In the past years, the platform OnlyFans has become a haven for adult content creators to make a profit. With over 130 million users the company claims to have paid its creators over five billion dollars since its creation in 2016. Last week, the platform announced their decision to ban all explicit content from the platform starting this October.
Naturally, the announcement was widely unpopular amongst creators and consumers who have found in the platform a free and relatively safe space to consume and create this type of content. According to the original statement issued by the company to Variety, the decision isn’t precisely a matter of prudeness, but a commercial settlement to “comply with the requests of our banking partners and payout providers.”
Regarding that matter, the company recently announced they have reached an agreement with their investors so the new policy won’t be effective as they had stated. According to the new statement issued on Twitter, they took action after hearing their users and managed to reach their bank investors to settle on an agreement.
“Thank you to everyone for making your voices heard. We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change. OnlyFans stands for inclusion and we will continue to provide a home for all creators.”
After being questioned about the decision of banning explicit content, Tim Stokely, OnlyFans’ co-founder, said the one and only reason behind this were their investors. He explained bluntly that “the change in policy, we had no choice – the short answer is banks.” Stokely added that they depend fully on the funds of the bank to make their transactions transparent. At the end of the day, the company pays around 300 million dollars to over one million creators.
OnlyFans was originally created as a platform for famous people to share exclusive content for those fans willing to pay. Soon, due to the restrictions other social media platforms have for adult content, many creators turned to the platform to make some profit without censorship. Besides that, the platform has become a safer and more just space for sex workers.
Nowadays, the company keeps 20% of the revenue each creator makes, and even so, many users claim OnlyFans is a very profitable business. Since it was clear the platform was being mainly used to share adult content, the company decided not to make a mobile app version to make it safer for users and creators.
Photos: Shutterstock/ Pexels: Charles Deluvio
