OnlyFans says it will prohibit users from posting any “sexually explicit conduct” starting in October, but will allow nude photos and videos

Bloomberg 2021-08-21 Lucas Shaw

Context & Ripple Effects

The initial policy announcement was quickly translated into more specific terms defining prohibited conduct, including a deadline for removing affected material. That turned a broad content-policy shift into an operational issue for creators and the platform.

The proposed change did not hold: OnlyFans suspended the planned October policy days later after receiving assurances. Later coverage places the episode within the company’s stated effort to become less secretive and expand beyond adult content.

First-order effects

Creators whose paid offerings included the newly prohibited categories faced a choice between removing that material, changing their content mix, or leaving the platform before the stated deadline.
OnlyFans had to distinguish permitted nudity from prohibited conduct in its terms and enforcement process, creating a sharper moderation boundary for its creator base.

Second-order effects

The detailed terms made the proposed restriction more concrete for creators, but the rapid suspension disrupted any compliance and programming changes they had begun to make.
The reversal preserved OnlyFans’ existing adult-creator model in the near term while exposing how abruptly its content rules could change.

Third-order effects

The sequence points to a platform trying to retain its established creator economy while reducing its dependence on adult content; its later stated expansion beyond that category makes the policy conflict part of a broader repositioning effort.
If that repositioning continues, OnlyFans’ long-term challenge will be building new creator categories without repeatedly destabilizing the audience and creators that define the service today.

The trend: OnlyFans is navigating the tension between its adult-content roots and a stated push toward a broader, more publicly engaged creator platform.

