Millions of paywalls at OnlyFans make fight against child abuse more difficult
Police authorities find themselves restricted in investigating child abuse. The OnlyFans paywall system makes it more difficult to prosecute such cases.
(Image: Dmitri Ma/Shutterstock.com)
The extent of child abuse on the porn platform OnlyFans is difficult to measure, explain investigators and experts. The reason is that there is not just a single paywall to gain access to pornographic material, but practically every OnlyFans provider sets their own paywall. This makes investigations more difficult and they are dependent on the cooperation of the platform operator. OnlyFans itself plays down the problem and refers to its own monitoring.
Statistics on videos and images depicting child abuse (CSAM, "child sexual abuse material") are therefore only available from OnlyFans itself. According to these statistics, the platform reported 347 such cases last year, compared to 310 cases the year before. However, according to the investigators, this is almost impossible to verify.
OnlyFans reports voluntarily
In the USA, providers of electronic services such as social networks and porn websites are obliged to report suspected cases of child abuse to the non-profit organization NCMEC (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children), the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. However, OnlyFans is a British company and therefore not legally obliged to make such reports, but does so on a voluntary basis.
In the event of suspected child abuse, OnlyFans says it immediately deletes any material as soon as it is discovered and reports the case to the NCMEC's so-called "CyberTipline". The organization would then involve the relevant authorities. The few hundred cases among hundreds of millions of posts are a sign of the platform's "rigorous security controls". In addition, many of the reported suspected cases would ultimately not constitute child abuse.
Doubts about OnlyFans figures
However, experts doubt OnlyFans' figures considering the 3.2 million OnlyFans providers. This is hardly comprehensible due to the many individual paywalls. This system would also make police investigations more difficult. Even if a case of possible child abuse is reported, OnlyFans only provides the authorities with an Internet address, a picture of the account operator and a description of the account. The investigators would have to obtain explicit content themselves.
OnlyFans disagrees and explains, according to Reuters, that the company provides the authorities with all the information they require. This includes account details, content and direct messages. "Police investigators do not need to subscribe to content," OnlyFans explains. In addition, the NCMEC has complete access to the website beyond the paywalls. According to the NCMEC, it has had access to OnlyFans since the end of 2023, but limited to the cases reported to them. Furthermore, the NCMEC would "not proactively monitor and moderate content on a large scale". This also applies to other websites besides OnlyFans.
No anonymity at OnlyFans
OnlyFans explains on its own website that its own subscription model actually makes it more difficult to spread abusive content. This is because every OnlyFans account is strictly checked upon registration so that the identity of the provider is known. Nobody can post anonymously on OnlyFans. In addition, direct messages are not encrypted, so there is no anonymity here either. This would make it unlikely that OnlyFans users would create or offer abusive images on the platform.
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