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A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

443 points by deegles 5y ago

kjgkjhfkjf 5y ago
The world really needs an alternative to these tweet serials. They're extremely annoying to read.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Blogs exist, but due to network effect any given blog post is less likely to be auto-surfaced by an algorithm into people's field of vision than a stream of dozens of individual Twitter posts.
  - dariusj18 5y ago
    Just more evidence that effective != better
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      Agreed. Throughout its history, the story demonstrated by Twitter is that network effect is more important than technical competence. From their scaling- pains failwhale era through to this week where they accidentally de-verified Danny DeVito, the site continues to be extremely popular in spite of, not because of, its technical design and competent implementation.
- honkdaddy 5y ago
  Part of the advantage to tweet threads like this is that other users can reply directly to any one of the n tweets in the thread, rather than commenting on the thread as a whole. Agreed that it can be clunky to read depending on the platform, but there's a reason lots of prominent personalities and bloggers still use them.
  - CogitoCogito 5y ago
    > Part of the advantage to tweet threads like this is that other users can reply directly to any one of the n tweets in the thread, rather than commenting on the thread as a whole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_styl... Too bad the inline reply style got lost in email culture, but it's good to know it's alive and well on Twitter!
    - neutronicus 5y ago
      Personally, I'm glad it's mostly dead, at least in a forum context. To me, at least, the inline replies were always a signal that a conversation was about to degenerate into an interminable running battle over minutiae.
- EForEndeavour 5y ago
  Here's the entire Twitter thread in one page: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428584131835748359.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428584131835748359.html I hate that we seem to have come full circle: 1. Write coherent, long-form articles which require sustained attention to write and read, but unfortunately can't be easily discovered or nonverbally reacted to by people sitting on toilets. 2. Write intentionally length-limited microblog posts or "tweets" as a cute experiment in brevity by design and creativity under constraints. There's no room for nuance and multi-person conversations are abysmal, but at least your stream-of-consciousness musings have the potential to be "liked" by toilet-bound readers across the world jonesing for buttery-smooth exploding-heart animations. 3. Write coherent, long-form articles, but then break them up into snippets of at most 280 characters, tweet the first one, then reply to yourself dozens of times to reconstruct the original article, forcing readers to scroll past dozens of redundant copies of your profile pic (which of course doesn't depict you) and your clever-only-the-first-two-times pseudonym, truncated over and over, only to invoke a third-party article reconstruction service by replying "@threadreaderapp unroll please."
- Method-X 5y ago
  Like an article or blog post.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  The world has an alternative since the web was born. Just host HTML page somewhere. Those who use twitter just don't care about their readers convenience. That's why I generally avoid any twitter links.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- davikrr 5y ago
  These comments about Twitter are really getting tiring. See any Foone thread and you'll almost always realize it's getting derailed by a huge comment thread complaining about Twitter.
- certnlyuncertn 5y ago
  'Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful.'
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  Literally any other website. Even a Youtube comment would be easier to read. But Twitter gets you views, so we're stuck with this.
neogodless 5y ago
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428584131835748359.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428584131835748359.html
- Symmetry 5y ago
  It would be great if people could submit tweet threads in threaderapp, or the mods could have a policy of threadifying tween threads by default the way they fix titles and so forth.
  - ianai 5y ago
    Agree. Twitter threads are pretty illegible and supposedly communicating well is in this sites objective.
- gammarator 5y ago
  Thanks. Twitter has apparently taken a page from Reddit’s playbook and won’t let me view the whole thread on mobile without downloading their app.
  - partido3619463 5y ago
    Switch to any other mobile browser (even on iOS) and the prompt goes away.
- zucker42 5y ago
  I can't even read the whole page without logging in. I wish people would stop using Twitter as a long-form blogging platform.
thepasswordis 5y ago
MasterCard doesn’t want to process payments for child pornography which only fans hosts. The argument for payment processors having too much power was had over a decade ago when they everybody stopped allowing donations to Wikileaks. No, they shouldn’t have that power, it should be the courts who shut down only fans by jailing the people who work there. But I’m also not going to shed any tears over some people who willfully exploit children losing their ability to make money from it.
- GDC7 5y ago
  By the same token we should shut down the internet, the USD and also credit cards because CP use them. CP also breath air, time to make it illegal? There is no point foregoing privacy if authorities don't even try to precisely target bad actors but decide to nuke the whole area with a 100 Megaton Tsar Atomic Bomb instead
  - StevePerkins 5y ago
    Philosophers and legal theorists over the centuries have have come up with the concept of "proximate cause" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_cause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_cause) for these types of discussions. Essentially, there was recognition that ALL kinds of things could be seen as connected to a bad thing. But for the miners, we would not have extracted the iron ore that was used to make the steel that was used to make the firearm that was used to shoot the victim, etc. So "proximate cause" is a discussion of whether or not the degree of connection is close enough to make the blame ridiculous or not. Not really taking a side in this debate here. Simply pointing out that just coming up with a slew of "but for" causes is not a libertarian trump card for everything. Societies and systems can rightfully draw the line somewhere more reasonable.
- dr-detroit 5y ago
  wikileaks the terrorists who hate me and their entire contribution to journalism is "did you know people die in wars??? or did i blow your mind please give me more money" give me a break.
cataphract 5y ago
Aren't the payment processors not abusing their dominant position, like what happened a decade ago with Wikileaks? At least at that time they had the excuse they were pressured by the US government. What's motivating them this time? Do we need some sort of liability safe-harbor for payment processors?
- thrower123 5y ago
  Regardless of any legal safeguard you might legislate into place, it's radioactive PR to be associated in any way with sex trafficking and child porn.
  - cataphract 5y ago
    I'm not sure it is. When people hear "PornHub is disseminating / profiting off revenge porn", does anyone think "shame on their payment processors"? I think the outrage is directed at the operators of the websites themselves.
    - icegreentea2 5y ago
      People with only outrage won't think about their payment processors. Those with outrage who think through their options to enact change will think of their payment processors, and direct group pressure on them.
      - jrwoodruff 5y ago
        I'm very skeptical that anyone would think through this scenario and arrive at boycotting an entire payment network. Not just PornHubs bank, or payment processor, but an entire credit card network. And of those that did, I doubt it would be a big enough group for Mastercard to even notice. Unless that 'someone' is a major institution like Bank of America, or the federal government.
        thrower123 5y ago
jmull 5y ago
I'm sorry, but blaming all this on a NYT opinion piece is idiotic.
- Scaevolus 5y ago
  The payment processors banned MindGeek soon after that NYT article. Do you think that was a coincidence? MasterCard's new rules appear to be a direct response to the concerns the article raised. Is that coincidental?
  - throwaway444590 5y ago
    while that is true mindgeek sites still take mastercard. if i am not mistaken mastercard never left them just asked for stricter control.
  - jmull 5y ago
    And your theory is that a progressive journalist is calling the shots as Mastercard? I'm pretty sure MC would look a lot different if that were true.
    - rnd0 5y ago
      It's more likely that the progressive journalist was a hired gun working for someone who told him what to write about.
- dboreham 5y ago
  The BBC is claiming responsibility: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58273914 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58273914
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1s9f698vwhczr/Bill-Ackman-Sent-a-Text-to-the-CEO-of-Mastercard-What-Happened-Next-Is-a-Parable-for-ESG https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1s9f698vwhczr...
fxtentacle 5y ago
I believe his argumentation that this is a push by Christian organizations might be correct, but I believe he's deluded in that he appears to think that he's speaking for the majority. "65% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christians."
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  > Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend. [1] That Pew survey suggesting 65% are Christian seems vulnerable to the halo effect - a little irony is present in the name. People who were conditioned as children to believe they ought to believe in Christianity (which is different from believing in Christianity) will answer 'yes' to such a survey question even if their measurable actions like church/mosque/synagogue attendance or OnlyFans donations indicate differently. [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-...
- swiley 5y ago
  Most Christians I know are against legislating morality because that could result in the government being involved in the church.
  - technothrasher 5y ago
    Most Christians I know are way more myopic than that.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      There are many Christians, and the people you know are not an adequate random sample for statistical inference in general.
  - MichaelGroves 5y ago
    Where is the demarcation line between "legislating morality" and simply "legislating"? Murder is morally wrong, aren't laws against murder thus legislating morality? I don't claim to know many christians, but the phrase "legislating morality" isn't in the common vernacular of those I know. They advocate for what they believe in, and advocate against that which they oppose, the same as anybody else.
busymom0 5y ago
This might be a good time to discuss whether payment processors should have the ability to restrict legal trades (CP is a few bad apples). This applies to things like sex work and porn but also censorship of political views. I think it's stupid to pay for porn when there's so much available for free but who am I to judge what people do with their money and body as long as it's consensual adults? Plus if we are to enjoy the free stuff, we also gotta make sure the content creators get paid. Cuties was allowed but onlyfans isn't okay? Also this tweet thread doesn't seem honest imo. It seems more like a political attack against christians. The author wants to lump all christians as one but doesn't want that to be done to all sex workers? As someone who's lived in both Hindu and Muslim majority country, the whole anti sex work and anti porn thing isn't a Christian exclusive thing. Anecdotal but my Christian side of friends and family are very tolerant of gay and porn unlike my Hindu and Muslim ones back home. The Tweet author thinks Nick Kristof is right wing? I can't take this thread seriously if the author can be so blatantly wrong for political purposes.
