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Comment by asdfasgasdgasdg | Hacker News Reader

I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but I don't think an assumption of human trafficking by the site's owners is supported given that some other site's owners did human trafficking. By all accounts I've been exposed to, models on OnlyFans earn much better than models on other sites. That seems like a prima facie reason to believe it's overall a good thing, and the evidence would need to be presented to demonstrate otherwise. Starting with the assumption the owner of something you don't like is a human trafficker is not a good way to make a convincing case against OnlyFans.

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I believe he is not saying the site owners are traffickers but that some OF channels could be trafficker run.

Oh, if that's so then I'm even less clear on what we expect OnlyFans to do about it, unless we are going to ban the whole sector of sex work. Some restaurants launder money for the mob too, but we still have restaurants. If there are sensible steps OF could take to reduce the incidence of this, then they should. But it's hard for me to think of what that might be, given any response made over the internet could easily be coerced. Are there ideas I can read up on?

Let's engage in a hypothetical to flesh out your position; if 10% of only fans accounts were victims of human trafficking, acting at the behest of their traffickers, what course(s) of action would you recommend for only fans (as a company), and from regulatory bodies?

How would OF know?

I think all regulatory regimes that have any chance of addressing this would require government support. Perhaps something like requiring any model to first go alone to identify herself to the police or other authority and certify her age. This would provide an opportunity to escape a captor. Perhaps this would be an annual thing.

But the proper incentives would need to be in place. She'd need to be allowed to stay in country if she is a foreign victim of trafficking, for example. We would want to prevent this from becoming some type of guild where incumbents can keep out new competition. And the police would need to be supportive in this process (i.e. promptly inform OF of models' eligibility, and otherwise participate in the process in good faith). It's hard to see that happening in, e.g., the United States.

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