Opinion The anti-porn conspiracy - It's a private company

The anti-porn conspiracy​

If CEOs are increasingly acting as the fourth branch of government, then they certainly seem to have a moralistic streak, going much further than the law requires in terms of staying well away from porn.
Why it matters: Pornography and the production of sexually explicit material is entirely legal as far as the government is concerned — but it's also shunned by almost all of the business establishment. That makes a huge difference for its practitioners.
Driving the news: OnlyFans has become one of the fastest-growing social networks in the world, with extremely impressive financials. Were it not in the porn business, it would be fighting off VCs desperate to invest at a multi-billion-dollar valuation.

• Instead, OnlyFans is struggling not only to raise funds but also to maintain healthy relations with the creators on its platform, who are deeply suspicious of the company after its badly-explained and abortive attempt to ban porn on the site.
• OnlyFans CEO Tim Stokely, in an interview with the FT, initially said that the business "had no choice" but to ban porn, blaming banks in general and BNY Mellon in particular. But the move looks more like an ill-thought-through attempted pivot away from porn and towards a business model with lower costs and greater opportunities for VC-fueled growth.

The big picture: There are no major American porn companies. The biggest player in the business, MindGeek, is based in Canada; OnlyFans is based in the UK. Even then they're sheepish about what they do: An OnlyFans pitch deck obtained by Axios, just like the official MindGeek website, never mentions porn.

• Mainstream U.S. companies like eBay and Tumblr are implementing increasingly strict anti-porn policies, much to the annoyance of sex workers and historians.

How it works: Porn has always been a shady, marginalized industry, and has always attracted its share of criminals, including people involved in sex trafficking and revenge porn. Sites that make money from porn get targeted by anti-porn activists who get those sites blacklisted by banks and financiers worried about the reputational — and even legal — consequences of banking sites that might be showing underage or nonconsensual content.

• State of play: Porn companies pay much higher fees and face much higher obstacles than most merchants to access basic payment services, and are banned entirely by many finance companies including Stripe and American Express. Porn performers, similarly, find it very difficult to open bank accounts.
• Twitter hosts a thriving porn community, but the company hides it well to most users, and there's a constant fear that it, too, could be banned at any time.

The bottom line: It's common knowledge that any porn company will have major difficulties navigating the world of financial services. That knowledge has effectively prevented American entrepreneurs from being able to build a wholly legitimate alternative to the secretive foreign companies that currently dominate the space.

OnlyFans and the business establishment's anti-porn conspiracy

Pornography is entirely legal but it's also shunned by almost all of the business establishment.

www.axios.com

 

[emptyblu]

Hmm...it can’t be because some porn sites end up hosting sex trafficking abuse videos overtime, and companies don’t want to associate their business with shady shit like that. (Which is ironic because they are probably secretly fucking kids anyway) But yeah it definitely has to do with misogyny, racism, sexism transphobia, fatphobia, pedophobia, landlordphobia and all the evils you can think of.

 

[DumbDude42]

there's a million things wrong with business and finance executives using their positions for activism
cracking down on internet cooming isn't one of them

 

[Twinkletard]

isn't this why crypto was invented?

 

[Tism the Return]

Yes, first turn the world into coomers and then cut off their supply. It's a perfectly decadent genocide plan, all the mass suicides you can think of.

 

[KingCoelacanth]

implementing increasingly strict anti-porn policies, much to the annoyance of sex workers and historians.

Articles like this always bend words and definitions to the point of being meaningless just to draw clicks. Tumblr banning dipper cub porn isn't affecting historians.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

I know it's cool here to talk about how morally degenerate porn is, but I really don't want corporate monopolies acting as the de facto national censorship department.

 

[Wintersun]

I know it's cool here to talk about how morally degenerate porn is, but I really don't want corporate monopolies acting as the de facto national censorship department.

Porn is practically worthless, same as cigarettes and fast food, but in the end it's still a matter of personal freedom. It shouldn't be taken away from everyone, but it should be taught about the specific dangers of consumption and overconsumption of it.

If people still decide to masturbate into erectile dysfunction that's on them, and they suffer for it, but as with everything else, taking away shit deemed bad for you is a slippery slope.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Articles like this always bend words and definitions to the point of being meaningless just to draw clicks. Tumblr banning dipper cub porn isn't affecting historians.

I guess historians love to coom who would have thought.

 

[Looney Troons]

Oh no. Heaven forbid that there isn’t a fucking coveted smut factory HQ in the US.

 

[Don't Tread on Me]

I know it's cool here to talk about how morally degenerate porn is, but I really don't want corporate monopolies acting as the de facto national censorship department.

Josh talked about this on his stream once. The reason why possession of child porn in America is specifically banned (not production, not selling, just possession) is because if possession is legal it creates a black market of human suffering all across the world.

Until we can actually give pedos the rope, banning all porn is just the best option. Now, if you want to turn around and say "okay, death penalty for convicted pedophiles", I am right there with you

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Josh talked about this on his stream once. The reason why possession of child porn in America is specifically banned (not production, not selling, just possession) is because if possession is legal it creates a black market of human suffering all across the world.