- nszceta 5y ago
  There is no room for discussion. Your civil liberties are being eroded with this measure.
  - krapp 5y ago
    Don't say "there is no room for discussion" on a discussion forum, it's obnoxious.
    - deegles 5y ago
      I recently learned the term "thought-terminating cliche" and this is one! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...
    - rnd0 5y ago
      Being obnoxious doesn't make it any less true (nor does using the latest thought terminating cliche of calling it a "thought-terminating cliche"). This was designed with the intent of taking our civil liberties away, and that is the effect it will have in the end. All the debate in the world does not change that -in fact that debate (rife with "just playing devil's advocate" nonsense undoubtably) will only serve to kick up dust and obscure the bottom line issue.
deleted 5y ago
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after_care 5y ago
How far away is crypto from being a viable alternative payment processor? The problems I see are the translation layer between fiat and crypto, the fluctuation of value of tokens, the long confirmation process of many tokens, the environmental impact, and the physical infrastructure (atms, etc). Each individual problems seems solvable, and it would be a significant historical event if banking was moved to these decentralized platforms.
- icegreentea2 5y ago
  It's the translation layer between fiat and crypto which will be the problem. That's the layer that will get sued for the same reasons MasterCard is changing their ToS.
- dboreham 5y ago
  There have been many attempts. So far none have succeeded. The main problem is fiat exchange, which ends up being tied into some country's regulatory regime.
- lottin 5y ago
  Banking is already decentralised. There is more than one bank. I think you might be thinking about "central banking", but central banks don't provide banking services.
  - shmel 5y ago
    Yeah, but how does it help with essentially duopoly of payment processors? How does it help with the US finance industry exporting their rules under ultimatum "either you comply or you will be excluded from the world financial system"? We saw how it played out with funding of WikiLeaks for example. We need cryptocurrency to avoid this happening again.
    - lottin 5y ago
      I'm sceptical about the ability of cryptocurrencies to solve problems. I think in order to solve a problem, first you need to spend some time understanding the problem, then come up with a solution. The crypto community doesn't seem much interested in thinking about problems. They think they have a solution that will fix a whole lot of problems, but in this case, like in many others, I don't think the solution would work, or even make sense.
chitowneats 5y ago
"So why the rule changes? Because last December the New York Times published an opinion piece by Nick Kristof caller “The Children of Pornhub” that accused the site and its parent company of profiting off revenge porn, child porn and sex trafficking....which, to be clear, they kinda were." Kinda, huh? Of course the more important point, according the thread's author, is that: "Kristof’s story might have been correct on some of PornHub’s abuses but it was deeply manipulative and painfully wrongheaded about sex trafficking in porn and, like almost anything he writes about sex, a filtered version of Christian dominionist propaganda" Sure, okay. In the future maybe these sites shouldn't sexually exploit children. Then they won't be exposed to such right-wing attacks.
- Telemakhos 5y ago
  My right-wing friends would be very surprised to learn that the New York Times and Nick Kristof now represent them.
  - busymom0 5y ago
    Yep. The Tweet thread is so easily proven wrong. Nick Kristof is not right wing by any means based on his articles: https://www.nytimes.com/column/nicholas-kristof https://www.nytimes.com/column/nicholas-kristof
  - chitowneats 5y ago
    Yeah I should have put "right-wing" in scare quotes.
rattray 5y ago
I hadn't been aware of the onlyfans change: https://www.xbiz.com/news/261183/onlyfans-releases-official-statement-about-upcoming-ban-on-sexually-explicit-conduct https://www.xbiz.com/news/261183/onlyfans-releases-official-... Sounds like they're still allowing nudity but disallowing "sexually explicit conduct" and will clarify what they mean by that soon...
- brodouevencode 5y ago
  Probably falls under "I know it when I see it" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
rattray 5y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28237274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28237274
highfrequency 5y ago
Why isn’t it viable to just accept Visa, if only MasterCard has new rules? Does not seem to justify scrapping the entire business.
- dageshi 5y ago
  They expect VISA will follow suit.
  - Aachen 5y ago
    Source? Or are you just assuming?
    - altendo 5y ago
      I believe that it's an assumption for now, but a reasonable one to make. I think it's unlikely that Visa exposes itself to legal risks where MasterCard is not - why give your competitor an edge like that?
      - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
        That assumes that there actually are legal risks, and that there isn’t more money to be made by continuing to process these payments.
        dageshi 5y ago
        For Mastercard and Visa the money to be made is a rounding error on a rounding error, there are lots of other industries that don't have the same PR risks as adult content does.
    - micromacrofoot 5y ago
      There's a fair amount of precedent. Recently it's what happened to pornhub... these evangelical groups put general pressure on the industry and when one company folds the focus on the others ramp up. Mastercard and Visa compete pretty closely so neither wants to be "the one that's ok with sex trafficking" (total bs, but how it's framed) and end up with more regulatory scrutiny than the other.
twic 5y ago
Seen this thread going around, but it seems like it skips over the important bit. > So why the rule changes? Because last December the New York Times published an opinion piece by Nick Kristof caller “The Children of Pornhub” that accused the site and its parent company of profiting off revenge porn, child porn and sex trafficking. How do you get from 'opinion piece in a newspaper' to 'gigantic transnational financial infrastructure company changes its rules'? In my experience, huge companies do not make changes like this purely on the basis of newspaper columns. Was there legal advice? Political pressure? Regulatory pressure? All of those would be much more material than a piece in a newspaper.
- dqv 5y ago
  Rumor has it that OF is the next target of Exodus Cry
  - Pet_Ant 5y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_Cry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_Cry “ Exodus Cry is a non-profit advocacy organization seeking the abolition of the legal commercial sex industry, including pornography, strip clubs and sex work, as well as illegal sex trafficking. The organization originally developed out of a weekly prayer group founded in 2007 by Benjamin Nolot, a filmmaker and member of the charismatic Christian International House of Prayer.”
    - sschueller 5y ago
      Maybe we should get a law passed making it illegal to fund any non-profit church with a credit card...
      - hulitu 5y ago
        You cannot abolish the church.
      - brodouevencode 5y ago
        In the churches of which I've been a member, most tithes and donations come in cash. More orthodox Christians won't even have credit cards because the consumerist nature is contrary to scripture.
zozbot234 5y ago
The concern that various kinds of legal sex work might be a de-facto haven for human trafficking is at least many decades old, does not solely or even mainly originate from people identifying as Christians, and seems to have a pretty solid factual basis - at the very least, there is a consensus on the broad argument if not the details. The Twitter thread does not even attempt to fairly acknowledge these facts. Very sad and disappointing.
- BarryMilo 5y ago
  Is it worth continuing to push sex workers into illegality, thereby putting them in danger? Put another way, do we have a right to sacrifice one population to protect another? Allow me to doubt it.
  - thendrill 5y ago
    Problem is that sex work is a very wierd exempt from current social norms. We do not like meritocracy but we do agree that hot young women can make a lot of money just because they were born this way.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > Is it worth continuing to push sex workers into illegality If that's the price to pay in order to rescue vulnerable people who are being exploited and trafficked, very much so. Sex work is a decadent luxury at best; human freedom and agency are worth so much more. > thereby putting them in danger? There's no proof that legitimate sex workers are being "put in danger". They might be de-facto forbidden from engaging in that line of work, but there's a solid rationale for such a policy; it might just be the best we can do given our broader circumstances.
    - Jcowell 5y ago
      The question is, is criminal regulation better than legal regulation? Are sexually trafficked victims truly helped when this work is criminalized rather than heavily regulated ? To me it’s like how some states try to combat Teen pregnancy and abortion by teaching abstinence instead of proper health education and provide accessible resources.
deleted 5y ago
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cbg0 5y ago
If you want to read the thread more easily: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428587369867792392.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428587369867792392.html
Miner49er 5y ago
So the timing of this, and the Apple's CSAM is interesting. Are companies facing a legal liability or afraid of facing one in the future? Are they worried that they could potentially be liable under FOSTA-SESTA?
- relax88 5y ago
  I think this is highly likely to be the thing causing these changes in the porn industry. I’m skeptical that we would be seeing the large scale changes to sites like Craigslist, Pornhub, and OnlyFans just because of a NYT article and some prude Christian activists.
  - ehsankia 5y ago
    > and some prude Christian activists And where do you think FOSTA-SESTA, the legal troubles and the sudden shift of mind from payment processors comes from? Do you think they randomly started to care out of nowhere? At a high level, yes companies are being forced by payment processors and legal troubles, but if you dig a bit deeper, it almost always trace back to christian fundamentalist lobbyists such as Exodus Cry
MBCook 5y ago
There was also a recent BBC investigation into OnlyFans that found they constantly bent their rules for popular content makers and had a real problem with sub-18 people on the platform. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58255865 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58255865
- dijit 5y ago
  The content they’re talking about is reprehensible. (Beastiality, incest, prostitution) but I’m wary of things being labelled “illegal” since in the UK, facesitting, spanking and “water sports” are illegal. So it’s easy to cite 1 case of beastiality and later say there are “200,000 illegal articles” when 199,999 could be spanking.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    Obscenity is famously subjective: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” - http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/obscenity-case-files/obscenity-case-files-jacobellis-v-ohio-i-know-it-when-i-see-it/ http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/obscenity-case-files/ob...
