OnlyFans is kicking potentially millions of small entrepreneurs to the curb by placing new limits on the types of content it will allow on its platform. Namely, the content that made you know what OnlyFans is in the first place.
OnlyFans said Friday morning Australian time that it will abandon porn, the rock on which it built its house, the tinder which ignited its hearth. The news was first reported by Bloomberg. In a statement emailed to Gizmodo, OnlyFans said that the company will be prohibiting “sexually-explicit content” starting October 1. They did not define “sexually-explicit” but added that nudity, in keeping with its acceptable use policy, will still be allowed. (The policy currently bans public nudity from locations that don’t allow it, but we expect an update.)
“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,” OnlyFans said.
This comes just off a recent Axios report that OnlyFans, with a net revenue of $US375 ($524) million, has struggled to find investors willing to back a porn platform. Its existing creators, on the other hand, have been raking a ton of money to the site; according to Axios, OnlyFans paid out $US3.2 ($4) billion to creators since its founding. They’ve also made its founder, Tim Stokely, spectacularly rich. As of April, OnlyFans had reached over 120 million users.
A looming judgement of credit card companies may also bode poorly for OnlyFans. The platform has stated repeatedly, and again in today’s announcement, that content is moderated by both automated systems and human review and reminded us that creators have to submit to an extensive ID check in order to post. But credit card companies have not been friendly to porn and have lately mandated moderation and verification requirements for hosts.
OnlyFans did not say what will become of sexually-explicit content posted before October 1st or its creators’ accounts. “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,” it said. Loyalty is dead. OnlyFans is dead. Long live sex work Twitter, hopefully.
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