OnlyFans, a platform that allows users to sell subscriptions to adult content, has announced that it will ban sexually explicit content amid difficulties in finding outside investors. The ban follows reports that OnlyFans is struggling to obtain more funding from investors who allegedly refused to commit to the company out of fear that its reputation would prevent it from attracting brand partners. Several investors have also reportedly raised concerns about it like the creation of subscription accounts by minors.
OnlyFans’ move to ban “sexually explicit” content, which begins October 1, was part of requests from the company’s banking partners and payment providers. It is not yet clear what the new policy is and how company moderators would determine which nudity content does not meet the guidelines.
OnlyFans to ban sexually explicit content with new rules
The new terms and conditions will ban pornographic content. OnlyFans clarifies that nude photos and erotic videos can still be uploaded, provided they are consistent with the new terms.
Bloomberg explains that OnlyFans makes these changes due to pressure from banks and payment gateways while seeking to increase its value in the market. Together, OnlyFans creators have earned more than $ 4.5 billion since it was launched. The platform has launched the app five years ago. The subscription site was born with a focus aimed at chefs, musicians, celebrities, and photographers having contact with their followers through exclusive content; But from one moment to the next a series of alternative role models, adult entertainment figures, and sex workers proliferated among popular accounts.
Although the company maintains that nudity will continue to be allowed as long as it remains within the parameters that currently exist. The exact details on what may and may not exist in OnlyFans accounts will be revealed in the coming days.
Why Patreon won’t be able to host OnlyFans’ sexually explicit post creators
Now that OnlyFans reported that starting in October it will begin to ban sexual photos and videos on its platform, content creators of this type will have to find a new way to continue selling their images to make money.
Hence, Patreon is singled out as a new option. This platform has existed for several years, making it easier for artists and creators to get paid for their work regardless of whether it is erotic. However, it has a limitation similar to OnlyFans, it turns followers into a type of patron who pays a monthly fee or publication, helping the creator to get money while promoting more content. Being a patron makes it easy to access the profile of the artist, who posts articles or exclusive content. Thus, the platform is not only a payment intermediary but a community that allows creators to interact with followers and vice versa.
In Patreon is nudity allowed? It is provided that Patreon is classified their adult content and that type of content should not be open to the public as a profile picture. Although you can see breasts and genitals, transparent clothing, and excessively sexual poses, you cannot cross the line from nudity to pornography which is classified as “real people who participate in sexual acts such as masturbation or sexual relations in front of a camera”. For this reason, Patreon, instead of being an alternative, is an antecedent of OnlyFans, as it suffered at the time. Because many used it to promote sexually explicit content, they had to modify their community standards.
However, there are other options such as Podia that give exclusive access to photos, videos, or download files to subscribers. Here, content creators must pay a monthly commitment to the platform of more than $ 30, creators who will be banned from OnlyFans can switch to Fansly as a new option. Here it is possible to upload adult content without restrictions and can be purchased by everyone with a subscription.
There are other forms of crowdfunding, but their features are more like a plugin to add to previously created sites. For example, PayPal, Stripe, and Memberful payment buttons (acquired by Patreon). The plugins can be installed on websites for fan support, however, it is lost community property and can not be found similar profiles within a platform.
Currently, the site conditions allow nudity, except those that are recorded in public or broadcast from a jurisdiction where such public practices are illegal. Therefore, users expressed their disagreement through social networks, making fun of the fact that many of their partners or creators will look for other platforms. Although nudity content will be possible, for some it will cease to be profitable if their fans seek to view sexually explicit content.
A precarious website
In 2018, OnlyFans moved its headquarters on the rural outskirts of Brentwood – a small town in Essex that could be considered a London suburb – to the capital, London. Until then, Stokely ran the business from home. Today it is registered in the city center, next to Oxford Circus.
In 2020 they spent 3.8 million on workers’ wages. In the accounts, they acknowledge having increased finance, customer service, content study, and fraud prevention staff and employing a significant number of freelancers from around the world. Outsourcing to cheaper countries is a common practice for tech companies: Facebook content moderators, for example, are located in Lisbon, Barcelona, or Warsaw. On Glassdoor, an OnlyFans customer service worker signs from Ukraine and criticizes the “low level of managers” and the number of “software problems.”
To bill what you bill and receive the volume of visits it receives, 237 million per month, OnlyFans is not a very polished product. To begin with, they only have a website developed: no apps. “The page is very slow. The chat is caught, it takes time to send messages and upload photos,” explains Sara. “You have to manually go in to follow expired subscribers for messages to reach them. In general, it lacks fluency.”
Almudena (not her real name), another OnlyFans creator who used to sell content on her own, adds that before it was worse – “the servers were down a lot” – and that, although it has improved, it continues to have bugs. “It frustrates us, but as it is the page with the most audience we do not cause a problem.”
OnlyFans has, according to registry accounts, only 25 workers. The salary of the highest-paid manager was 2 million pounds in 2020. The company paid out 20 million in dividends and also bought another family business, the wish-list website Delivery Code Limited, for 23 million pounds. The founder and CEO is their son, Tim Stokely. He employs his older brother Thomas as a chief operating officer and his father Guy, a 78-year-old former investment banker who is listed as director and secretary of the firm. Deborah Stokely (61 years old) was also a director.
Onlyfans is the beginning of the end for social security
There are many, many striking cases of women who tell “thanks to Onlyfans in three weeks I have been able to become independent at 20 years old. Thank you followers!”, Or “Look, I have $ 10,000 in the bank thanks to just a total of 20 hours of work.” These comments could be explained by the same phenomenon as with all social networks, where only the most striking, the most successful, end up being publicized.
As with Instagram, where we publicly share the posture but the daily miseries are hidden under the DMs, the foreros confuse the exception with the norm. The reality is that, although Onlyfans has improved and amplified the ways of monetizing pornographic content, this work requires effort and perseverance much larger than you might think at first.
At the moment Onlyfans comprises 60 million users and, according to its metrics, 750,000 creators worldwide. There is still a while for this app to destroy the foundations of contemporary civilization, but we will have to be vigilant.
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