Thousands of people took to the streets on August 19, 2021, to protest OnlyFans’ abrupt announcement that sexually explicit content would no longer be permitted on their subscription service. Millions more from across the globe voiced their disapproval on social media. OnlyFans, whose main service stream is paid pornographic material, reversed their decision a week later, citing pressure from banks BNY Mellon and JPMorgan as a critical factor in their initial announcement. OnlyFans publicly apologized to their 1.3 million users for the suddenness of their announcement, and vowed to once again support them regardless of the nature of the content they create. However, beneath the marketing jargon and friendly optimism lay a deeper, more grim reason for OnlyFans’ frantic decision: the child abuse and trafficking market that had been growing in the underbelly of their website, and the company’s inability – or unwillingness – to fight it.

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Media of child abuse is rampant online. The relative anonymity of its consumers, along with the ambiguity surrounding appropriate jurisdiction in the digital age, make it easy for producers to develop a lucrative business with little chance of legal repercussions. This is especially true when such content is uploaded onto websites of a pornographic tendency. In the case of OnlyFans, financial incentives to keep the content online exist for all parties: the producer earns money from subscribers; the subscribers are able to engage with illicit content on a traditionally “virus-free” website; and OnlyFans automatically sweeps 20% of each transaction made. Unlike most media and social networking sites such as Instagram and Facebook, pornography is permitted and considered a community asset, meaning that the legality of individual images and videos are not assessed to a thorough degree – and certainly not frequently enough. Of course, all these factors are detrimental to any underage individuals appearing in the uploaded media. Leah, 17, had her photographs shared around her school; Aaron, 16, was sucked into uploading explicit videos online with his girlfriend; a 12 year old, whose name remains confidential, reported meeting up with adults in real life for money. For the safety of these children and any others who access the internet on a daily basis, OnlyFans must recognize and respond transparently to this very real danger, and realize that its underground child abuse market is only one step away from child prostitution.

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In 2019, The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children determined that there were over a dozen known cases of missing children being linked to OnlyFans content. OnlyFans responded by stating they would work to “immediately [report] to NCMEC’s Cyber Tipline, and when appropriate, reports [will be] made by a specialist team to the relevant enforcement agency.” OnlyFans has also adopted third-party softwares such as Safer, Microsoft PhotoDNA, and Sight Engine to detect known media depicting child abuse; however, studies have demonstrated that these softwares are largely ineffective against new media. Child abuse that is detected is often found on bot accounts that are used to upload scraped content from other accounts, which does not help the victims or point towards the direction of the creator. OnlyFans has not responded to these studies, and continues to exalt their use of these softwares as the primary measure against the uploading of child abuse.

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OnlyFans is light in another area: account creation. Underage users are able to use the banking information and government-issued identification of their relatives to easily bypass OnlyFans’ automatic age-screening process, and then redirect the money they earn into their own accounts. When this came into light, OnlyFans announced that they would add a third criteria to their account verification process, which would require applicants to submit a clear photograph of them holding an ID. While OnlyFans claimed their system was now “exceptionally effective,” Titheradge and Croxford found that it was unable to tell between two people who look alike; it also flagged applications for further verification only when the photograph clearly displayed a child – not an underage adolescent. They also found that accounts were allowed to upload media without having provided banking information, and could instead arrange alternate payment methods through third party apps.

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It is clear that OnlyFans is not applying effective methods to prevent child abuse from being promoted onto their site. Leah’s age, for instance, was stated publicly on her other online accounts. Practically any backhanded method can evade these automatic verification checks and begin earning money from uploading illicit content.

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OnlyFans and other open-share pornography sites argue that manual verifications done on a case-by-case basis would take significantly more time and resources than an automated software; however, the abuse of children should not ever be the cost of having a large business, especially when OnlyFans actively benefits from hosting this hidden market. As long as child abuse is uploaded and undetected on the site, OnlyFans earns more followers – to whom they can show more advertisements – all while earning 20% off every transaction they make. This is evidenced once again by Leah’s case: despite OnlyFans being made aware of her age and the illicit nature of her videos, more than fifty of her pictures and videos remained on the site, and her account was not banned. A compliance manual given to OnlyFans moderators instructs them to give accounts a total of three strikes before being banned, even when the content being posted is illegal. Larger accounts are handled separately. 

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