  - inetknght 5y ago
    > prostitution I argue: prostitution is illegal but not reprehensible.
    - mrweasel 5y ago
      It’s not even illegal in large parts of the world. I can understand wanting to fight revenge porn, child porn, human traficing and exploitation, but we’re also making it unreasonable for prostitutes, porn stars and cam girls to do their job. And I kinda doubt that these rules makes much difference to the unlawful actors in those businesses.
      - 5y ago
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Net... uhm.. payment-processors-neutrality! I have no idea why payment processors get to choose and pick what they want to process and what they don't.
- mchusma 5y ago
  This. If you are going to be a legal dualolopy, then you can't cut off payments like you can't cut off power or water. Personally I breaking thei anti-trust behavior entirely, so people have options.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
    It's the high chargeback rate.
    - detaro 5y ago
      That's always the excuse why the payment processors don't like it (payment networks will ban them if their customers cause to many chargebacks), but the payment networks themselves clearly have control over those rules and can put requirements in place to compensate (e.g. require insurance, delay payouts, ...) without full-on banning business types.
    - AuryGlenz 5y ago
      They could simply automatically raise fees depending on chargeback rate. It’s not a particularly hard problem to solve.
    - aembleton 5y ago
      Don't they pass the costs of the charge back onto their merchants?
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  Never gonna happen. Controlling the money flow is basically how power has always worked. Unless you have nukes, you can't enforce it
angry_octet 5y ago
Another good thread explaining the leverage Visa/MC and banking generally have in companies, and impact of vague FOSTA/SESTA legislation in the US. Puritanical and evangelical lobby groups pushed these laws through Congress, and now they are reaping the rewards. It's unfortunate that the rest of the world has to suffer for this failure. https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1428442523001831425?s=19 https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1428442523001831425?s=19
nonameiguess 5y ago
At least this explains why normal porn sites keep living on perfectly well using MasterCard and Visa. They already have to follow regulatory requirements to demonstrate they are complying with age and consent laws, each video includes a front-matter frame saying where you can get the documentation of their compliance, and many include behind-the-scenes extra content showing all of the performers presenting government-issued IDs and signing consent forms. This brings this conflict out of the realm of adult entertainment and into a broader conflict between incumbent central providers that are held to regulatory standards and apps providing a platform for individual contractors that don't follow those requirements. It's in the same field as people arguing AirBNB is only able to exist because it's allowing people to operate hotels without having to comply with hotel regulations, and Uber allows people to operate taxi services without complying with taxi regulations. OnlyFans was giving individuals a way to produce adult films without having to comply with adult film regulations related to age and consent verification of the performers.
- Notanothertoo 5y ago
  Uhh pornhub takes btc and ach only
- neaanopri 5y ago
  If that's the case why can't OF impose these requirements on their creators?
  - relax88 5y ago
    Presumably because of the costs of verification and record keeping. A single adult video studio might have a maximum of a few hundred people who they have to keep records for. Those people are paid per shoot, and the content is owned by the studio. There is a high ratio of revenue to number of people whose records must be kept. On OnlyFans, they have a huge amount of people producing a small volume of content and making very little money, of which they only get a cut.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
hhsub 5y ago
Saying that the evangelists are anti-Semitic is laughable. If it wasn't for the evangelists in America, Israel would not have the billions in military aid they get from the US every year and the country wouldn't exist today. Not to mention how insane it is to bring up anti-Semitism for absolutely no reason at all. Being "against sex" may be stupid, but... anti-Semitic?
throwawayswede 5y ago
I'm not knocking down anyone's decision for how to earn money or spend their time, but the porn industry in general (corporate or indie) is notorious for exploitative attitudes and behavior, whether it's Pornhub exploiting unverifiable nature of some videos and favoring turning a blind eye to the whole thing until tension mounted, or a someone being in a relationship with someone else and doing videos together because god knows how much fucked up shit they've been through by the time they became 18. I'm not in favor of big corporations, but in this case, the rules made by Mastercard seem sensible to me, and I'm not surprised that the Pornhub/Onlyfans are gonna position themselves as "being forced by the big companies to abandon the creators they support".
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  >but the porn industry in general (corporate or indie) is notorious for exploitative attitudes and behavior like pretty much every industry nowadays. If I had to scrub my life of everything profiting off of exploitation, I wouldn't have much left. Even if my computer survived, I wouldn't even have animated pornography because the animation industry in general is also exploitative. To each their own, but I just see this as the latest example of taking a nail out by demolishing the entire wall. The nail is still there and there's a bunch of non-nail material hit in the crossfire
deleted 5y ago
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d0100 5y ago
So in Brazil the government blocked WhatsApp payments until they launched the central bank's own easy payment method called PIX PIX is so good because there is no middle men, no transaction cost(for now), just an easy money transfer Solutions like PIX would remove completely the pressure that credit card providers have on companies and individuals, especially when it comes to sex work
- Jcowell 5y ago
  Will it ? My question is is PIX our money or the banks ? The point Of credit cards, aside from the ability to use money not immediately on hand, is the ability to shift the liability off of oneself and onto another who has interest in getting their money back. If fraud occurs , the bank more incentivized to get their money back and the debtors money is protected.
  - d0100 5y ago
    PIX is only for one-off payments, it is essentially a bank transfer, you can't setup recurring payments. So that should lower user fraud and subsequent chargebacks (because the client can't) On the other hand, because of fraud (social engineering), the central bank is looking to allow for cancelling payments, but afaik there is still nothing planned
cblconfederate 5y ago
Looking forward to when (aptly-named) MasterCard will ban those other networks that put young girls often less than 13 in a behavioral treadmill of entertaining other users with their photos for pithy "likes" that don't even translate to monetary rewards. Should I hold my breath?
- detcader 5y ago
  Being r-ped is as normal and consequential as posing for an advertisement or dancing in a TikTok, is what you're saying?
  - neolog 5y ago
    Controlling children's social environment to direct them into emotional dependence on corporate stimulation is really harmful. Unfortunately MasterCard doesn't seem to be working on that problem.
    - detcader 5y ago
      Conservatism runs on the assumption that young girls and women are natural property of men (the father, then the husband) and so for many people, these are innocent daughters lost on OnlyFans. But no political faction is active on the issue of social media's damage to children since no one[0] is making the connection between Instagram and the uptick in suicide (and other results) in young girls. And I doubt many conservative fathers really care if their kid learns to wife from TikTok rather than Barbies [0] with any power, that is -- there have been plenty of op-eds, but they exist to drive clicks from worrying parents, not to advance any call for material changes
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rendall 5y ago
I've never heard a good argument against prostitution. The arguments that I hear are against trafficking, rape, child molestation; which are all non-sequiturs: true and valid statements that do not support the argument itself. Can anyone here argue against prostitution per se? I'll listen.
- draw_down 5y ago
  I don’t mean to be rude but this is hopelessly naive. This isn’t MasterCard engaging in a marketplace-of-ideas good faith debate. This is using whichever tactics work to score points against whatever you’re trying to defeat. Thus the junk about CP, trafficking etc. I would hesitate to even describe this as politics 101, it’s more like what students understand before they walk in the door of politics 101. If someone says “your mom is so fat she sits around the house”, you don’t retort with an accurate measure of your mother’s BMI paired with a series of astute points about how it’s impossible to compare an adipose human body with the size of a dwelling. Like... seriously
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  how is onlyfans prostitution?
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    Part of the arguments in the tweet is based on reports that caught some accounts offering live sex to paying participants. That's apparently part of what lead to the story of OF removing sexual content.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  A generic argument: prostitution allows woman without any skills to earn plenty of money which might convince women do go this way even if they don't really enjoy it. The same argument could be made about IT. Prostitutes sell their private parts, programmers sell their brains.
ramesh31 5y ago
Regardless of the CSAM issue, regardless of the "revenge porn" issue, even for fully legitimate performers these publishers such as OnlyFans and Pornhub are acting as digital pimps skimming billions of dollars from the value provided by their users. We should be promoting FOSS alternatives that allow performers to truly own their own content and control who profits from it. Not crying over the takedown of another walled garden big tech aggregator. They are no different than the sleazy strip club owner who takes a cut of his dancer's tips.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  The "FOSS" alternative is a single model with their own site, which some bigger ones have. Even then, they have to setup some payment processor, on top of domain/hosing costs and find some solution on designing the actual page. Mostly doable, but a pain. Except I don't think we'll have FOSS payment processing software until (if ever) cryptocurrency becomes mainstream. This is like asking why everyone uploads to Steam when they can just publish their game on their own website. These services are selling convivence and curation (and to a much lesser extent, "security". i.e. the website isn't full of viruses), like 90% of the big websites.
dr-detroit 5y ago
I have to log in to read this? Society is crumbling around me!
bruceb 5y ago
The winner here might actually be the majority of NSFW content makers on OF who are mortgaging their future reputations for very small payouts. (not a judgment on what they do but the reality of the situation
- frakkingcylons 5y ago
  You post this exact comment on every recent thread about OF.
  - bruceb 5y ago
    It absolutely is. Because its true. All this talk about free market and puritanical this and that, when the reality of the situation should be pointed out.
dmamills 5y ago