Discussion

@danprimack Dan Primack on x
Full statement from OnlyFans: https://twitter.com/...
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
“The company will prohibit users from posting any sexually explicit conduct, starting in October. Creators will still be allowed to post nude photos and videos, provided they're consistent with OnlyFans' policy.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@micsolana Mike Solana on x
“free speech” is effectively irrelevant when a small handful of people, all of the same class, and almost entirely of the same opinion, control banking. right wing social media platforms are next. https://twitter.com/...
@benedictevans Benedict Evans on x
In the early 2000s Skype exploited a huge arbitrage opportunity - the gap between the modern cost of international voice and what telcos charged. P2P & VOIP let it route around that. Now see Mindgeek and Onlyfans...
@benedictevans Benedict Evans on x
Which reminds me of Hyman Roth's line - “we're bigger than US steel”. Or could be. No matter what your moral or ethical view is, a gap that big between demand, supply and revenue has always been an invitation to arbitrage, by someone. https://t.co/ZmDpb50JHN
@mikestabile Mike Stabile on x
Last week, over 100 members of Congress called on the DOJ to investigate OnlyFans, based on evangelical groups complaints of trafficking. Now the time to reach out to yours and let them know what's what. @cute0caboose has some sample language. https://twitter.com/...
@issielapowsky Issie Lapowsky on x
NEW: Who gets to decide what stays and goes on the internet? In the case of OnlyFans, the answer seems to be: major credit card companies taking an increasingly hard-line stance on adult content. https://www.protocol.com/...
@benedictevans Benedict Evans on x
And people spent $6bn on Onlyfans in 2020, but were apparently on track to spend $12.5bn in 2021. That's similar to Netflix and Youtube's budgets. Nature abhors a vacuum. https://t.co/p13XtMfDER
@benedictevans Benedict Evans on x
Consumers spent $6bn on Onyfans last year. If the payment industry won't or can't support that, this is another arbitrage opportunity, like it or not. Is there a payment tech that doesn't have centralised gatekeepers, and uses a bearer model to address fraud?
@ericallenhatch Eric Allen Hatch on x
Just a few of the activities approved for content creators under the new OnlyFans guidelines https://twitter.com/...
@conorsen Conor Sen on x
Big “shot, chaser” energy here: https://twitter.com/...
@harronwawker Stasis Baby on x
not surprising but still disgusting that onlyfans is choosing banks, VC investors, big tech (apple + google dont allow adult content on their app stores, hence no app until the “sfw” one announced this week), and profits over the sex workers using its platform
@noahpinion @noahpinion on x
@micsolana Aren't you a big-time VC, man? OnlyFans has good financials. Why don't you invest in a competitor that allows sexually explicit content, and blow em out of the market?
@loudmouthjulia Julia Alexander on x
OnlyFans' executives suggesting they don't want explicit sexual content because of the banks and future outside investors would be the perfect moment to point to blockchain eliminating a lot of those concerns, but blockchain groups could have solved it before and didn't.
@michaelaokla Michaela Okland on x
Does OnlyFans genuinely think it's going to have any value without sex workers like....
@loudmouthjulia Julia Alexander on x
Beyond upsetting that OnlyFans built a billion-dollar business on the back of sex workers, turning away now that there's capital/interest. World doesn't want another Patreon. It wants OnlyFans. OnlyFans no longer wants to be OnlyFans, despite building success via those creators.
@aedison Avery Edison on x
yes, the onlyfans change is fucking terrifying, but at least the new rules are intentionally vague in a way that will leave sex workers constantly terrified that they're about to lose a huge chunk of income for doing something they didn't know wasn't allowed!!!
@kateconger O...K on x
Has OnlyFans published anything about how they define “nudity” versus “explicit content”? https://twitter.com/...
@robrousseau Rob on x
how many of these banks and credit card companies that find the content on OnlyFans too distasteful also do business with the biggest and most exploitative porn empires
@sarahmanavis Sarah Manavis on x
Imagine having six weeks notice that your main way of earning is going to just... stop existing. And sex workers on OnlyFans have been dealing with overnight changes pretty much constantly since celebrities started using it last summer
@jasebyjason Jason Okundaye on x
Anyone celebrating or banging jokes off onlyfans throwing sex workers off its platform is a weirdo. That's livelihoods and income streams put at serious risk
@jimwaterson Jim Waterson on x
OnlyFans porn ban: -site is facing pressure from US politicians over illegal material -facing the threat of of a ban from payment processors, which could kill the site -basically a few big credit card firms are the de facto regulators for pornography now https://www.theguardian.c…
@liz_franczak Liz Franczak on x
obviously onlyfans should pivot to NFTs
@charoshane Charlotte Shane on x
Every OF-using sex worker I spoke with for this piece knew their days were numbered there. @kimberlykane summed up the sentiment perfectly. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@rottenindenmark Michael Hobbes on x
BackPage, Pornhub and now OnlyFans. We're in the middle of a straightforward 'won't someone think of the children?' moral panic. https://twitter.com/...
@hasanthehun Hasanabi on x
visa & mastercard buckling to evangelical psychos & successfully pressuring onlyfans to limit the sex work on their platforms is awful but expected. caving to that demand when sex work built your platform is a betrayal. everyone loves sex work but dehuminazes the ppl who make it
@hkesvani @hkesvani on x
And it's remarkable considering that less than a decade ago - in the context of the Snowden leaks and the death of Aaron Schwartz- that the broader fight for open access, communal internet, is basically muted in mainstream discourse, and made even harder by tech conglomerates
@hkesvani @hkesvani on x
It might be easy to see the Onlyfans situation as an outlier (and in certain ‘left’ circles, a moral triumph) but at the end of the day, beyond ruining the livelihoods of the users that built it, it's another example of further corporatization of a smaller, restricted internet
@robin__craig Robin Craig on x
onlyfans jokes are in poor taste imo when people are seeing their livelihoods cut off with little notice and will potentially be pushed into riskier forms of sex work (especially as ways to check client safety have been removed, like backpage, due to ‘anti trafficking’ laws)
@jimwaterson Jim Waterson on x
