OnlyFans to ban adult material after pressure from payment processors

[grumbler]

So it sounds like the sensible thing would have been just to put much stricter validation in place on the site.
Yet they aren't doing that and are instead killing their business which suggests it somehow isn't as sensible as it appears on the surface.
Odd.

That sounds like a lot of work though

Or it sounds like something that they would have thought of, and only rejected because it was impossible (as Tyr implies).

[Jacob]

Yeah, I don't think OnlyFans is under any illusions about the primary source of their revenue - porn and live sex content. I expect they'd happily take any option that allowed them to continue making money from sex-workers.

[Valmy]

Or it sounds like something that they would have thought of, and only rejected because it was impossible (as Tyr implies).

Ok well how can this be? How can it be impossible to determine a completely objective measurable quality with tons of supporting public records? While is it more preferable to an things on impossible to define quality like "sexually explicit"? It strikes me that one is much easier to police if you want to block child porn than the other. It seems like much more sexual child material would slide through on an arbitrary bullshit standard than a straight-forward objective one.

I guess the concept that vague and arbitrary and impossible to strictly define standards being better for people than straightforward comprehensible objective ones is a hard one for me to grasp.

[alfred russel]

If a noticeable number of the people on the site are underage, it doesn't seem hard to imagine a future courtroom where underage victims are suing visa and mastercard as facilitators of a business with a significant criminal component, or of course the site itself.

Would a jury side be more likely to side with visa/mastercard/onlyfans, or the victims?

[alfred russel]

People noting that OnlyFans CEO (since 2019) was previously Director of Risk Management at Lehman's during the unpleasantness.

Seems like he knows his stuff. He presumably got paid a fortune at Lehman's, and managed risk well enough to become a CEO of a rather prominent company, where he likely gets another fortune.

Realistically, if he called shenanigans at Lehman's prior to 2008, that probably would have ended his career. Unlikely he would have survived Lehman's as a director of risk management by calling BS on the strategy pursued by the CEO and Board.

[Valmy]

If a noticeable number of the people on the site are underage, it doesn't seem hard to imagine a future courtroom where underage victims are suing visa and mastercard as facilitators of a business with a significant criminal component, or of course the site itself.

Would a jury side be more likely to side with visa/mastercard/onlyfans, or the victims?

I am pretty sure there is underage sex shit on every single video hosting site on the internet, who just manage to skirt under the letter of the law all the time. Now granted I don't know that but there is plenty of pretty sexual content on those platforms. So is it better to have arbitrary sex guidelines you cannot enforce or age guidelines you cannot enforce?

[Sheilbh]

So it sounds like the sensible thing would have been just to put much stricter validation in place on the site.
Yet they aren't doing that and are instead killing their business which suggests it somehow isn't as sensible as it appears on the surface.
Odd.

That sounds like a lot of work though

And it's slightly different but the actual work of content moderation is pretty grim:
https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/

I think they can use software against known child abuse images, but it won't recognise images it doesnt know so the ones that are flagged/reported etc need to be vieed by actual people.

[Tonitrus]

Obviously, the only way to solve this problem is to have a Department of Sex, and make all sex-workers become federal employees.

Socialized sex is surely a vote winner.

[Valmy]

Obviously, the only way to solve this problem is to have a Department of Sex, and make all sex-workers become federal employees.

Socialized sex is surely a vote winner.

Hell if the Feds took a cut we could eliminate the national debt in no time.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Onlyfans.gov

[Josephus]

I'm always surprised when businesses decide they don't want to make money any more. It's a bit like when Tumblr banned sexual content and "female presenting nipples". I also don't understand why banks care about this - I mean they must have lots of unsavoury business customers. Seems weird to care too much about porn.

If I had the capital, I'd start my own credit card company that catered to pornography users and cyber hookers.

[FunkMonk]

Obviously, the only way to solve this problem is to have a Department of Sex, and make all sex-workers become federal employees.

Socialized sex is surely a vote winner.

"Cultural Marxists want to socialize your bedroom just like they want to socialize medicine!"

[Josquius]

So it sounds like the sensible thing would have been just to put much stricter validation in place on the site.
Yet they aren't doing that and are instead killing their business which suggests it somehow isn't as sensible as it appears on the surface.
Odd.

That sounds like a lot of work though

And it's slightly different but the actual work of content moderation is pretty grim:
https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/

I think they can use software against known child abuse images, but it won't recognise images it doesnt know so the ones that are flagged/reported etc need to be vieed by actual people.

I've never used only fans so could be way off here (mostly basing what I know on an article from a few weeks back about normal people turning to it and making good money), but surely it's a bit different to Facebook et al.
You don't have account creation as a free for all and then anyone can upload anyrhing. You have consumer accounts, who don't upload anything, and provider accounts, who produce and sell the content.
It seems very strange to me that they couldn't demand full ID checks for the providers- really rigorous stuff that puts many off. That done it should be pretty easy to prosecute anyone uploading child porn-or at the least uncover a case of identity theft.

As I said obviously they're not idiots so they would have considered all this and decided against it. But really strange that it came down on this side. I really do wonder what were the big blockers.

[viper37]

So it sounds like the sensible thing would have been just to put much stricter validation in place on the site.
Yet they aren't doing that and are instead killing their business which suggests it somehow isn't as sensible as it appears on the surface.
Odd.

they did, but a few got in the cracks.  Again, we are very far from a Pornhub situation.

[Valmy]

On Pornhub all kinds of randos post porn, not just the creators.