and really lucky I guess
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Tumblr is not a porn website lol the vast majority of Tumblr users weren't using it for the porn.
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No, they started losing a huge chunk of their userbase because the app was banned from App store due to child porn, which is why they banned porn in the first place. They didn't lose 75% of the userbase because of banning porn, most people on Tumblr weren't there for the porn.
That was the censor’s reason for purging all adult content but do you really believe it? Their only solution was to carpet-nuke all pornography?
Please don’t fall for this “think of the children!” Line they throw out every time it’s time for a sex worker purge.
Yes, that was the primary reason they did it because that was the rationale behind the App Store removing their app, which actually did happen. No, I don't believe capitalists are simply conspiring to destroy their business. And there is no real shortage of capitalists willing to make money off of porn either, porn is a multi billion dollar industry. They're not gonna lose a sizable part of their revenue because someone up there has strict morals or whatever, only if it somehow gets them in trouble and makes them lose money. They were already trying to selectively get rid of child porn, they weren't doing very well and then they probably panicked after they were pulled from the app store so they decided hey, fuck this, we're getting rid of it all, which would probably help them get more investors willing to invest too. Maybe not the best idea for them either, but people frame it as if it was some kind of personal grudge against sex workers, it wasn't, it's just the consequence of this sort of stuff being illegal to varying degrees in many places. So the main thing is legislation, not what platforms do, platforms will do what they do and no one will be able to have an effect on them as long as the legislation isn't touched.
My argument is that the NSFW crackdown is based on a societal hatred towards sex workers no matter what tumblr says.
There’s always a pretext for them to something that hurts SWers: human trafficking, the App Store, moral decay. I don’t care to hear the rationale because their ideology and actions constantly make it clear they loathe SWers.
I don’t believe tumblr made an honest effort to remove only the bad stuff from their platform but to me it doesn’t really matter.
That’s it! That’s my point! That this stuff is illegal only due to chauvinistic, anti-sex, anti-woman attitudes. And tumblr is taking the role of the police to enforce that societal grudge against vulnerable people. Whether the individuals at tumblr felt spite or sought to maximize profit doesn’t really matter; I look at the damage they do which seems to be at the behest of payment processors. But who tells the payment processors what’s okay?
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“The vast majority” they lost three quarters of their userbase I’d think that constitutes the vast majority
No they didn't. Only about a quarter was in it for the NSFW content.
Yeah, I’ll concede that the 75% figure doesn’t seem to be right. Must have been about valuation rather than user count.
Still, though. Twitter isn’t a porn site and that doesn’t stop millions of people from using it for porn - it’s a place where SFW and NSFW content coexist. We as leftists need to support sex workers on all platforms and work against their deplatforming and systematic marginalization.