OnlyFans’ CEO alleges that it’s an empowerment tool for women, but is it possible that this tool is being turned against the very people it’s meant to empower? Some allege that the adults-only site has become a playground for scammers, blackmailers, and worse. Rising numbers of crime reports linked to OnlyFans include mentions of revenge porn, extortion, and even underage users—who cannot legally consent and are possibly showing up against their will. So the question is, why isn’t OnlyFans, a company that prides itself on empowering its users, doing more to protect them?
It is a truth universally understood that if a good thing exists on the internet, some asshole will arrive to ruin it—or whatever it is Jane Austen said. An alarming number of crimes have been reported that are tied to OnlyFans, but only 4% of those crimes have led to charges against the parties involved. Charges include things like:
- Blackmail: Someone finds a content creator’s “real” identity and threatens to expose their page in a way that will cause lasting harm to the content creator.
- Coercion: Some users later report that they were making content under circumstances they didn’t fully consent to, often to benefit someone else—usually their romantic partners.
- Threats: “You’re gonna do it or else…” is abusive asshole 101 kind of behavior, and it’s seen everywhere from romantic relationships turned sour to sex trafficking.
- Underage content: This one is pretty self-explanatory and more than just icky. Minors being made to perform on OnlyFans cannot legally consent to sharing their image online, nor to the sexually explicit material they’re pressured to create.
OnlyFans as a platform isn’t committing these crimes, and where they find credible evidence that their terms of service are being violated, they do shut these pages down. However, by not enacting stricter measures against bad actors in the first place, is the platform enabling them from the start?
OnlyFans’ official stance against recent allegations is to reiterate that they verify IDs and cooperate fully with law enforcement whenever a case is brought to their attention that requires involvement from legal authorities. This is fine and good, but it’s the bare minimum of what employees should expect from any employer. The adults-only platform cooperating with law enforcement once cases are brought to them is only helpful after harm has been done. A reactive approach is better than no approach at all, but criminals are clearly slipping through. When you see a burglar walking down the driveway with what is clearly your TV, do you tell yourself “meh, the door’s locked, it’s fine,” or do you jump into action?
So, what changes does OnlyFans need in order to make the user experience safe for all involved? Glad you asked! We’ve got ideas.
- Stronger content monitoring: Whether developing an AI tool that works more efficiently, bringing on more human reviewers to filter content as it’s uploaded, or a combination of the two—stronger content monitoring would go a long way toward curbing nefarious behavior on the platform.
- Better victim support: This could look like an easier reporting process, faster takedowns, or—and this is crazy—real assistance from an actual human representative from OnlyFans who is responding promptly to user reports.
- Stricter verification and consent processes: In order to keep 17-year-olds from becoming content creators on the site, a stricter approach to age verification and consent might be a helpful way to tackle the issue of underage content popping up on the site.
If OnlyFans is going to continue to tout its reputation as a platform that empowers women—and it should—more has to be done to protect users from jerkwads who are going to try and invade the space for their own nefarious purposes. Given the growing number of governments cracking down on online safety laws, if OnlyFans doesn’t step up, they run the risk of being placed under a kind of oversight that likely won’t end well for their bottom line. OnlyFans has built quite the empire off the concept of ‘user-generated content’—it’s time to make it harder for criminals to generate theirs.
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