> These rules will basically require that OnlyFans (and every other site that accepts MasterCard payments) not only fully verify every user and every person who appears in every adult video, but review all posted content before publication, including real-time review of livestreams It became extremely difficult to prove that there are not naked children on our platform. So we've decided to take our money and run.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  well, yes. That's all businesses. If the costs exceed the expected revenue, then you either eat the loss or reduce the (potential) operating costs. There isn't many (moral) ways to allow for reviewing every submission manually while also getting content published in a timely matter. Not for a site this size.
raoa 5y ago
This is a country where it's practically illegal to hire 13 year olds to work in flower shops, which is the sort of gig apt to teach a whole lot of commercially useful stuff. This is with or without parental consent. Maybe that is the sort of freedom people should get worked up over first?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Vaslo 5y ago
It was informative and then it started stuff like this: > Almost the entire anti-trafficking movement is an Evangelical project to get liberal supporters to sign off on a laundry list of Christian anti-sex policies. It’s been one of their most successful propaganda projects. It’s also likely gotten a lot of sex workers killed. I'm libertarian, do what you want with your body or money but know the risks. That said, someone could also argue that making it more difficult to sell your porn or get involved in the seedier parts of this PROBABLY stopped some people from ruining their lives, staying off drugs, etc. Again, don't like either argument, but there are two "probably" sides to this.
- detcader 5y ago
  It's also source-free. Love the flourish at the end with the typical third-wave male feminist line of "this has [probably] gotten sex workers killed" when what really kills sex workers is violent men and poverty/drugs.
  - neolog 5y ago
    I agree the perpetrators are to blame for violence and the poverty/abuse to blame for victims' inability to obtain redress. But the legal system has a role to play in ensuring noncoercion and empowering workers, which it's currently failing at. That said, OP's claims on the concealed religious motivation and the negative effects of current sex work policies on consenting workers are essentially true.[1] The president of the Adult Performance Artist Guild has written about the negative consequences of MasterCard's restrictive policies for performers ("I have received numerous reports of workers being removed and having no way to pay the bills because their income was taken away").[2] Unfortunately sex work research shows that closing sites like Backpage does reduce the capabilities of sex workers: "the financial situation of the vast majority of research participants has deteriorated, as has their ability to access community and screen clients".[3] Groups seeking to eliminate sex work often present misleading information and advocate policies that make sex work harder but not safer. There are policies that can improve safety and consent without harming consenting sex workers, but those policies need to be created with context and measurable consequences in mind, not sensationalism. [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war-pornhub https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war... [2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/porn-world-we-are-sick-of-mastercards-hollywood-hypocrisy https://www.thedailybeast.com/porn-world-we-are-sick-of-mast... [3] https://antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/atrjournal/article/view/448 https://antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/atrjournal/artic...
e-clinton 5y ago
I see the move by OnlyFans as simply trying to appeal to a much broader and larger market. There’s more money to be made outside of porn than there is in it.
thow16161 5y ago
What is going to happen to cam sites, like MyFreeCams, Chaturbate, etc..? I assume these rules will make accepting paymets impossible for any adult site with live-streaming, and for Cam sites, that's their core business. Potential answers include a move to cryptocurrency to avoid payment processors, or a move to strictly non-explicit content to appease them. In the near term, either would decimate these sites. In the long term, crypto might be better for performers, as the cam sites could take a far smaller cut of payments.
zug_zug 5y ago
Opinion - NYT and any credible newspaper should run a conflict-of-interest statement on every "opinion" piece they accept. It should be 1 paragraph giving the name of the person who chose to run the story, a 2-sentence justification, and a formal statement that they had no financial, personal, or self-interest motive or connection to this piece/author/topic.
prestigious 5y ago
Feels like switching to crypto payments would be far more likely to keep the site alive than whatever it is they are planning on doing.
- aaron_m04 5y ago
  Isn't it pretty difficult to have recurring payments with crypto, without some payment processor in the middle?
  - jandrese 5y ago
    Plus the technical difficulties with crypto in general. There is a higher bar for getting someone to set up a crypto account than it is to take a credit card number. A lot of people would just go "screw this, I can find porn on the Internet without this nonsense".
imperistan 5y ago
Postcultrev says the rules about proving consent etc make it a lot harder for small indie producers. But is it really that hard for them to prove consent and identity for a small number of performers? I suspect that’s a lot harder for a bigger platform, right?
- detcader 5y ago
  "Think of the suffering, destitute indie producers!" is sex-positive activsts' way of turning liberals, usually sympathetic to the exploited, into pro-capitalist libertarians on the topic of porn/prostitution specifically
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > "Think of the suffering, destitute indie producers!" is sex-positive activsts' way of turning liberals, usually sympathetic to the exploited, into pro-capitalist libertarians on the topic of porn/prostitution specifically That propaganda tactic is probably more effective in that area than any other, but it's not exclusive to it. It's basically an attempt to hide a large system of exploitation in the shadow behind a very narrow sympathetic story, and that's standard operating procedure for people who create those exploitative systems (see also: gig work, child labor, etc.).
throw3849 5y ago
Every US porn site needs to keep record of models, release forms etc.. This has been problem for a long time, for example old VHS tapes do not usually comply. OnlyFans and other sites were in violation of these rules for very long time. Edit: fix typo
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > OnlyFans and other sites very in violation of these rules for very long time. I think the big problem is actually with fairly recent changes in how the rules are applied (and maybe to the rules themselves, not just application) to intermediate distributors between the producer and the consumer which has caused existing sites to have compliance issues.
  - throw3849 5y ago
    OnlyFans is still a pornsite and should comply. Pornhub has the same producer/subscribers model and is doing fine.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Pornhub has the same producer/subscribers model and is doing fine. Pornhub is, from what I understand, very much not doing fine. For reasons directly related to the same kind of verification issues.
    - johnnyanmac 5y ago
      >Pornhub has the same producer/subscribers model and is doing fine. No it doesn't. They "verify" users to upload, but they aren't necessarily verifying every second of content they upload. Which is why the site STILL has copyrighted content (e.g. animated hentai) uploaded.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  Onlyfans is not employing their workers. They aren't bound to the rules since they aren't documented as "a porn site" and have no binding employment contract with them. These laws don't apply and I'm sure actual legal experts on these companies know this better than you.
newaccount2021 5y ago
This is a recurring theme...the twitterverse clings to the notion that any oversight of the adult industry will drive sex workers underground. What's not being said is that the young, white male userbase of twitter are the primary consumers of onlyfans and are just hiding their prurient tastes behind the unassailable shield of civil liberties.
swiley 5y ago
Don’t like crypto currency? Stop making it necessary.
atlasunshrugged 5y ago
This is off topic, but this actually does seem like one of the few areas where crypto could make a difference. Why hasn't there been a good implementation of an onlyfans style platform that lets someone transfer funds direct from a linked coinbase account or something instead of depending on a Mastercard/Visa for payment processing?
PastaMonster 5y ago
I've read through the comments. Pornhub debacle is mentioned often. No one here is mentioning that many people have fantasies like a rape fantasy, a teenage fantasy, etc. A good search algorithm picks up on that and will make suggestions based on your previous searches/watched videos and the videos other people with similar interests have watched. This should be obvious. The videos have bad unspecified titles because it's easier to find. People are unspecified in their search terms. They don't search for "rape fantasy" they search for "rape". They don't search for "feet fetish" they search for "feet". What is it people don't get about this? I think people should just mind their own business and stop policing what other people do. "If you don't like it don't watch it". As long as it's not illegal leave people alone with their fantasies. Don't be so damn judgmental. It's just sad how sexually repressed some people are and that they think they have the right to control other people. It feels like we are one step from starting to burn "witches" and books again.
- shrimpx 5y ago
  > As long as it's not illegal Isn't this the crux of the issue? That's what Mastercard is saying, too. As long as you've super duper verified that this video is legit consenting adults, you're good.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  >What is it people don't get about this? these "people" get it. They just don't care if it's rape or a rape fantasy. or in fact just regular vanilla sex between a couple. They want it all gone. For everyone. > It's just sad how sexually repressed some people are and that they think they have the right to control other people. It feels like we are one step from starting to burn "witches" and books again. tbf that's almost human nature at this point. Some people just enjoy leading/ruling/controlling others. This is just another form of control for them.
TheGigaChad 5y ago
There is a lot of money on the line in the porn industry, they should take hard stance against that nutjob.
sureglymop 5y ago
Twitter boggles my mind... One large thread of information broken up into tiny pieces that can easily be taken out of context by retweeting or even worse by quote tweeting. Truly the pinnacle of how we should report/publish information. Luckily no important institution or politicians use this as their official information channel, am I right? We don't even have to dive into content aggregation/recommendation algorithms to realize how terrible this is.
amai 5y ago
There are so many companies out there profiting from selling weapons, destroying the environment and misusing cheap labour in awful dictatorships. But these are issues Mastercard and Visa don‘t seem to care about at all. Where is the NYT article pointing out these issues?
0xbadcafebee 5y ago
It would be really great if this were an actual article somewhere and not a thousand Twitter posts.
shadilay 5y ago
This person appears to see a vast conspiracy by /the christians/. It's all just so bizarre.

