OnlyFans Drops Planned Porn Ban, Will Continue to Allow Sexually Explicit Content
by Todd Spangler
OnlyFans dropped plans to ban pornography from its service, less than a week after the U.K. content-creator subscription site had announced the change citing the need to comply with policies of banking partners.
On Wednesday, the company said it “secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community,” suggesting that it has new agreements with banks to pay OnlyFans’ content creators, including those who share sexually explicit material.
“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,” the company said in a tweet.
“OnlyFans stands for inclusion and we will continue to provide a home for all creators,” the company said.
An OnlyFans spokesperson declined to say which bank or banks it has new or renewed payment-processing agreements with. “The proposed Oct. 1, 2021 changes are no longer required due to banking partners’ assurances that OnlyFans can support all genres of creators,” the rep said.
So was this all much ado about nothing?
OnlyFans may have been able to resolve its conflict with banks, some of which had refused to do business with the site, by going public with the issue — and publicizing the large amount of money that flows through the site, on the order of $300 million in payouts per month.
OnlyFans founder and CEO Tim Stokely put the blame for the porn ban on banks in an interview with the Financial Times published Aug. 24, saying that banks including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon and the U.K.’s Metro Bank had cut off OnlyFans’ ability to pay creators.
The furious backlash among OnlyFans creators also certainly pushed the company to quickly resolve the problem. OnlyFans’ decision to ban porn had infuriated sex workers who have relied on the site to support themselves. In frustration, some adult creators had already nixed their OnlyFans pages and moved to alternate platforms.
Founded in 2016, the site claims to have more than 130 million registered users and over 2 million creators.
While OnlyFans grew to popularity largely based on its porn-friendly policy, the company has been looking to reach wider audiences. For example, this month it officially launched OFTV, a streaming app that excludes sexually explicit content, in part to obtain distribution on platforms that disallow porn. OFTV is available on Android, iOS, Apple TV, Roku, Amazon’s Fire TV, Android TV and Samsung Smart TVs.
OnlyFans has been able to attract some celebrities to its platform, with some of most popular OnlyFans accounts including Bhad Bhabie, Cardi B, Jordyn Woods, Bella Thorne, Amber Rose, Blac Chyna, Rubi Rose and Tana Mongeau.
