What happens to Scottish sex workers when online platforms like OnlyFans decide to ban explicit content?

OnlyFans’ shock decision to ban explicit content this autumn was one which the platform quickly reversed following a swell of backlash – but where do moral panics and snap decisions about adult content leave sex workers in Scotland and beyond?

Dr Anastacia Elle Ryan, director of Scottish sex worker wellbeing project Umbrella Lane and member of Glasgow University's department of sociology

When news of the OnlyFans proposed ban on sexually explicit conduct broke on 19 August, the sex workers and adult performers, for whom the platform became a lifeline during the pandemic, were the last to know.

As reports ripped across social media and made their way into headlines worldwide, the company itself routinely denied the story when pressed for answers by frantic users. It was only hours later that they confirmed the planned policy change, which would see sexually explicit conduct and content banned on OnlyFans from 1 October.

The blame for such sudden, seismic changes to the platform’s content policies, OnlyFans founder and CEO Tim Stokely said, lay with banks and payment providers like Mastercard, Visa and the Bank of New York Mellon.

Adult content creator Alice Mayflower has been using OnlyFans for three years but no longer feels trusting of the platform with her content

“This decision was made to safeguard their funds and subscriptions from increasingly unfair actions by banks and media companies — we obviously do not want to lose our most loyal creators,” Stokely told the Financial Times.

OnlyFans’ proposed policy change was described by the company in a statement as necessary “in order ensure the long-term sustainability of the platform” and “comply with the requests of our banking partners and payout providers”.

The ban, which would have prohibited sexual intercourse, masturbation, ‘extreme’ exhibition of genitalia or sexual bodily fluids in content uploaded to the platform, came in the wake of Mastercard and Visa banning payments to PornHub last year.

Concerns over PornHub’s failure to adequately moderate content and protect users from revenge porn, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and videos depicting rape saw the finance giants stop supporting the platform. But PornHub’s moderation failures, and similar concerns over underage users accessing OnlyFans, has seen large corporations’ concerns over reputational risk take precedence over the platform’s content creators and their security.

When the pandemic struck in early 2020, sex work along with life as we knew it was moved considerably online. The result for OnlyFans was that by April 2021, the company had seen £1.7 billion in transactions, grown its user base to over 150 million users and seen its revenue soar by 553% per cent, according to the Financial Times.

Such a whopping increase of users, with March 2020 seeing a 75 per cent month-on-month increase, made it even more difficult for creators to break into the top percent of high earners on the platform. But for sex workers turning to the platform due to a lack of financial support from governments during the pandemic, OnlyFans was still a much needed source of income.

Scottish adult content creator Alice Mayflower says she has gone into “crisis mode” since the OnlyFans explicit conduct ban and its breakneck reversal were announced. Having used OnlyFans for three years, 25-year-old Alice says that while she was fortunate to have another job during the pandemic, “the money I got from OnlyFans was vital to me surviving”.

“I went through basically all of my savings and everything from being stuck and locked down - and I actually caught Covid and was too unwell to work for about a month,” Alice said.

“So that was basically a month with no income, which was really stressful.

“But knowing that I had at least something coming in from OnlyFans meant that I managed to keep my head above water.”

In light of recent actions from OnlyFans, however, Alice has found herself scrambling to find alternative platforms to host her explicit content on - no longer feeling that OnlyFans cares about the welfare or livelihoods of sex workers.

“Over the last week I've spent more time than I’d care to admit trying to find information, share information and move all of my content to other platforms, but also doing research on those platforms as much as I can and as quickly as I can,” Alice said.

And despite OnlyFans’ announcement that the policy change would be suspended, this has not alleviate the “nightmare” in which Alice said she and many other sex workers using the platform now find themselves.

OnlyFans’ flip flopping over the policy change has led Alice to create seven new accounts on alternative websites, not knowing if these too could be ripped away due to snap content policy decisions.

“As soon as the news around the porn ban came out everyone was like, ‘Oh it's okay just move to a different platform’, but it was never going to be that simple,” Alice explained.

“The thing about OnlyFans is that it had become mainstream - everyone knew what it was, everyone felt comfortable using it. But moving somewhere else means going to sites subscribers haven't heard of or don’t trust.”

Another Scottish sex worker, who wished to remain anonymous, said they too have been trying to move away from OnlyFans but finding the task a daunting one.

“The reason why a lot of us will stay on OnlyFans is because it has become the site that is synonymous with porn and adult content - that’s the name that buyers trust and know,” they said.

“I don't know what I'm gonna do except hope that my subscribers will move with me to other sites, but unfortunately if OnlyFans is where the money stays then I will have to stay there – which I really desperately don't want to do.”

Dr Anastacia Elle Ryan, founder of Scotland sex worker led wellbeing project and charity Umbrella Lane, said that OnlyFans’ announcement that the planned ban on sexually explicit conduct is suspended “is just keeping people in limbo”.

A member of Glasgow University’s Sociology Department, Dr Ryan believes that recent events at OnlyFans reflect a wider, global context of increased hostility towards and dismissal of sex workers.

"Many people don't realise nor value the amount of work that goes into building up profile or customer base subscribers on a platform like OnlyFans and how much it takes to go and do that on another platform,” she said.

"The decision was just a complete non recognition of the labour that goes into sex work the emotional labour, particularly on OnlyFans where people may have subscribers that continue to talk to you and have conversations with – it's not a case of posting a few photos.

Dr Ryan continued: “I think that what this case with OnlyFans has done is show that while such companies can hide behind the online platform, social media and the power of the connected global movements of sex workers is also very powerful as a backlash.

"So I hope this may be a lesson to other platforms who are kind of moving in the same direction, but I hope it's also an opportunity to talk about the wider discrimination faced by sex workers from multiple institutions both online and in person.”

OnlyFans has been contacted for comment.

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