443 points by deegles 5y ago

kjgkjhfkjf 5y ago

The world really needs an alternative to these tweet serials. They're extremely annoying to read.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Blogs exist, but due to network effect any given blog post is less likely to be auto-surfaced by an algorithm into people's field of vision than a stream of dozens of individual Twitter posts.
- dariusj18 5y ago
  Just more evidence that effective != better
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    Agreed. Throughout its history, the story demonstrated by Twitter is that network effect is more important than technical competence. From their scaling- pains failwhale era through to this week where they accidentally de-verified Danny DeVito, the site continues to be extremely popular in spite of, not because of, its technical design and competent implementation.
honkdaddy 5y ago
Part of the advantage to tweet threads like this is that other users can reply directly to any one of the n tweets in the thread, rather than commenting on the thread as a whole. Agreed that it can be clunky to read depending on the platform, but there's a reason lots of prominent personalities and bloggers still use them.
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  > Part of the advantage to tweet threads like this is that other users can reply directly to any one of the n tweets in the thread, rather than commenting on the thread as a whole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_styl... Too bad the inline reply style got lost in email culture, but it's good to know it's alive and well on Twitter!
  - neutronicus 5y ago
    Personally, I'm glad it's mostly dead, at least in a forum context. To me, at least, the inline replies were always a signal that a conversation was about to degenerate into an interminable running battle over minutiae.
EForEndeavour 5y ago
Here's the entire Twitter thread in one page: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428584131835748359.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428584131835748359.html I hate that we seem to have come full circle: 1. Write coherent, long-form articles which require sustained attention to write and read, but unfortunately can't be easily discovered or nonverbally reacted to by people sitting on toilets. 2. Write intentionally length-limited microblog posts or "tweets" as a cute experiment in brevity by design and creativity under constraints. There's no room for nuance and multi-person conversations are abysmal, but at least your stream-of-consciousness musings have the potential to be "liked" by toilet-bound readers across the world jonesing for buttery-smooth exploding-heart animations. 3. Write coherent, long-form articles, but then break them up into snippets of at most 280 characters, tweet the first one, then reply to yourself dozens of times to reconstruct the original article, forcing readers to scroll past dozens of redundant copies of your profile pic (which of course doesn't depict you) and your clever-only-the-first-two-times pseudonym, truncated over and over, only to invoke a third-party article reconstruction service by replying "@threadreaderapp unroll please."
Method-X 5y ago
Like an article or blog post.
vbezhenar 5y ago
The world has an alternative since the web was born. Just host HTML page somewhere. Those who use twitter just don't care about their readers convenience. That's why I generally avoid any twitter links.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
davikrr 5y ago
These comments about Twitter are really getting tiring. See any Foone thread and you'll almost always realize it's getting derailed by a huge comment thread complaining about Twitter.
certnlyuncertn 5y ago
'Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful.'
johnnyanmac 5y ago
Literally any other website. Even a Youtube comment would be easier to read. But Twitter gets you views, so we're stuck with this.

neogodless 5y ago

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428584131835748359.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428584131835748359.html

Symmetry 5y ago
It would be great if people could submit tweet threads in threaderapp, or the mods could have a policy of threadifying tween threads by default the way they fix titles and so forth.
- ianai 5y ago
  Agree. Twitter threads are pretty illegible and supposedly communicating well is in this sites objective.
gammarator 5y ago
Thanks. Twitter has apparently taken a page from Reddit’s playbook and won’t let me view the whole thread on mobile without downloading their app.
- partido3619463 5y ago
  Switch to any other mobile browser (even on iOS) and the prompt goes away.
zucker42 5y ago
I can't even read the whole page without logging in. I wish people would stop using Twitter as a long-form blogging platform.

thepasswordis 5y ago

MasterCard doesn’t want to process payments for child pornography which only fans hosts. The argument for payment processors having too much power was had over a decade ago when they everybody stopped allowing donations to Wikileaks. No, they shouldn’t have that power, it should be the courts who shut down only fans by jailing the people who work there. But I’m also not going to shed any tears over some people who willfully exploit children losing their ability to make money from it.

GDC7 5y ago
By the same token we should shut down the internet, the USD and also credit cards because CP use them. CP also breath air, time to make it illegal? There is no point foregoing privacy if authorities don't even try to precisely target bad actors but decide to nuke the whole area with a 100 Megaton Tsar Atomic Bomb instead
- StevePerkins 5y ago
  Philosophers and legal theorists over the centuries have have come up with the concept of "proximate cause" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_cause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_cause) for these types of discussions. Essentially, there was recognition that ALL kinds of things could be seen as connected to a bad thing. But for the miners, we would not have extracted the iron ore that was used to make the steel that was used to make the firearm that was used to shoot the victim, etc. So "proximate cause" is a discussion of whether or not the degree of connection is close enough to make the blame ridiculous or not. Not really taking a side in this debate here. Simply pointing out that just coming up with a slew of "but for" causes is not a libertarian trump card for everything. Societies and systems can rightfully draw the line somewhere more reasonable.
dr-detroit 5y ago
wikileaks the terrorists who hate me and their entire contribution to journalism is "did you know people die in wars??? or did i blow your mind please give me more money" give me a break.

cataphract 5y ago

Aren't the payment processors not abusing their dominant position, like what happened a decade ago with Wikileaks? At least at that time they had the excuse they were pressured by the US government. What's motivating them this time? Do we need some sort of liability safe-harbor for payment processors?

thrower123 5y ago
Regardless of any legal safeguard you might legislate into place, it's radioactive PR to be associated in any way with sex trafficking and child porn.
- cataphract 5y ago
  I'm not sure it is. When people hear "PornHub is disseminating / profiting off revenge porn", does anyone think "shame on their payment processors"? I think the outrage is directed at the operators of the websites themselves.
  - icegreentea2 5y ago
    People with only outrage won't think about their payment processors. Those with outrage who think through their options to enact change will think of their payment processors, and direct group pressure on them.
    - jrwoodruff 5y ago
      I'm very skeptical that anyone would think through this scenario and arrive at boycotting an entire payment network. Not just PornHubs bank, or payment processor, but an entire credit card network. And of those that did, I doubt it would be a big enough group for Mastercard to even notice. Unless that 'someone' is a major institution like Bank of America, or the federal government.
      - thrower123 5y ago

jmull 5y ago

I'm sorry, but blaming all this on a NYT opinion piece is idiotic.

Scaevolus 5y ago
The payment processors banned MindGeek soon after that NYT article. Do you think that was a coincidence? MasterCard's new rules appear to be a direct response to the concerns the article raised. Is that coincidental?
- throwaway444590 5y ago
  while that is true mindgeek sites still take mastercard. if i am not mistaken mastercard never left them just asked for stricter control.
- jmull 5y ago
  And your theory is that a progressive journalist is calling the shots as Mastercard? I'm pretty sure MC would look a lot different if that were true.
  - rnd0 5y ago
    It's more likely that the progressive journalist was a hired gun working for someone who told him what to write about.
dboreham 5y ago
The BBC is claiming responsibility: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58273914 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58273914
johnnyanmac 5y ago
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1s9f698vwhczr/Bill-Ackman-Sent-a-Text-to-the-CEO-of-Mastercard-What-Happened-Next-Is-a-Parable-for-ESG https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1s9f698vwhczr...

fxtentacle 5y ago

I believe his argumentation that this is a push by Christian organizations might be correct, but I believe he's deluded in that he appears to think that he's speaking for the majority. "65% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christians."

LeifCarrotson 5y ago
> Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend. [1] That Pew survey suggesting 65% are Christian seems vulnerable to the halo effect - a little irony is present in the name. People who were conditioned as children to believe they ought to believe in Christianity (which is different from believing in Christianity) will answer 'yes' to such a survey question even if their measurable actions like church/mosque/synagogue attendance or OnlyFans donations indicate differently. [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-...
swiley 5y ago
Most Christians I know are against legislating morality because that could result in the government being involved in the church.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  Most Christians I know are way more myopic than that.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    There are many Christians, and the people you know are not an adequate random sample for statistical inference in general.
- MichaelGroves 5y ago
  Where is the demarcation line between "legislating morality" and simply "legislating"? Murder is morally wrong, aren't laws against murder thus legislating morality? I don't claim to know many christians, but the phrase "legislating morality" isn't in the common vernacular of those I know. They advocate for what they believe in, and advocate against that which they oppose, the same as anybody else.

busymom0 5y ago

This might be a good time to discuss whether payment processors should have the ability to restrict legal trades (CP is a few bad apples). This applies to things like sex work and porn but also censorship of political views. I think it's stupid to pay for porn when there's so much available for free but who am I to judge what people do with their money and body as long as it's consensual adults? Plus if we are to enjoy the free stuff, we also gotta make sure the content creators get paid. Cuties was allowed but onlyfans isn't okay? Also this tweet thread doesn't seem honest imo. It seems more like a political attack against christians. The author wants to lump all christians as one but doesn't want that to be done to all sex workers? As someone who's lived in both Hindu and Muslim majority country, the whole anti sex work and anti porn thing isn't a Christian exclusive thing. Anecdotal but my Christian side of friends and family are very tolerant of gay and porn unlike my Hindu and Muslim ones back home. The Tweet author thinks Nick Kristof is right wing? I can't take this thread seriously if the author can be so blatantly wrong for political purposes.

