This Is Why OnlyFans Started Banning Explicit Sexual Content
OnlyFans founder and CEO, Tim Stokely, has spoken out regarding the ban on sexually explicit content on the video and photo service provider platform.
He made the statement to the Financial Times, a week after a Bloomberg report that said "partners of payment providers and providers" urged OnlyFans to ban sexually explicit content.
"A change in policy, we have no choice. The short answer is banks," Stokely said as quoted by The Verge, Wednesday (25/8/2021).
Stokely said that three major banks had refused their services because of the "reputation risk" associated with the British company's material.
The three are Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon, Metro Bank, and JPMorgan Chase.
Stokely said NBY Mellon had specifically "marked and rejected" any network transactions involving OnlyFans, putting them at risk of being unable to pay their creators.
Stokely continued, JPMorgan Chase was also "very aggressive in closing the accounts of sex workers" or any business that supports them.
In addition, Metro Bank has also closed the OnlyFans account in a short time in 2019. However, Stokely did not reveal who the banking partners of the company are now.
Disappointment from Creator
Quoted from the New York Post, many commercial sex workers who use OnlyFans feel disappointed with the new rules. Not a few of them get coffers of money from selling images and videos on the platform.
"I am very disappointed with OnlyFans' decision, angry and feeling betrayed would be a more accurate picture," said Courtney Tillia, a creator on the platform.
Tillia herself said, in a month she could earn US$ 20 thousand to 100 thousand from OnlyFans.
But according to Stokely, the decision was made to protect people like Tillia.
"This decision was made to protect their funding and subscriptions from increasingly unfair actions by banks and media companies. We clearly don't want to lose our most loyal creators."
Even so, Stokely declined to say OnlyFans is trying to change their image in order to attract money from more traditional venture capital investors.
"We did not make this policy change to make it easier to find investors," he said.
Some Platforms Restrict Sexual Content
OnlyFans has also caught up with platforms such as Tumblr, Patreon and eBay, which have cleared or restricted sexual content in recent years.
In addition permainan togel online terbaik to pressures related to payments, companies that serve sex workers are also at risk of facing heavier penalties after the ratification of FOSTA-SESTA 2018.
Google and Apple have also restricted sexually explicit material on their app stores.
The Axios report said OnlyFans had to go to great lengths to raise money from investors because of their association with pornographic content as a major problem.
During this time, commercial sex workers have played an important role in the growth of their services, although recently, a number of celebrities and public figures have also started using them.