My understanding was that they were being cut off by payment processors and banks and that drove the decision.
Was this resolved?
Was this resolved?
> “The proposed Oct. 1, 2021 changes are no longer required due to banking partners’ assurances that OnlyFans can support all genres of creators,” [an OnlyFans spokesperson] said.
https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/onlyfans-drops-porn-ba...
The Variety article theorizes that the backlash may have actually been exactly the outcome OnlyFans wanted, because they were able to focus public outrage toward the banks and payment processors putting them in that position.
Nobody wants to change banks even when it affects them directly. How many people are going to change banks out of principle?
I guess some Gen Zers might be motivated not to pick Chase as their first bank?
Well, a not-great but plausible answer, maybe -- companies make changes, both good and ill, because they're panicked over PR fiascos all the time. From all appearances, MasterCard announced those policy changes because of PR pressure that was put on them by "Exodus Cry," a fundamentalist Christian anti-porn activist group. OnlyFans may have calculated that their best bet was to knock Exodus Cry off their hashtag-save-the-children pedestal.
99% of normal people find cryptocurrency strange and inscrutable, and if you think otherwise you're in a bubble.
1. Customers in e.g. the EU may push their reps to "do something" about two US companies controlling all e-commerce.
2. Customers frustrated that Mastercard have gone on the record as refusing to block payments to terrorist-supporting orgs while refusing to process payments to look at titties may pressure regulators to start having a much closer look at Mastercard's money flows.
Both of those seem like meaningful concerns.
Regulators are much more on the side of MasterCard than they are on the side of disgruntled pornography customers.
I don't have a dog in this fight but it certainly reminded me how much power V+MC have to become an existential threat along the likes of Google and Spectrum. Next time I write to my Congressman about antitrust, I'll be sure to put them top of the list now (for all that's going to do...)
So VISA could be fined for any trafficking that happen on OnlyFans. This is also why Pronhub had to remove almost all their videos if they wanted to keep credit card services.
As an European I’m a fan of laws that make platforms and big tech responsible for the content they house, but there is no denying that vetting that every OnlyFan sexworker is a task they can’t likely perform easily.
Of course moderation is only one of the solutions, paying money and accepting the financial damage that may come from lack of moderation is another. Of course the big banks know this, which is why they charge an insane margin for their credit card services to platforms like onlyfans, it’s likely they simply upped the price behind the closed doors.
That all wouldn't be good enough for sex crimes though, because even if you have a passport + gov ID + a notary signed statement saying you are 18 and your own mother vouching for you, the counterparty can still be convicted of rape if it turns out you're lying about your age.
Of course this is really all just to keep the law abiding law abiding. Criminals on the dark web will just buy a forged electronic id package and KYC is bypassed.
However, I have a really hard time believing that if you went to a normal grocery store, bought a bag of flour that clearly says "flour" on it, had a receipt for flour, brought it home with the intention of making some bread, and then the police bust down your door and find that actually, it's pure heroin - I doubt you would be convicted. That's why the case above surprises me so much - the guy went above and beyond, by even checking the ID, if anything it's the other person who should be convicted of crime and put behind bars here.
Of course the girl voluntarily went to the site, signed up, and accepted a cash payment. She never even reported anything to the police. She was talking to a school councilor ("Mandatory Reporter") and mentioned she was earning money by sleeping with men. The school councilor was then required to refer it to police for prosecution, even though none of the parties wanted it.
The DA was happy to take it on because Cody Wilson of course is the guy responsible for making 3d printed guns popular, and he had a number of political enemies.
How is it enforced? Any high-profile cases?
I think you mean collaboration.
If it's what I'm thinking of, these laws are collectively known as "know your customer" or "KYC" [0]. It's primarily intended to prevent racketeering, money laundering, and other organized criminal activity, but the laws are written very broadly in part because they're looking for surreptitious activity.
In the case of sex work, it's difficult to verify that all performers are of legal age, that all activity is consensual, and so on. Since there are many, many ways that sex work can be illegal, it's very complicated.
>>but there is no denying that vetting that every OnlyFan sexworker is a task they can’t likely perform easily.
Just make every performer submit a valid ID to have an account, if my mobile provider can ask for that, why not OF?
Unless you’re paying for the images on Facebook the transfer isn’t being used to pay for illegal sex. This is the difference between the two in terms of liability.
Nothing, but it should shield them from liability. They can always say a valid ID that shows the user is over 18 was submitted, if there is any legal issue then it can and should be handled by the law enforcement.
>>Unless you’re paying for the images on Facebook the transfer isn’t being used to pay for illegal sex.
Payment processors dropped pornhub because there was some illegal material on the website - it not being paid was irrelevant.
That wouldn’t make them less liable for any illegal content they fail to identify though.
It’s not like Facebook where they can hide behind being a platform because American politicians had no issue making platforms very responsible for the hosted content as soon as it was bundled into anti-trafficking legalisation.
I expecte that the EU will strike at “regular” SoMe in much the same manner when the legislation on anti-fake-news passes through the bureaucracy.
Many countries have their own local payment processors, but it's still only a country-wide thing.
There are several challengers like Paypal, Venmo, Zelle, Coinbase, etc that attack from a slightly different angle. I think the thing that is most common is that have super low cost bank transfer options, and they encourage users to maintain a balance. Processing payments locally is 100x-1000x preferable then processing payments externally for these players.
Their official stance always has been that this is due to the credit card companies, the reality rather is that Paypal doesn't want to deal with the rampant fraud (aka post-nut clarity) in porn.
However, that new processor will be a member of some existing payment systems e.g. Visa network and bound by all the same constraints as the other processors there. Creating your own alternative to a payment system (e.g. a major, widely and internationally supported card network like Visa or MC) is not really plausible. Perhaps you can look at the whole setup of cryptocurrencies+all the crypto exchange companies as something like such an alternative system, so there's one alternative made in this millenium.
There's a few players here:
payment gateways, this is a service that provides the checkout service on a website and handles protected credit card information. Payment gateways also provide anti-fraud services.
payment processors, these execute the actual transaction. They are members of card associations like Visa and connect the card issuing bank and the merchant bank of the payee.
merchant banks, these are the banks that hold the company's bank account that the funds from the payment processor come into.
card associations, Visa/Mastercard these provide the connectivity and set the high level rules.
card issuers, these entities extend credit and may be retail banks or other parties.
there is a difference between Amex/Discover and Visa/Mastercard in that the former are also the issuer. That's why you also see Visa debit cards in Europe, they're using the payment processing network but not extending credit.
It should be clear that starting a new payment gateway is trivial. It takes money to properly comply but ultimately this is a software business. Starting a new payment processor is much harder but it doesn't matter because all payment processors must comply with the card association rules to get access to that network.
Starting your own card network would require attracting issuers who would then issue cards that people could use to pay for OnlyFans... probably not realistic!
It was the threat by Visa and MC to cut them off that was the killer here, plenty of payment processors would be happy to take their money but not if the card networks ban the company.
The most popular options, BTC & ETH, are incredibly expensive for $20 subscription payments.
It's also trivial to exchange BTC to LTC (or other low fee coin), you don't even need KYC or in some cases to even use an exchange (atomic swap BTC-LTC). So the cam girls could take fees in LTC and then swap them to BTC once they have enough value to be worth the transactional costs.