nszceta 5y ago
There is no room for discussion. Your civil liberties are being eroded with this measure.
- krapp 5y ago
  Don't say "there is no room for discussion" on a discussion forum, it's obnoxious.
  - deegles 5y ago
    I recently learned the term "thought-terminating cliche" and this is one! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...
  - rnd0 5y ago
    Being obnoxious doesn't make it any less true (nor does using the latest thought terminating cliche of calling it a "thought-terminating cliche"). This was designed with the intent of taking our civil liberties away, and that is the effect it will have in the end. All the debate in the world does not change that -in fact that debate (rife with "just playing devil's advocate" nonsense undoubtably) will only serve to kick up dust and obscure the bottom line issue.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

after_care 5y ago

How far away is crypto from being a viable alternative payment processor? The problems I see are the translation layer between fiat and crypto, the fluctuation of value of tokens, the long confirmation process of many tokens, the environmental impact, and the physical infrastructure (atms, etc). Each individual problems seems solvable, and it would be a significant historical event if banking was moved to these decentralized platforms.

icegreentea2 5y ago
It's the translation layer between fiat and crypto which will be the problem. That's the layer that will get sued for the same reasons MasterCard is changing their ToS.
dboreham 5y ago
There have been many attempts. So far none have succeeded. The main problem is fiat exchange, which ends up being tied into some country's regulatory regime.
lottin 5y ago
Banking is already decentralised. There is more than one bank. I think you might be thinking about "central banking", but central banks don't provide banking services.
- shmel 5y ago
  Yeah, but how does it help with essentially duopoly of payment processors? How does it help with the US finance industry exporting their rules under ultimatum "either you comply or you will be excluded from the world financial system"? We saw how it played out with funding of WikiLeaks for example. We need cryptocurrency to avoid this happening again.
  - lottin 5y ago
    I'm sceptical about the ability of cryptocurrencies to solve problems. I think in order to solve a problem, first you need to spend some time understanding the problem, then come up with a solution. The crypto community doesn't seem much interested in thinking about problems. They think they have a solution that will fix a whole lot of problems, but in this case, like in many others, I don't think the solution would work, or even make sense.

chitowneats 5y ago

"So why the rule changes? Because last December the New York Times published an opinion piece by Nick Kristof caller “The Children of Pornhub” that accused the site and its parent company of profiting off revenge porn, child porn and sex trafficking....which, to be clear, they kinda were." Kinda, huh? Of course the more important point, according the thread's author, is that: "Kristof’s story might have been correct on some of PornHub’s abuses but it was deeply manipulative and painfully wrongheaded about sex trafficking in porn and, like almost anything he writes about sex, a filtered version of Christian dominionist propaganda" Sure, okay. In the future maybe these sites shouldn't sexually exploit children. Then they won't be exposed to such right-wing attacks.

Telemakhos 5y ago
My right-wing friends would be very surprised to learn that the New York Times and Nick Kristof now represent them.
- busymom0 5y ago
  Yep. The Tweet thread is so easily proven wrong. Nick Kristof is not right wing by any means based on his articles: https://www.nytimes.com/column/nicholas-kristof https://www.nytimes.com/column/nicholas-kristof
- chitowneats 5y ago
  Yeah I should have put "right-wing" in scare quotes.

rattray 5y ago

I hadn't been aware of the onlyfans change: https://www.xbiz.com/news/261183/onlyfans-releases-official-statement-about-upcoming-ban-on-sexually-explicit-conduct https://www.xbiz.com/news/261183/onlyfans-releases-official-... Sounds like they're still allowing nudity but disallowing "sexually explicit conduct" and will clarify what they mean by that soon...

brodouevencode 5y ago
Probably falls under "I know it when I see it" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

rattray 5y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28237274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28237274

highfrequency 5y ago

Why isn’t it viable to just accept Visa, if only MasterCard has new rules? Does not seem to justify scrapping the entire business.

dageshi 5y ago
They expect VISA will follow suit.
- Aachen 5y ago
  Source? Or are you just assuming?
  - altendo 5y ago
    I believe that it's an assumption for now, but a reasonable one to make. I think it's unlikely that Visa exposes itself to legal risks where MasterCard is not - why give your competitor an edge like that?
    - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
      That assumes that there actually are legal risks, and that there isn’t more money to be made by continuing to process these payments.
      - dageshi 5y ago
        For Mastercard and Visa the money to be made is a rounding error on a rounding error, there are lots of other industries that don't have the same PR risks as adult content does.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    There's a fair amount of precedent. Recently it's what happened to pornhub... these evangelical groups put general pressure on the industry and when one company folds the focus on the others ramp up. Mastercard and Visa compete pretty closely so neither wants to be "the one that's ok with sex trafficking" (total bs, but how it's framed) and end up with more regulatory scrutiny than the other.

twic 5y ago

Seen this thread going around, but it seems like it skips over the important bit. > So why the rule changes? Because last December the New York Times published an opinion piece by Nick Kristof caller “The Children of Pornhub” that accused the site and its parent company of profiting off revenge porn, child porn and sex trafficking. How do you get from 'opinion piece in a newspaper' to 'gigantic transnational financial infrastructure company changes its rules'? In my experience, huge companies do not make changes like this purely on the basis of newspaper columns. Was there legal advice? Political pressure? Regulatory pressure? All of those would be much more material than a piece in a newspaper.

dqv 5y ago
Rumor has it that OF is the next target of Exodus Cry
- Pet_Ant 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_Cry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_Cry “ Exodus Cry is a non-profit advocacy organization seeking the abolition of the legal commercial sex industry, including pornography, strip clubs and sex work, as well as illegal sex trafficking. The organization originally developed out of a weekly prayer group founded in 2007 by Benjamin Nolot, a filmmaker and member of the charismatic Christian International House of Prayer.”
  - sschueller 5y ago
    Maybe we should get a law passed making it illegal to fund any non-profit church with a credit card...
    - hulitu 5y ago
      You cannot abolish the church.
    - brodouevencode 5y ago
      In the churches of which I've been a member, most tithes and donations come in cash. More orthodox Christians won't even have credit cards because the consumerist nature is contrary to scripture.

zozbot234 5y ago

The concern that various kinds of legal sex work might be a de-facto haven for human trafficking is at least many decades old, does not solely or even mainly originate from people identifying as Christians, and seems to have a pretty solid factual basis - at the very least, there is a consensus on the broad argument if not the details. The Twitter thread does not even attempt to fairly acknowledge these facts. Very sad and disappointing.

BarryMilo 5y ago
Is it worth continuing to push sex workers into illegality, thereby putting them in danger? Put another way, do we have a right to sacrifice one population to protect another? Allow me to doubt it.
- thendrill 5y ago
  Problem is that sex work is a very wierd exempt from current social norms. We do not like meritocracy but we do agree that hot young women can make a lot of money just because they were born this way.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > Is it worth continuing to push sex workers into illegality If that's the price to pay in order to rescue vulnerable people who are being exploited and trafficked, very much so. Sex work is a decadent luxury at best; human freedom and agency are worth so much more. > thereby putting them in danger? There's no proof that legitimate sex workers are being "put in danger". They might be de-facto forbidden from engaging in that line of work, but there's a solid rationale for such a policy; it might just be the best we can do given our broader circumstances.
  - Jcowell 5y ago
    The question is, is criminal regulation better than legal regulation? Are sexually trafficked victims truly helped when this work is criminalized rather than heavily regulated ? To me it’s like how some states try to combat Teen pregnancy and abortion by teaching abstinence instead of proper health education and provide accessible resources.

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cbg0 5y ago

If you want to read the thread more easily: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428587369867792392.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1428587369867792392.html

Miner49er 5y ago

So the timing of this, and the Apple's CSAM is interesting. Are companies facing a legal liability or afraid of facing one in the future? Are they worried that they could potentially be liable under FOSTA-SESTA?

relax88 5y ago
I think this is highly likely to be the thing causing these changes in the porn industry. I’m skeptical that we would be seeing the large scale changes to sites like Craigslist, Pornhub, and OnlyFans just because of a NYT article and some prude Christian activists.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  > and some prude Christian activists And where do you think FOSTA-SESTA, the legal troubles and the sudden shift of mind from payment processors comes from? Do you think they randomly started to care out of nowhere? At a high level, yes companies are being forced by payment processors and legal troubles, but if you dig a bit deeper, it almost always trace back to christian fundamentalist lobbyists such as Exodus Cry

MBCook 5y ago

There was also a recent BBC investigation into OnlyFans that found they constantly bent their rules for popular content makers and had a real problem with sub-18 people on the platform. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58255865 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58255865

dijit 5y ago
The content they’re talking about is reprehensible. (Beastiality, incest, prostitution) but I’m wary of things being labelled “illegal” since in the UK, facesitting, spanking and “water sports” are illegal. So it’s easy to cite 1 case of beastiality and later say there are “200,000 illegal articles” when 199,999 could be spanking.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  Obscenity is famously subjective: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” - http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/obscenity-case-files/obscenity-case-files-jacobellis-v-ohio-i-know-it-when-i-see-it/ http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/obscenity-case-files/ob...
- inetknght 5y ago
  > prostitution I argue: prostitution is illegal but not reprehensible.
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    It’s not even illegal in large parts of the world. I can understand wanting to fight revenge porn, child porn, human traficing and exploitation, but we’re also making it unreasonable for prostitutes, porn stars and cam girls to do their job. And I kinda doubt that these rules makes much difference to the unlawful actors in those businesses.
    - 5y ago

