OnlyFans, a pioneering website that allows models and performers to charge fans for nude imagery, said Thursday it was phasing out "sexually explicit" content to appease banks and financial transaction services it uses.
The policy, which is set to start Oct. 1, follows a request from banks and financial transaction services to stop the explicit imagery, OnlyFans said in a statement.
Nude content consistent with its policies will be allowed, OnlyFans said. It wasn't immediately clear where the site will draw the line between nudity and sexually explicit content.
The site didn't respond to requests for comment Thursday.
OnlyFans is popular with some celebrities, adult performers and models who have used it to bolster their incomes and profiles. Adult performers, in particular, have gravitated to OnlyFans as the adult video industry has been geographically decentralized and taken over by free video sites.
OnlyFans says that it has 130 million users and 2 million creators and that it has paid out $5 billion to models and performers.
Some adult performers have hailed it as an industry savior, particularly during the pandemic lockdowns, that empowers them to make money on their own terms, in their own homes.
"This is devastating for a new generation of adult creators who have used the platform, and others like it, to build businesses, profit off of their own work and achieve independence," Mike Stabile, spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, an adult video trade group, said in a statement.
Stabile said banks, credit card companies and financial transaction services have been targeted by religious conservatives trying to limit the availability of adult content online. They are "enablers of these anti-porn, anti-LGBTQ, misogynist groups," he said, calling them part of an "evangelical War on Porn."
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, tweeted Thursday that the move could imperil sex workers who are using OnlyFans to stay off the street.
"Forcing sex work off of the internet doesn’t make it go away," he said. "But it does make it less safe, as sex workers have no choice but to work on the streets, where they face increased risk of violence."
OnlyFans isn't the only site of its kind. And some performers are well enough known to provide content through their own websites.
"The removal of adult content from OnlyFans will not stop adult content," Stabile said.
Dominic Ford, founder of competitor JustFor.fans, said OnlyFans' abandonment of the kind of content that put it on the map exemplifies a familiar trajectory for businesses in the adult world.
“The adult industry is sadly used to companies cutting their teeth on the adult market and then abandoning them once they reach critical mass," Ford said in a statement. "JustFor.fans was founded and built by and for sex workers. ... We are a porn site. That will never change, and we have no interest in 'mainstreaming.'"
Ford said content creators unhappy with OnlyFans' new policy were welcome at his site.
Melrose Michaels, an OnlyFans creator who also advocates for sex worker empowerment, said by email, "I think a lot of us knew this was coming."
She blamed financial concerns for being "anti-porn," but said adult models and performers will find a way to get paid with or without OnlyFans.
"We’re the early adopters, we’re the innovators," Michaels said. "Porn and adult is where nearly all new technologies launch and thrive. Yes, we will make another house a home."
OnlyFans has had issues with how payments were processed. Nearly a year ago, some models and performers were angry over changes after the actor Bella Thorne was believed to have charged $200 per fan for a photo that was billed as nude but wasn't.
She has said that the screenshot of the supposed offer circulating on social media was falsified.
Content creators said OnlyFans subsequently put a $50 cap on such pay-per-view posts and held payments to models and performers for up to 30 days, ostensibly to discourage fraudulent promises. Thorne, meanwhile, who was reported to have made $1 million on her offer, said she wasn't the one who offered nudity, and she blamed fake social media posts.
She later posted a series of tweets saying that she apologized if she had affected sex workers' ability to make money and that her intention had been to normalize sex work.
OnlyFans said previously that the changes were not based on one user and that it aims to provide the best platform possible for its community.
"Transaction limits are set to help prevent overspending and to allow our users to continue to use the site safely," the statement said.
Last year, Forensic News reported that the entrepreneur Leonid Radvinsky bought OnlyFans from Tim Stokely, a former Barclays banker, in 2018. Radvinsky owns MyFreeCams, a similar site, the website reported.
Forensic News spoke to a number of content creators who said their OnlyFans and MyFreeCams accounts had been frozen, essentially locking them out of payments, including, in some cases, thousands of dollars they said they were owed.
Radvinsky didn't respond to questions from Forensic News. OnlyFans didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday from NBC News.