Until we can actually give pedos the rope, banning all porn is just the best option. Now, if you want to turn around and say "okay, death penalty for convicted pedophiles", I am right there with you

If a blanket porn what you want, then okay. But a change like that should go to SOME KIND of vote, not just backdoored into reality by unelected corporations. It's also probably unconstitutional.

Of course, child porn is completely different from adult porn. It's already punished heavily, as it should be.

 

[Terrifik]

shutup normy journalist

you know the reason is banks has carblanch to yeet you if they find out your involved with porn.

have all the child trafficing bills that says CPS can go after sites related to sex & porn.

 

[Meat Target]

Tee hee hee, hoes, simps, and coomers go REE REE REEEE

 

[Don't Tread on Me]

If a blanket porn what you want, then okay. But a change like that should go to SOME KIND of vote, not just backdoored into reality by unelected corporations. It's also probably unconstitutional.

Of course, child porn is completely different from adult porn. It's already punished heavily, as it should be.

Yeah but that's the issue. How do you determine what a child is just by looking? If you ban all porn then it's easy to keep child porn at bay. And I am not saying to ban all porn. Porn sites should be able to do whatever the fuck they want. But other websites should stay far away from it. There should be a clear line in the sand, either porn is all you do or you don't touch it.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

What's up with the format of Axios articles? Is it intended for the lowest common denominator or the person speed reading hundreds of news articles?

 

[Inebriated Raccoon]

Hmm...it can’t be because some porn sites end up hosting sex trafficking abuse videos overtime, and companies don’t want to associate their business with shady shit like that. (Which is ironic because they are probably secretly fucking kids anyway) But yeah it definitely has to do with misogyny, racism, sexism transphobia, fatphobia, pedophobia, landlordphobia and all the evils you can think of.

Exactly, I believe that governments are cracking down harder on sex trafficking, CP, and revenge porn. So, instead of sites like Pornhub and Onlyfans better managing there content or investing in/creating better algorithms that identify and remove illegal content more consistently, they go through the road of least resistance and institute blanket bans. That's why Pornhub removed all videos that aren't from verified accounts and why OnlyFans and Tumblr remove all pornographic content.

I believe the pressure from banks is due to a recent anti money laundering expansion to the Patriot Act. I believe banks will now incur some of the punishment if they knowingly process money associated with illicit activities?

Obviously the banks and businesses aren't puritanical by any means. They will do whatever necessary protect their bottom line and avoid getting the Backpage.com treatment from the feds (feds seized the site due to sex trafficking, child prostitution, and landuring and also jailed the owners for knowingly facilitating those things). There is no misogyny, transphobia, anti sex work, etc going on. These businesses choose how they comply with new regulations. Like I said, they could keep all their porn content and create better methods to detect illegal content but won't because that'll be too much money and manpower that could be invested elsewhere.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Exactly, I believe that governments are cracking down harder on sex trafficking, CP, and revenge porn. So, instead of sites like Pornhub and Onlyfans better managing there content or investing in/creating better algorithms that identify and remove illegal content more consistently, they go through the road of least resistance and institute blanket bans. That's why Pornhub removed all videos that aren't from verified accounts and why OnlyFans and Tumblr remove all pornographic content.

I believe the pressure from banks is due to a recent anti money laundering expansion to the Patriot Act. I believe banks will now incur some of the punishment if they knowingly process money associated with illicit activities?

Obviously the banks and businesses aren't puritanical by any means. They will do whatever necessary protect their bottom line and avoid getting the Backpage.com treatment from the feds (feds seized the site due to sex trafficking, child prostitution, and landuring and also jailed the owners for knowingly facilitating those things). There is no misogyny, transphobia, anti sex work, etc going on. These businesses choose how they comply with new regulations. Like I said, they could keep all their porn content and create better methods to detect illegal content but won't because that'll be too much money and manpower that could be invested elsewhere.

There was a cat party article not long ago that explained how a prostitute with an OnlyFans was afraid of getting banned, so I completely understand why the OF owners feel nervous about suddenly getting gangbanged by the feds.

From the article.
"Porn companies pay much higher fees and face much higher obstacles than most merchants to access basic payment services," - in the other article it said that OF could get hit with a 30% service fee for transactions, as far as I'm aware that's a very old thing for what is considered high risk. For porn "high risk" means stolen CC numbers and huge amounts of post nut chargebacks. "Stolen CC numbers" usually meant lots of people telling customer service or their wife that they did not pay for BlackAssMadness.com, they must have been hacked!

 

[Inebriated Raccoon]

There was a cat party article not long ago that explained how a prostitute with an OnlyFans was afraid of getting banned, so I completely understand why the OF owners feel nervous about suddenly getting gangbanged by the feds.

From the article.
"Porn companies pay much higher fees and face much higher obstacles than most merchants to access basic payment services," - in the other article it said that OF could get hit with a 30% service fee for transactions, as far as I'm aware that's a very old thing for what is considered high risk. For porn "high risk" means stolen CC numbers and huge amounts of post nut chargebacks. "Stolen CC numbers" usually meant lots of people telling customer service or their wife that they did not pay for BlackAssMadness.com, they must have been hacked!

Not surprised, the owners of a highly profitable business don't suddenly throw away a lucrative business model unless they know they're about to get in some deep shit.

 

[CharlesBarkley]

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if a huge chunk of OF users were involved in some kind of sex trafficking.