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

Net... uhm.. payment-processors-neutrality! I have no idea why payment processors get to choose and pick what they want to process and what they don't.

mchusma 5y ago
This. If you are going to be a legal dualolopy, then you can't cut off payments like you can't cut off power or water. Personally I breaking thei anti-trust behavior entirely, so people have options.
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
  It's the high chargeback rate.
  - detaro 5y ago
    That's always the excuse why the payment processors don't like it (payment networks will ban them if their customers cause to many chargebacks), but the payment networks themselves clearly have control over those rules and can put requirements in place to compensate (e.g. require insurance, delay payouts, ...) without full-on banning business types.
  - AuryGlenz 5y ago
    They could simply automatically raise fees depending on chargeback rate. It’s not a particularly hard problem to solve.
  - aembleton 5y ago
    Don't they pass the costs of the charge back onto their merchants?
cblconfederate 5y ago
Never gonna happen. Controlling the money flow is basically how power has always worked. Unless you have nukes, you can't enforce it

angry_octet 5y ago

Another good thread explaining the leverage Visa/MC and banking generally have in companies, and impact of vague FOSTA/SESTA legislation in the US. Puritanical and evangelical lobby groups pushed these laws through Congress, and now they are reaping the rewards. It's unfortunate that the rest of the world has to suffer for this failure. https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1428442523001831425?s=19 https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1428442523001831425?s=19

nonameiguess 5y ago

At least this explains why normal porn sites keep living on perfectly well using MasterCard and Visa. They already have to follow regulatory requirements to demonstrate they are complying with age and consent laws, each video includes a front-matter frame saying where you can get the documentation of their compliance, and many include behind-the-scenes extra content showing all of the performers presenting government-issued IDs and signing consent forms. This brings this conflict out of the realm of adult entertainment and into a broader conflict between incumbent central providers that are held to regulatory standards and apps providing a platform for individual contractors that don't follow those requirements. It's in the same field as people arguing AirBNB is only able to exist because it's allowing people to operate hotels without having to comply with hotel regulations, and Uber allows people to operate taxi services without complying with taxi regulations. OnlyFans was giving individuals a way to produce adult films without having to comply with adult film regulations related to age and consent verification of the performers.

Notanothertoo 5y ago
Uhh pornhub takes btc and ach only
neaanopri 5y ago
If that's the case why can't OF impose these requirements on their creators?
- relax88 5y ago
  Presumably because of the costs of verification and record keeping. A single adult video studio might have a maximum of a few hundred people who they have to keep records for. Those people are paid per shoot, and the content is owned by the studio. There is a high ratio of revenue to number of people whose records must be kept. On OnlyFans, they have a huge amount of people producing a small volume of content and making very little money, of which they only get a cut.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago

hhsub 5y ago

Saying that the evangelists are anti-Semitic is laughable. If it wasn't for the evangelists in America, Israel would not have the billions in military aid they get from the US every year and the country wouldn't exist today. Not to mention how insane it is to bring up anti-Semitism for absolutely no reason at all. Being "against sex" may be stupid, but... anti-Semitic?

throwawayswede 5y ago

I'm not knocking down anyone's decision for how to earn money or spend their time, but the porn industry in general (corporate or indie) is notorious for exploitative attitudes and behavior, whether it's Pornhub exploiting unverifiable nature of some videos and favoring turning a blind eye to the whole thing until tension mounted, or a someone being in a relationship with someone else and doing videos together because god knows how much fucked up shit they've been through by the time they became 18. I'm not in favor of big corporations, but in this case, the rules made by Mastercard seem sensible to me, and I'm not surprised that the Pornhub/Onlyfans are gonna position themselves as "being forced by the big companies to abandon the creators they support".

johnnyanmac 5y ago
>but the porn industry in general (corporate or indie) is notorious for exploitative attitudes and behavior like pretty much every industry nowadays. If I had to scrub my life of everything profiting off of exploitation, I wouldn't have much left. Even if my computer survived, I wouldn't even have animated pornography because the animation industry in general is also exploitative. To each their own, but I just see this as the latest example of taking a nail out by demolishing the entire wall. The nail is still there and there's a bunch of non-nail material hit in the crossfire

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d0100 5y ago

So in Brazil the government blocked WhatsApp payments until they launched the central bank's own easy payment method called PIX PIX is so good because there is no middle men, no transaction cost(for now), just an easy money transfer Solutions like PIX would remove completely the pressure that credit card providers have on companies and individuals, especially when it comes to sex work

Jcowell 5y ago
Will it ? My question is is PIX our money or the banks ? The point Of credit cards, aside from the ability to use money not immediately on hand, is the ability to shift the liability off of oneself and onto another who has interest in getting their money back. If fraud occurs , the bank more incentivized to get their money back and the debtors money is protected.
- d0100 5y ago
  PIX is only for one-off payments, it is essentially a bank transfer, you can't setup recurring payments. So that should lower user fraud and subsequent chargebacks (because the client can't) On the other hand, because of fraud (social engineering), the central bank is looking to allow for cancelling payments, but afaik there is still nothing planned

cblconfederate 5y ago

Looking forward to when (aptly-named) MasterCard will ban those other networks that put young girls often less than 13 in a behavioral treadmill of entertaining other users with their photos for pithy "likes" that don't even translate to monetary rewards. Should I hold my breath?

detcader 5y ago
Being r-ped is as normal and consequential as posing for an advertisement or dancing in a TikTok, is what you're saying?
- neolog 5y ago
  Controlling children's social environment to direct them into emotional dependence on corporate stimulation is really harmful. Unfortunately MasterCard doesn't seem to be working on that problem.
  - detcader 5y ago
    Conservatism runs on the assumption that young girls and women are natural property of men (the father, then the husband) and so for many people, these are innocent daughters lost on OnlyFans. But no political faction is active on the issue of social media's damage to children since no one[0] is making the connection between Instagram and the uptick in suicide (and other results) in young girls. And I doubt many conservative fathers really care if their kid learns to wife from TikTok rather than Barbies [0] with any power, that is -- there have been plenty of op-eds, but they exist to drive clicks from worrying parents, not to advance any call for material changes

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rendall 5y ago

I've never heard a good argument against prostitution. The arguments that I hear are against trafficking, rape, child molestation; which are all non-sequiturs: true and valid statements that do not support the argument itself. Can anyone here argue against prostitution per se? I'll listen.

draw_down 5y ago
I don’t mean to be rude but this is hopelessly naive. This isn’t MasterCard engaging in a marketplace-of-ideas good faith debate. This is using whichever tactics work to score points against whatever you’re trying to defeat. Thus the junk about CP, trafficking etc. I would hesitate to even describe this as politics 101, it’s more like what students understand before they walk in the door of politics 101. If someone says “your mom is so fat she sits around the house”, you don’t retort with an accurate measure of your mother’s BMI paired with a series of astute points about how it’s impossible to compare an adipose human body with the size of a dwelling. Like... seriously
cblconfederate 5y ago
how is onlyfans prostitution?
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  Part of the arguments in the tweet is based on reports that caught some accounts offering live sex to paying participants. That's apparently part of what lead to the story of OF removing sexual content.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
vbezhenar 5y ago
A generic argument: prostitution allows woman without any skills to earn plenty of money which might convince women do go this way even if they don't really enjoy it. The same argument could be made about IT. Prostitutes sell their private parts, programmers sell their brains.

ramesh31 5y ago

Regardless of the CSAM issue, regardless of the "revenge porn" issue, even for fully legitimate performers these publishers such as OnlyFans and Pornhub are acting as digital pimps skimming billions of dollars from the value provided by their users. We should be promoting FOSS alternatives that allow performers to truly own their own content and control who profits from it. Not crying over the takedown of another walled garden big tech aggregator. They are no different than the sleazy strip club owner who takes a cut of his dancer's tips.

johnnyanmac 5y ago
The "FOSS" alternative is a single model with their own site, which some bigger ones have. Even then, they have to setup some payment processor, on top of domain/hosing costs and find some solution on designing the actual page. Mostly doable, but a pain. Except I don't think we'll have FOSS payment processing software until (if ever) cryptocurrency becomes mainstream. This is like asking why everyone uploads to Steam when they can just publish their game on their own website. These services are selling convivence and curation (and to a much lesser extent, "security". i.e. the website isn't full of viruses), like 90% of the big websites.

dr-detroit 5y ago

I have to log in to read this? Society is crumbling around me!

bruceb 5y ago

The winner here might actually be the majority of NSFW content makers on OF who are mortgaging their future reputations for very small payouts. (not a judgment on what they do but the reality of the situation

frakkingcylons 5y ago
You post this exact comment on every recent thread about OF.
- bruceb 5y ago
  It absolutely is. Because its true. All this talk about free market and puritanical this and that, when the reality of the situation should be pointed out.

