OnlyFans Blasted for Reversing Course and Hosting Porn: ‘It’s Rife for Abuse and Criminality’

By admin On Aug 25, 2021

The subscription platform OnlyFans announced Wednesday it was reversing course on a new policy that would have banned pornography, noting that it will continue hosting such content.

The about-face, the company said in a tweet, came after clients and fans made their “voices heard.”

Thank you to everyone for making your voices heard.

We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change.

OnlyFans stands for inclusion and we will continue to provide a home for all creators.

— OnlyFans (@OnlyFans) August 25, 2021

But the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) – which had applauded the earlier move to ban pornography – criticized the company for changing its position.

“OnlyFans has chosen to continue its exploitation, despite knowing that it will face increasing criminal scrutiny over reports of filmed child sexual abuse, sex trafficking, and other non-consensually recorded sex acts being sold on its website,” said Haley McNamara, vice president of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

NCOSE highlighted a BBC investigation that found minors under 18 have used fake IDs to set up accounts. The BBC investigation also discovered that a 14-year-old girl used a grandmother’s passport to create an account.

“If OnlyFans couldn’t distinguish between a girl fresh out of middle school and her grandmother, this ‘verification’ system is systemically flawed,” McNamara said. “And this problem is inherent because OnlyFans allows user-uploaded content, like other pornography tube websites, with weak age of consent verification of those depicted in the material. This problematic policy creates a platform that is rife for abuse and criminality.”

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation will hold OnlyFans accountable for “enabling abuse and exploitation,” and “we reiterate our call on the Department of Justice to join the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in investigating this platform,” McNamara said.

Earlier this month, OnlyFans said it would begin banning sexually explicit content on October 1. That announcement came after banks and companies that handle financial transactions requested that OnlyFans stop hosting pornography.

But in its Wednesday tweet, OnlyFans implied that it had rectified its dilemma.

“We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change,” the tweet said. “OnlyFans stands for inclusion, and we will continue to provide a home for all creators.”

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

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