After deciding to ban ‘sexually explicit’ content due to pressure from banks, subscription platform OnlyFans has reversed its decision in less than a week.
The original decision to ban sexually explicit videos was met with significant backlash, particularly from sex workers.
Many sex workers rely on the app for their incomes. The strong presence of sex workers on the platform has been credited with the platform’s success and profits.
OnlyFans takes a 20 per cent cut of creators’ earnings.
The reversal of the decision – which was due to come into effect on October 1st – was announced on the platform’s Twitter account.
It wrote: “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.”
“We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change.”
The platform also tweeted that “an official communication to creators will be emailed shortly.” A number of creators online said that the platform had not contacted them before Tweeting the decision.
This U-Turn has been met with mixed responses.
One OnlyFans creator, Savannah Solo, tweeted in a reply: “something about the special way you gaslight and manipulate us is starting to make me feel like this account is run by my one of my ex boyfriends.”
Her comment received well over 11,000 likes.
Multiple users pointed out that the word ‘suspend’ was suspicious as it indicated that the decision could be reinstated in the future.
A number of creators and commentators have expressed their frustration at the situation via memes:
https://twitter.com/rustyxfawkes/status/1430524036342296578?s=20
https://twitter.com/petalbabyxx/status/1430503078994849792?s=20
OnlyKidding
— Ricky Starks (@starkmanjones) August 25, 2021
Whether OnlyFans will be able to recover from the backlash, even with this policy change, will remain to be seen.