dmamills 5y ago

> These rules will basically require that OnlyFans (and every other site that accepts MasterCard payments) not only fully verify every user and every person who appears in every adult video, but review all posted content before publication, including real-time review of livestreams It became extremely difficult to prove that there are not naked children on our platform. So we've decided to take our money and run.

johnnyanmac 5y ago
well, yes. That's all businesses. If the costs exceed the expected revenue, then you either eat the loss or reduce the (potential) operating costs. There isn't many (moral) ways to allow for reviewing every submission manually while also getting content published in a timely matter. Not for a site this size.

raoa 5y ago

This is a country where it's practically illegal to hire 13 year olds to work in flower shops, which is the sort of gig apt to teach a whole lot of commercially useful stuff. This is with or without parental consent. Maybe that is the sort of freedom people should get worked up over first?

deleted 5y ago

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Vaslo 5y ago

It was informative and then it started stuff like this: > Almost the entire anti-trafficking movement is an Evangelical project to get liberal supporters to sign off on a laundry list of Christian anti-sex policies. It’s been one of their most successful propaganda projects. It’s also likely gotten a lot of sex workers killed. I'm libertarian, do what you want with your body or money but know the risks. That said, someone could also argue that making it more difficult to sell your porn or get involved in the seedier parts of this PROBABLY stopped some people from ruining their lives, staying off drugs, etc. Again, don't like either argument, but there are two "probably" sides to this.

detcader 5y ago
It's also source-free. Love the flourish at the end with the typical third-wave male feminist line of "this has [probably] gotten sex workers killed" when what really kills sex workers is violent men and poverty/drugs.
- neolog 5y ago
  I agree the perpetrators are to blame for violence and the poverty/abuse to blame for victims' inability to obtain redress. But the legal system has a role to play in ensuring noncoercion and empowering workers, which it's currently failing at. That said, OP's claims on the concealed religious motivation and the negative effects of current sex work policies on consenting workers are essentially true.[1] The president of the Adult Performance Artist Guild has written about the negative consequences of MasterCard's restrictive policies for performers ("I have received numerous reports of workers being removed and having no way to pay the bills because their income was taken away").[2] Unfortunately sex work research shows that closing sites like Backpage does reduce the capabilities of sex workers: "the financial situation of the vast majority of research participants has deteriorated, as has their ability to access community and screen clients".[3] Groups seeking to eliminate sex work often present misleading information and advocate policies that make sex work harder but not safer. There are policies that can improve safety and consent without harming consenting sex workers, but those policies need to be created with context and measurable consequences in mind, not sensationalism. [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war-pornhub https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war... [2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/porn-world-we-are-sick-of-mastercards-hollywood-hypocrisy https://www.thedailybeast.com/porn-world-we-are-sick-of-mast... [3] https://antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/atrjournal/article/view/448 https://antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/atrjournal/artic...

e-clinton 5y ago

I see the move by OnlyFans as simply trying to appeal to a much broader and larger market. There’s more money to be made outside of porn than there is in it.

thow16161 5y ago

What is going to happen to cam sites, like MyFreeCams, Chaturbate, etc..? I assume these rules will make accepting paymets impossible for any adult site with live-streaming, and for Cam sites, that's their core business. Potential answers include a move to cryptocurrency to avoid payment processors, or a move to strictly non-explicit content to appease them. In the near term, either would decimate these sites. In the long term, crypto might be better for performers, as the cam sites could take a far smaller cut of payments.

zug_zug 5y ago

Opinion - NYT and any credible newspaper should run a conflict-of-interest statement on every "opinion" piece they accept. It should be 1 paragraph giving the name of the person who chose to run the story, a 2-sentence justification, and a formal statement that they had no financial, personal, or self-interest motive or connection to this piece/author/topic.

prestigious 5y ago

Feels like switching to crypto payments would be far more likely to keep the site alive than whatever it is they are planning on doing.

aaron_m04 5y ago
Isn't it pretty difficult to have recurring payments with crypto, without some payment processor in the middle?
- jandrese 5y ago
  Plus the technical difficulties with crypto in general. There is a higher bar for getting someone to set up a crypto account than it is to take a credit card number. A lot of people would just go "screw this, I can find porn on the Internet without this nonsense".

imperistan 5y ago

Postcultrev says the rules about proving consent etc make it a lot harder for small indie producers. But is it really that hard for them to prove consent and identity for a small number of performers? I suspect that’s a lot harder for a bigger platform, right?

detcader 5y ago
"Think of the suffering, destitute indie producers!" is sex-positive activsts' way of turning liberals, usually sympathetic to the exploited, into pro-capitalist libertarians on the topic of porn/prostitution specifically
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > "Think of the suffering, destitute indie producers!" is sex-positive activsts' way of turning liberals, usually sympathetic to the exploited, into pro-capitalist libertarians on the topic of porn/prostitution specifically That propaganda tactic is probably more effective in that area than any other, but it's not exclusive to it. It's basically an attempt to hide a large system of exploitation in the shadow behind a very narrow sympathetic story, and that's standard operating procedure for people who create those exploitative systems (see also: gig work, child labor, etc.).

throw3849 5y ago

Every US porn site needs to keep record of models, release forms etc.. This has been problem for a long time, for example old VHS tapes do not usually comply. OnlyFans and other sites were in violation of these rules for very long time. Edit: fix typo

dragonwriter 5y ago
> OnlyFans and other sites very in violation of these rules for very long time. I think the big problem is actually with fairly recent changes in how the rules are applied (and maybe to the rules themselves, not just application) to intermediate distributors between the producer and the consumer which has caused existing sites to have compliance issues.
- throw3849 5y ago
  OnlyFans is still a pornsite and should comply. Pornhub has the same producer/subscribers model and is doing fine.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Pornhub has the same producer/subscribers model and is doing fine. Pornhub is, from what I understand, very much not doing fine. For reasons directly related to the same kind of verification issues.
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    >Pornhub has the same producer/subscribers model and is doing fine. No it doesn't. They "verify" users to upload, but they aren't necessarily verifying every second of content they upload. Which is why the site STILL has copyrighted content (e.g. animated hentai) uploaded.
johnnyanmac 5y ago
Onlyfans is not employing their workers. They aren't bound to the rules since they aren't documented as "a porn site" and have no binding employment contract with them. These laws don't apply and I'm sure actual legal experts on these companies know this better than you.

newaccount2021 5y ago

This is a recurring theme...the twitterverse clings to the notion that any oversight of the adult industry will drive sex workers underground. What's not being said is that the young, white male userbase of twitter are the primary consumers of onlyfans and are just hiding their prurient tastes behind the unassailable shield of civil liberties.

swiley 5y ago

Don’t like crypto currency? Stop making it necessary.

atlasunshrugged 5y ago

This is off topic, but this actually does seem like one of the few areas where crypto could make a difference. Why hasn't there been a good implementation of an onlyfans style platform that lets someone transfer funds direct from a linked coinbase account or something instead of depending on a Mastercard/Visa for payment processing?

PastaMonster 5y ago

I've read through the comments. Pornhub debacle is mentioned often. No one here is mentioning that many people have fantasies like a rape fantasy, a teenage fantasy, etc. A good search algorithm picks up on that and will make suggestions based on your previous searches/watched videos and the videos other people with similar interests have watched. This should be obvious. The videos have bad unspecified titles because it's easier to find. People are unspecified in their search terms. They don't search for "rape fantasy" they search for "rape". They don't search for "feet fetish" they search for "feet". What is it people don't get about this? I think people should just mind their own business and stop policing what other people do. "If you don't like it don't watch it". As long as it's not illegal leave people alone with their fantasies. Don't be so damn judgmental. It's just sad how sexually repressed some people are and that they think they have the right to control other people. It feels like we are one step from starting to burn "witches" and books again.

shrimpx 5y ago
> As long as it's not illegal Isn't this the crux of the issue? That's what Mastercard is saying, too. As long as you've super duper verified that this video is legit consenting adults, you're good.
johnnyanmac 5y ago
>What is it people don't get about this? these "people" get it. They just don't care if it's rape or a rape fantasy. or in fact just regular vanilla sex between a couple. They want it all gone. For everyone. > It's just sad how sexually repressed some people are and that they think they have the right to control other people. It feels like we are one step from starting to burn "witches" and books again. tbf that's almost human nature at this point. Some people just enjoy leading/ruling/controlling others. This is just another form of control for them.

TheGigaChad 5y ago

There is a lot of money on the line in the porn industry, they should take hard stance against that nutjob.

sureglymop 5y ago

Twitter boggles my mind... One large thread of information broken up into tiny pieces that can easily be taken out of context by retweeting or even worse by quote tweeting. Truly the pinnacle of how we should report/publish information. Luckily no important institution or politicians use this as their official information channel, am I right? We don't even have to dive into content aggregation/recommendation algorithms to realize how terrible this is.

amai 5y ago

There are so many companies out there profiting from selling weapons, destroying the environment and misusing cheap labour in awful dictatorships. But these are issues Mastercard and Visa don‘t seem to care about at all. Where is the NYT article pointing out these issues?

0xbadcafebee 5y ago

It would be really great if this were an actual article somewhere and not a thousand Twitter posts.

shadilay 5y ago

This person appears to see a vast conspiracy by /the christians/. It's all just so bizarre.