OnlyFans to ban sexually explicit content this fall, impacting Queer livelihoods

During the 2020 pandemic fall months, Queer Kentucky reported on how OnlyFans and other forms of sex work were saving the wallets of Queer people all over. Business was booming for some because people were home more…and looking at porn more. Sex work is still criminalized and people in the profession couldn’t receive unemployment.

Now, Queer sex workers (and all sex workers) that use the online platform as extra income or their sole income, will have to move platforms or find other work.

The tech giant with a base of more than 130 million users announced that it will ban sexually explicit content this fall.

According to Variety and Bloomberg, The U.K.-based company said it is making the changes “to comply with the requests of our banking partners and payout providers.”

“The changes are needed because of mounting pressure from banking partners and payment providers, according to the company. OnlyFans is trying to raise money from outside investors at a valuation of more than $1 billion.” — Bloomberg

Effective Oct. 1, 2021, “OnlyFans will prohibit the posting of any content containing sexually explicit conduct,” the company said in the statement to Variety. “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 nude content “as long as it is consistent with OnlyFan’s Acceptable Use Policy.” Currently, OnlyFans allows nudity except in the case of content featuring public nudity recorded in or broadcast from a jurisdiction where public nudity is illegal. There are many restrictions on the type of explicit content that CANNOT be featured such as non-consent, rape, hardcore bondage, extreme fisting, and more.

It is unclear how the terms will change. Current terms can be found here.

“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,” the company said. “OnlyFans remains committed to the highest levels of safety and content moderation of any social platform. All creators are verified prior to being able to upload any content to OnlyFans, and all uploaded content is checked by automated systems and human moderators.”

OnlyFans was founded in 2016 and has paid more than $5 billion to creators. The company keeps 20% of creator’s revenue.

In July 2021, OnlyFans approved 114,065 creator accounts (out of 279,222 applications), according to the company’s first monthly transparency report. It also revealed that it deactivated 15 OnlyFans accounts last month after detecting child pornography on those accounts.

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