@HKesvani Feels that the credit card duopoly with different regulatory pressures to the tech companies are the new frontier here.
@hkesvani @hkesvani on x
This is something that's going to affect everything from freedom of speech and expression, to the right to privacy and protection. The Facebook ‘metaverse’ already shows us what the next stage of the game is in terms of consolidation and what the tech industry actually envisions
@melissagira Melissa Gira Grant on x
2 million creators. $5B paid out. If these numbers are anywhere near accurate, imagine how many people were just essentially fired with no notice, in a pandemic, with eviction moratoriums lifting... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@allahliker @allahliker on x
not to do serious deals-based tweets but the onlyfans thing is instructive in that no one goes into any business enterprise anymore to “fill a need” or even “make money” everyone is just secretly dreaming of their big SPAC/IPO/merger payday
@snowden Edward Snowden on x
Bitcoin fixes this. https://twitter.com/...
@asemota Osaretin Victor Asemota on x
“OnlyFans is one of the creator economy's largest and most successful platforms. And investors are content to watch its success from afar.” We should help them 😂 OnlyFans has tons of users, but can't find investors https://www.axios.com/...
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
The new OnlyFans TOS is gonna be wild.
@raewitte Rae on x
Looking forward to the explainer on which nudes qualify as sexually explicit and which dont for the future of onlyfans 😑
@tomgara Tom Gara on x
That Walter Bloomberg account is chaos, it's like 95% actual breaking headlines pulled from the Bloomberg terminal and 5% stuff he's making up, but you have to wait like five to seven minutes to find out if it's the 5% https://twitter.com/...
@shiraovide Shira Ovide on x
Rough math: a 17-20% take rate for OnlyFans? Closer to Etsy level than an app store. from @danprimack https://www.axios.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@jasminericegirl @jasminericegirl on x
onlyfans is banning all sexually explicit content from their platform. they've also made billions off of the backs of sex workers. as someone who does sex work on OF, i'm angry for every creator that has relied on OF for an income just to be thrown out. this is so fucked up.
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
“OnlyFans is how I pay my rent. I feed myself from this,” said Kenneth Pabon, 22, an OnlyFans creator in New York who joined the platform last year after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic https://www.nytimes.com/...
@film_girl Christina Warren on x
People keep using Tumblr as a corollary for OnlyFans. Sort of. Tumblr sold for $1b on the back of the pr0n we all knew was there but that the public didn't talk about. It wasn't until the end of 2018, 18 months after Verizon completed its purchase of Yahoo that it purged the pr0n
@ericajoy Erica Joy on x
all i'm saying is i would bet that removing sex workers is not a change onlyfans is willingly making.
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
OnlyFans makes tons of money, per leaked financials, and has millions of users. It can't find a big outside investor. Sex sells, but it also scares off VCs. https://www.axios.com/...
@nottheclick @nottheclick on x
so OnlyFans banning adult content whats next facebook banning minion memes?
@scottwbradford Scott W. Bradford on x
Wow I just cannot believe Twitter banned tweets and Facebook banned conspiracy theories! https://twitter.com/...
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
ICYMI: Leaked OnlyFans financials. And why the company can't find an outside investor, even though the financials are insane. When sex doesn't sell: https://www.axios.com/...
@stokel Chris Stokel-Walker on x
16,000 people earn more than $50,000 a year on OnlyFans, and 300 make more than a million https://www.axios.com/...
@isosteph Stephanie on x
what's the line between nudity and sexually explicit is this like a no fucking policy. where does jacking off fit in. are you allowed to get naked only if you don't look hot doing it https://twitter.com/...
@noahpinion @noahpinion on x
The unstoppable force of internet porn is meeting the immovable object of legal liability, and the immovable object is winning.
@tomwarren Tom Warren on x
OnlyFans? more like NoFans now https://twitter.com/...
@ifynwadiwe IFY on x
In other news, Twitter will prohibit tweets in October as well. https://twitter.com/...
@casparsalmon Caspar Salmon on x
Ooh nice, the business model adopted by Tumblr, the company that is now bigger than ever https://twitter.com/...
@grogsgamut Greg Jericho on x
“Our customers buy Duff for its robust taste not its alcoholic content...” https://twitter.com/...
@dannerdcubed Daniel Hardcastle on x
I'm bad at business, but I'm not “long-term sustainability via banning the only thing our company is known for” bad. https://twitter.com/...
@thedailyshow @thedailyshow on x
You misheard us. We said Big Tech should be held accountable for starting *insurrections* https://twitter.com/...
@aricohn Ari Cohn on x
There are probably easier ways to go out of business, but maybe sliding into irrelevance is their kink. https://twitter.com/...
@vahn16 Nathan Grayson on x
saw that onlyfans is banning sexually explicit content and immediately thought of something very smart (but also very grim) @acvalens told me earlier this year https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@veenadubal Veena Dubal on x
The ways in which the investors who drove this decision define “vice” is perverse. Leaving sex workers whose livelihoods have come to depend on OnlyFans out to dry...no problem. Watching porn...evil. 🙄 We need to have critical conversations about what constitutes a moral economy.…
@aella_girl Aella on x
Is Onlyfans banning porn? I don't know. But this is a reminder how payment processors are a de facto legal system, policing what consenting adults are able to do. Also, I'm not too worried. There's other competitors ready to fill the gap. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@nlrg_ Turbulent Princess on x
OnlyFans' FY 2022 free cash flow is enough to buy Tumblr in 2013, or to buy Tumblr in 2019 four hundred times https://www.axios.com/...
@morrisatlarge Chris Morris on x
Axios got ahold of the pitch deck for OnlyFans. The company had net revenue of $375 million last year and expects $1.2 billion this year. It has paid out $3.2B to its creators life to date. The company makes 20% off every financial transaction. (15/18X) https://www.axios.com/...
@naijaflyingdr Dr Ola Brown on x
Only fans net revenue: 2020: $375 million 2021: $1.2 billion 2022: $2.5 billion Sex sells, based on the company financials, but it also scares off venture capitalists. https://www.axios.com/...

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