TIMES.KY

Cayman Islands, Caribbeanand International News
Friday, Mar 29, 2024

The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

The service has reversed its ban on sexual content, but valid – and legal – forms of expression for sex workers are still under threat, says author Jillian C York
Over the past year, the content subscription service OnlyFans exploded in popularity, as people in numerous countries around the world faced lockdowns amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Although the site hosts a variety of content, it has been particularly popular with sex workers, who have few centralised platforms to choose from beyond traditional porn sites.

Therefore it was only natural that the company’s announcement last week that it would stop supporting sexually explicit content provoked outrage from sex workers, free expression activists and consumers alike – leading to a surprising about-face from OnlyFans on Wednesday.

Although the company has rescinded the ban, saying that it has “secured assurances necessary” to support its “diverse creator community”, the incident raises the profile of an important issue that has plagued sex workers for many years: the control that the banking industry – and in turn, content platforms – exerts over their ability to not just make a living, but to simply engage in the same sorts of financial transactions as everyone else.

OnlyFans made the right call in the end, but its now reversed decision is not an outlier; over the years financial intermediaries have made similar decisions to deny services to individuals whose expression or livelihoods they found unacceptably sexual.

To state the obvious, plenty of labour that falls under the umbrella of sex work, such as stripping, is perfectly legal in the United Kingdom (where OnlyFans is based) and the United States (where most of the banks in question are headquartered), but for these corporations this is not a matter of free expression, as it ought to be, but one of morality, and their moral judgment ends up being wielded as a cudgel, often against some of the most vulnerable.

One salient example occurred in 2014 when WePay – a payment service provider that had gained traction with sex workers and activists after its CEO described the company as the “anti-PayPal” after the latter’s denial of service to WikiLeaks – cut off a GiveForward medical fundraiser belonging to Eden Alexander, an adult entertainment performer. As Lana Swartz describes in her 2020 book, ​​New Money: How Payment Became Social Media, Alexander had suffered a severe allergic reaction to a common medication and was raising funds to cover her medical expenses. Although her fundraiser made no mention of her work, she had retweeted two pornography companies that had offered promos of her work in exchange for donations.

WePay’s decision sparked a furore, prompting the company to publish a blog post in which it noted that it “[suspected] Eden may not have been aware of the terms of service” and offered her the opportunity to create a new campaign. The company did not, however, allow her to collect the funds that had been raised already or, as Swartz describes, “explain the limits or scope of its social media monitoring”.

In the end, another crowdfunding site, CrowdTilt, stepped in to help Alexander, but WePay’s denial of service laid bare the discrimination that those who choose to engage in sexual expression, whether to make a living or just for fun, face on the centralised web.

Over the past year and a half, the lockdowns and work-from-home orders prompted by the pandemic have exacerbated the problem, causing a broader range of people to be affected by the whims of the banking and financial tech industries. Those who previously made their money in clubs, on stages, or other “IRL” venues – as well as a significant cohort of people who lost their jobs in other fields – were forced to find new streams of income online, boosting the popularity of OnlyFans and other platforms, only to be subjected to those platforms’ ever-changing standards.

Early on in the pandemic, one of my friends, a burlesque performer in Berlin, decided to host a variety show on the streaming service Twitch that included some nudity. The show was a godsend for Berlin’s locked down and bored denizens and allowed its performers to earn some income via a virtual “tip jar”. But just a few weeks in, Twitch shut it down after a change of policy that included, among other things, a ban on visible nipples for those who “present as women”.

At a time when societal views around gender and sexuality are in many ways opening up, restrictions on sexual expression – let alone those that take such a binary view of gender – feel positively archaic and seem to demonstrate that, no matter how much we progress, there remain highly unaccountable powers making decisions about how we express something so utterly natural and human.

The financial and tech industries’ prudishness is unfortunately increasingly reflected in government policy, typically under the guise of protecting children and other vulnerable communities. But more often than not, such policies are created without actually consulting those they purportedly seek to protect.

In the US in 2018, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking (Fosta) and Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking (Sesta) Acts gained the support of a wide range of actors, including celebrities. The Fosta-Sesta laws, which expanded liability for tech platforms that host content related to the sex industry, has had a broad chilling effect on sexual and nude expression, and is opposed by a vocal majority of sex workers and free expression advocates.

Similarly, the UK’s online safety bill – aimed at an array of “dangerous” content, from terrorism to child sexual abuse imagery – has been criticised for its sweeping definitions of sexual content, age verification scheme and takedown measures. The bill has only been published in draft form but, if passed, would no doubt harm sex workers as well as LGBTQ individuals, and even those engaging in sex education.

At a time when pundits spend countless hours pontificating on “cancel culture”, it remains surprising that widespread discrimination against a group of workers and broad censure of an entire category of expression fails to generate much outrage from those it doesn’t affect. It’s time that those who claim to support freedom take a closer look at who is truly the most harmed by the growing culture of digital censorship.
Newsletter

Related Articles

TIMES.KY
0:00
0:00
Close
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Israel: Unprecedented Civil Disobedience Looms as IDF Reservists Protest Judiciary Reform
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Italian Court's Controversial Ruling on Sexual Harassment Ignites Uproar
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
BBC Personalities Rebuke Accusations Amidst Scandal Involving Teen Exploitation
A Swift Disappointment: Why Is Taylor Swift Bypassing Canada on Her Global Tour?
Historic Moment: Edgars Rinkevics, EU's First Openly Gay Head of State, Takes Office as Latvia's President
Bye bye democracy, human rights, freedom: French Cops Can Now Secretly Activate Phone Cameras, Microphones And GPS To Spy On Citizens
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
Unilever Plummets in a $2.5 Billion Free Fall, to begin with: A Reckoning for Misuse of Corporate Power Against National Interest
Beyond the Blame Game: The Need for Nuanced Perspectives on America's Complex Reality
Twitter Targets Meta: A Tangle of Trade Secrets and Copycat Culture
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
The New French Revolution
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
×