Update: OnlyFans has reversed their decision on banning sexually explicit content. The originally cited pressure from banks has apparently be worked out. OnlyFans has only said that they have secured financial assurances to support their content creators and as much creative freedom as before.
We haven’t spoke about OnlyFans much. That is because, as novel as the platform’s visions are, it inevitably became exploited to a little more than that. The platform quickly gained popularity as a sort of “Patreon for Porn” since its boom in 2020. It became popular for all sorts of wrong reasons.
You might think that OnlyFans is mostly about paying for explicit contents, and you can be forgiven for that. Since the platform came under limelight, its most popular contents are mostly what can only be described as porn in all kinds of form. At the very least, you can pay your way to getting photos of naked people on the platform.
The thing is, if you try to download OnlyFans for Android (OFTV) on the Google Play Store, you will find an app that is strictly SFW (safe for work). You cannot be accessing contents with naked people from the Android app at all. You can thank Google’s Play Store policies for that, Google does not want porn in their app store ecosystem.
As we have stated before, the idea behind the content subscription service is a novel one. On the OFTV app, the platform pushes differing content creators that reflects the novel idea of OnlyFans. It pushes content creators that dabbles in soft skills like cooking, crafting, and even photography for its users. That was the main idea of OnlyFans though.
Of course, OnlyFans garnered plenty of attention since it allows content creators the freedom to bring any form of contents into the platform, including sexually explicit ones. To be fair, the porn industry, in today’s day and age, is one of the most lucrative in the world. At the same time, the nature of the pandemic since 2020 has pushed the industry way forward with digital availability and demand skyrocketing.
It did not just gather the attention of users though. The platform got plenty of attention from authorities and drew plenty of criticism from everywhere. Investigators started scouring the platform for illicit contents. Critics say that the platform gives its creators too much freedom in infringing the platform’s own content guidelines.
Today is a big step for OnlyFans though since they have announced that they are no longer allowing sexually explicit contents on the platform from the 1st of October 2021 onward. The move as reportedly due to the rising pressures from OnlyFans’ bankers and investors in its recent bid to secure funding to hit US$ 1 billion in valuation. This is not the end of nudity on the platform though as OnlyFans has stated that it would allow its content to post nude contents if it complies with their content guidelines.
Of course, not all of the platform’s users would be happy with the announcement. Plenty of content creators who have kept themselves sustainable on the platform will be majorly affected by the changes that is to come October 2021 onward. On the bright side, OnlyFans could keep its lofty ideas of creating a reliable platform for its content creators to live off their contents without relying on brand sponsors or ads.
Source: Bloomberg