By Cara Waters
Banks and payment providers are under scrutiny following a backflip by online creator platform OnlyFans on a move to ban sexually explicit content.
The company has blamed its proposed ban on sexually explicit content on obstructive behaviour from large financial institutions that have refused its business, but it has moved away from imposing the new rules.
OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely pointed the finger at major financial institutions Bank of New York Mellon and JP Morgan, which he said had unfairly targeted the platform and had cited reputational risk to refuse the platform’s business.
However, on Wednesday evening, OnlyFans reversed its decision, saying in a statement: “We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change.”
Author and sex worker Tilly Lawless is not convinced by OnlyFans backflip on its explicit content ban. Credit: Chloë Nour
OnlyFans enables fans to pay creators for their photos and videos and the platform has amassed 130 million users and 2 million creators since it launched in 2016. Creators on OnlyFans range from photographers to fashion influencers.
The company has been valued at more than $US1 billion ($1.3 billion).
The most popular content is nudes and pornography. More than 300 of its creators earn at least $US1 million annually from subscribers who pay to view a feed of content. Users can pay extra for exclusive content and can give tips for custom photos or videos.
OnlyFans grew rapidly through the coronavirus pandemic. A pitch deck obtained by US news website Axios reported revenue of $US375 million for last year. Concerns started to surface about its ongoing financial viability as the company looked to raise money.
Australian author and sex worker Tilly Lawless, whose novel Nothing But My Body has just been published, says OnlyFans’ proposed ban and backflip raises questions about the influence of banks and financial institutions on the internet.
“They only say suspended the change rather than cancelled, so it may just be for an interim period as they’re losing so many creators and getting so much backlash,” Lawless says.
Lawless says any ban on explicit content would “decimate incomes” of creators on the platform and would be “incredibly upsetting and a betrayal because they built that platform off the back of sex workers”.
Lawless stopped using OnlyFans last year after she says it became clear the platform was a hostile space for sex workers.
“[OnlyFans] has always been anti full-service sex work in that if you have an ad somewhere else that is advertising the fact that you’re an escort, or if they find out you’re a brothel worker, they will delete your account and confiscate your earnings,” she says. “The whole four months I used it I was stressed about being kicked off at any point.”
The platform has come under pressure after a string of media investigations into the prevalence of child sexual abuse and other non-consensual footage on sites like OnlyFans.
This has led campaign groups including Exodus Cry and the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation in the US to target payments providers, credit card companies and banks that do business with OnlyFans.
Lawless says: “Studies have shown there’s more exploitation of children on Facebook and they’re not complaining about Facebook. Is your issue actually exploitation of children or is it sex workers? This is the thing that happens time and time again because there are a lot of people who want to assert their own morality on to the internet and make it a sanitised space.“
Sunroom co-founder Michelle Battersby says OnlyFans is abandoning the creators who built its business.Credit: Louie Douvis
Mr Stokely told The Financial Times The Bank of New York Mellon had flagged and rejected every transfer connected to the company and made it difficult for the company to pay its creators and pointed to JPMorgan as being “particularly aggressive” in closing accounts of any businesses that supported sex workers.
OnlyFans, The Bank of New York Mellon and JPMorgan declined to comment.
Michelle Battersby, who headed up Bumble in Australia and who has moved to the US to start Sunroom, a platform aimed at women creators, and says OnlyFans is abandoning the creators who built its business.
“OnlyFans has never outwardly acknowledged the pornography, nor the adult content on their platform, but it is this core creator that has contributed billions of dollars to their platform, and the large majority of those profitable creators are women,” she says. “This isn’t about them having issues with payment providers. It’s about them having a reputation they don’t like and an inability to raise money.”
Battersby says Sunroom has been built for “women, non-binary and femme creators specifically”. She says sex workers will be allowed to use Sunroom but the platform will not host pornography.
The backflip on the explicit content ban raises questions as to whether OnlyFans could have survived without the content it is known for.
After blogging site Tumblr banned sexually explicit content in 2018, the site, which was bought by Yahoo for $US1.1 billion in 2013, sold for just $US3 million in 2019.
Lawless says: “OnlyFans could completely die like Tumblr did but even if OnlyFans does go under, it doesn’t solve the actual issue, which is credit cards and banking institutions forcing platforms into this situation.”