OnlyFans content could be banned in Sweden

Sweden’s parliament has passed a law that extends its ban on purchasing sexual services to include live, online sexual acts, which could have an impact on the subscription platform, OnlyFans.

Newsweek has reached out to Sweden’s Committee For Justice, which passed the bill, via email for comment.

Why It Matters

Founded in November 2016, OnlyFans is an online content-sharing platform that can be used to share all kinds of creator-driven content, such as photos, recipes and writing but is particularly popular among sex workers. The platform has more than 350 million registered users worldwide and 4 million creators, according to its website.

Sweden employs the “Nordic Model,” approach to sex work and has done so since 1999. The approach aims to abolish the sex industry through criminalizing clients and third parties. Organizations including Amnesty International and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects do not support the Nordic Model.

An OnlyFans spokeswoman shared the following statement with Newsweek: “OnlyFans complies with all laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which it operates.”

What To Know

The legislation will criminalize paying for real-time sex performances online. The law will make it illegal to pay someone to carry out a sex act remotely, such as on a livestream, with the specific purpose of this act being viewed by the person paying.

However, users are allowed to both pay for and watch pre-recorded sexual material or live streams that they have not requested.

Individuals who are found guilty of purchasing these services could face imprisonment, in alignment with existing penalties for buying sex in Sweden. Individuals profiting from or promoting these acts could face up to four years in prison.

The law though is not targeting performers, with the focus on the purchaser.

Swedish lawmaker Teresa Carvalho said in a post on social media that it is time to “modernize,” sex purchase laws to protect people from risks posed by the “new sex industry.”

Sex worker advocate groups have criticized the bill.

What People Are Saying

Teresa Carvalho, a Swedish member of parliament said after the bill passed in a post on social media: “It is high time to modernize the sex purchase law so that it includes sex purchases made remotely via sites such as t. ex. Onlyfans…We know that behind the new sex industry, hidden behind screens, styled in filters and packaged as ‘freedom’, there is a dark reality.”

Sanna Backeskog, a Swedish member of parliament was quoted by TT news agency as saying during the parliamentary debate: “This is about digitalized prostitution, where the boundaries between pornography and human trafficking are blurred but where exploitation and abuse are present.”

The European Sex Worker Rights Alliance, in an email shared with Newsweek, said: “The law, passed despite overwhelming opposition from sex workers, academics, digital rights organizations and international human rights bodies, will push sex workers, especially migrants, LGBTQI+ people and women, further into precarity and surveillance. It expands the definition of ‘pimping’ to include online facilitation and fails to clearly distinguish between consensual adult content and exploitation.

Meanwhile, lawmakers dismissed sex workers’ testimonies with shocking levels of ignorance and condescension, one MP even suggesting that well-written protest emails must have been authored by pimps. These comments make it painfully clear: we cannot rely on Swedish lawmakers to make informed or humane decisions about our lives.”