OnlyFans Choose Banking Services Over Sex Workers Who Make Their Names

OnlyFans has buckled under pressure from companies like Mastercard and Visa. (photo: Simona Todovora / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Recently the virtual world was shocked by OnlyFans' decision to ban its users from uploading adult content. This policy will come into effect on October 1.

This is clearly not without reason, OnlyFans stated they are only complying with the requests of banking partners (platforms) and payment providers, because they are trying to attract outside investors.

That means OnlyFans has buckled under pressure from companies like Mastercard and Visa, which last year imposed tougher requirements for banks that process payments on sites where adult content is sold.

According to the latest rules, banks must ensure that content sellers have provided documentation of their age and obtained approval from anyone who appears in their posts. While this verification process has become standard for OnlyFans, the responsibility looms large for a company that has been a long-standing target of the conservative war on internet pornography and sex work.

“Banking institutions are very conservative, more so than the general culture and they are risk averse. What they did was a softer version of the sensor. It doesn't come from the government, it happens at the credit card level. They set the terms," said Mike Stabile, director of public affairs at the Free Speech Coalition, an advocacy group for workers in the adult industry.

The influence of banks and credit card companies on adult content has been slow but steady over the years. PayPal, Chase, and Mastercard have shut down sex workers for more than a decade and only continue to make their policies more stringent.

In 2014, Salon.com journalist Melissa Gira Grant reported on payment service WePay which at the time blocked sex workers from using its service, even when they weren't using it for sex work. Ended up with platforms banning sexual content, driving sex workers off sites and forcing them into unsafe situations. Where during the pandemic sex workers have face-to-face with the risk of contracting COVID-19.

Model and board member of the advocacy group Labor & Adult Industry Artists, Mary Moody called the move a workers' and human rights disaster.

"When you take a huge market share from an adult industry like PornHub or OnlyFans, suddenly they have no way to interact with fans, no way to sell or market their content," Moody said.

"So what's happening is that a privileged few are able to move and adapt, while more marginalized workers, who may have been working in riskier street sex jobs before OnlyFans were pushed offline, and took to the streets."

However, OnlyFans' new policy has yet to see where it's going, while PornHub changed its community standards last year, the site expanded its content moderation team and barred unverified users from uploading new content.

While this is a significant change for the site and the content creators who use it, it doesn't necessarily change the very nature of the platform, PornHub is still a porn site.

Likewise with FanCentro, it has remained more loyal to sex workers over time, more readily embracing their identity as a website for adult content. When FanCentro launched in 2017, its founders built their own payment service to ease some of the complications that can arise when contracting for a service like PayPal.

Since the announcement of the new OnlyFans policy, users of the platform have migrated to FanCentro. Whereas previously the average FanCentro only had less than 70 registrants per day, over the last few days that number has jumped to 5,000.

However, while FanCentro may be more sex worker friendly on their platform, it is not immune to Mastercard and Visa policies, as users will still pay for content using those credit card companies. Thus compiled from The Verge, Tuesday, August 24.