This week the news came that OnlyFans would change its policy about sexual content on the platform. It hit creators and users hard and have created a huge debate. But what is OnlyFans and why would sexual content be banned on a photo and video sharing platform?
OnlyFans was created in November 2016 by a a british man. The platform was created for creators to provide video clips and pictures for followers for a monthly subscription fee. The subscription fee can be set by the creator, however the fee charge have some restrictions. The content posted by creators can be anything, however, the platform is mostly used to share body-focused pictures and videos as well as sexual content. There is also people posting exclusive videos and pictures of totally different things like cooking and fitness, totally depending on your niche.
The platform became extremely popular during the pandemic, as people lost their job and needed extra income and others needed more entertainment while in quarantine. Durning the pandemic the platform had an increase of 40% in users and creators. The platform currently have 130 million users and 2 million creators. In 2020 the platform reached 2 billion in sales. The platform will take 20% off the income from the creators, and they keep the rest.
Another reason for its popularity is the sudden use by different celebrities, including Chris brown, Michael B. Jordan, Ansel Elgort, Cardi B, Blac Chyna and biggest of them all Bella Thorne. Last mentioned is one of the celebs that made huge headlines when she started to use the platforms to share exclusive content. She caused a huge discussion about the subscription price as she charged 200USD, which is driving the prices and making it harder for other users that depends on the income from the platforms. The users that depends their OnlyFans income is sex-workers, and they were also the ones that was the first creators on the platform.
There has also been discussion about how creators is promoting their OnlyFans platform. This is because many of the creators is promoting them-self on other social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. These platforms have lower age limit which make promoting OnlyFans seem like promoting pornography, which is not suitable for children. Some argues that promotion of OnlyFans accounts should be illegal on other platforms as it is promoting sexual content. This is a grey area that need to be addressed better.
However, the news that came this week might make it easier. As OnlyFans will ban sexual content from 2021 October. Their desition to ban this came very sudden and a lot of creators reacted heavily on the decision. Also old content that breaches the new policy need to be removed. The platform have been struggling to get investors, and also credit card investors. As sexual content is a risky area to invest in and might hurt the investing companies. Therefor, the platform will remove all inappropriate content to gain investors.
No matter what people think, this is the modern world and OnlyFans is just a part of the ever evolving online world. However, how to deal with it, restrict it and control it need to be evaluated so all parts feel safe, comfortable and do what they like without judgement.
What is your opinion on the platform? Do you use it, are you a creator? Tell us what you think!
New update 27.08.2021
OnlyFans have pulled their initial policy change about sexual content. This means that sexual content will be available on the platform. Reasons should be the huge pushback from creators and users of the platforms as well as banks accepting the content on the platform. The value of the platform would drastically decrease if the new policy was put into place.
