5 ms·

OnlyFans Paid Chatters Lawsuit

42 points by harambae 3y ago

magicalhippo 3y ago
> Have you ever talked to an OnlyFans model? She's NOT talking to you. It's a team of paid chatters she works with to defraud you. Like duh. Maybe it's just my IRC roots showing but why is this a surprise to anyone?
- vdaea 3y ago
  I get it, but "duh" is not a legal defense. If they are saying they are talking to you but you are actually talking to some guy in India, that seems very illegal.
  - sshine 3y ago
    What law is that?
    - user_7832 3y ago
      Some sort or variant of misrepresentation of services received I would guess. I assume consumer law would cover it.
- mingus88 3y ago
  Just because the fraud is obvious doesn’t mean it’s not fraud
  - bozhark 3y ago
    What’s the fraud? Really?
    - pavel_lishin 3y ago
      If I'm paying to talk to Person X, but it's actually Person Y pretending to be X, is that not outright fraud?
      - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
        What is the difference between popular Instagram accounts? Surely celebrities have media managers who handle day to day fan communication.
        jstarfish 3y ago
        People don't pay to talk to media managers.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        JetSpiegel 3y ago
        Well, Twitter Blue exists...
        pavel_lishin 3y ago
        Do those popular Instagram accounts charge you money to send and receive messages, while explicitly claiming that it's the person whose account it is that's reading your messages and sending those responses?
- pyuser583 3y ago
  There’s a current scandal at a US university. The University President and his wife had an OF account, and were producing content as a passion project. I don’t know how common that is. I expect the people trying to optimize profit are more common, but also switch platform and genre a lot, according to where the money is. But OF is certainly trying to portray itself as a passion project type place, however dishonest that may be.
lupire 3y ago
They are seeking class representatives for a class action lawsuit. Or it's a honeypot scam. Class action lawsuits are always on random websites with no security.
- richardfey 3y ago
  The part about blackmailing sounds like hand-waving to me, I also suspect that the whole thing is not genuine.
bdcravens 3y ago
Isn't the implication here that they would be suing OnlyFans, rather than the models? Unless OnlyFans is in on it, don't see how that's doable.
retrac 3y ago
Some more info about the lawsuit: https://avn.com/business/articles/legal/attorney-wants-to-sue-onlyfans-creators-for-fraud-923118.html https://avn.com/business/articles/legal/attorney-wants-to-su... (NSFW warning -- AVN is "Adult Video News") It's an interesting legal thought experiment. Possible analogy: if I claim that Celebrity Y is going to be at an event, and that people who buy a backstage pass will get to briefly meet Celebrity Y, but Celebrity Y is actually a Celebrity Y impersonator, is that dishonest dealing? False advertising?
- trhway 3y ago
  They do that with Putin. Works ok, even for the meetings with the heads of other states (except for China or Turkey - these guys get the real deal refusing to settle for the impersonator)
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    [citation needed]
  - jowea 3y ago
    I understand the logic of that claim for when he's supposedly visiting occupied areas, but why do this when meeting another head of state?
    - trhway 3y ago
      his very bad state of health (while for example the double which went to Mariupol and to Saudi Arabia was in very good shape). The real one would soon or is already dead ("Schrodinger's Putin" - I subscribe for 90% to the theory that he is already dead as for the few recent months I didn't see the real one). The Russian power elite seems to intend to keep the charade going as long as they can, so "socializing" the doubles even at the highest levels makes for the easier transition into the state when the real one isn't available anymore, yet the country would still be led by "Putin" and would even elect him with 85% vote in the coming March elections.
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
throwawayfans 3y ago
Throw away account for obvious reasons. My wife and I run an onlyfans account, a manyvids account and a few other related accounts. I can tell you from extensive networking with other onlyfans creators the number of them using chatters is pretty small, probably less than 1%. I personally have never interacted with someone that uses them. I also run a discord and telegram support server for creators so I interact with a lot, but certainly have not made any kind of scientific measure. Some higher tier models use agencies to run their stuff and that's usually where the chatters come into play. The general consensus is to avoid agencies or managers for obvious reasons. While I personally think it's kind of shady, I very much doubt it's illegal, but ianal. There is one fans platform that I know of that has integrated AI chat bots so shrug
- breakfastduck 3y ago
  > probably less than 1% Probably a significant overlap with the 1% of the highest earning creators though, I'd bet.
- starkparker 3y ago
  > Some higher tier models use agencies to run their stuff and that's usually where the chatters come into play. If this suit is real then I think that's who it's targeting anyway, since that's where the money is. The whole thing seems spurred on by the WaPo article from November about Bryce and Brian Adams, which opens with their $120,000 driveway and piles on the mentions of how much money they make from there. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/onlyfans-bryce-adams-top-earners-creator-economy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/o... > but ianal Cheeky.
- nickthegreek 3y ago
  My anecdotal evidence is the opposite. One couple I know, the male does a lot of the botting for his partner. One of my aging model friends switched from having an OF to running other girls. 3rd model friend use to employ their friend to run around 60% of their operation but the quality suffered a bit and the lost a whale. I recently did a little demo for a friend on how ChatGPT could be used to create Twitter copy for various market types to push OF.
pierat 3y ago
> We’re investigating the OnlyFans industry and have found widespread questionable practices that could put you at risk of extortion, blackmail, or humiliation. > We are working to get justice for all subscribers who have been lied to and defrauded. Fill out the form below to learn more. All information is kept strictly confidential. GIVE US YOUR INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR ACTIVITIES ON A PORN SITE AND WE PROMISES WE'LL DO ONLY GOOD THINGS WITH IT. I mean, what kind of stupid do you all think we are?
- bloopernova 3y ago
  I'm sure they've already gotten a lot of responses. People will be suckered by that little dangle of "potential reward of up to 20k dollars!"
- smsm42 3y ago
  They target the same people who paid good money to chat with some poor guy in Bangladesh believing it's a gorgeous woman, so you tell me how gullible they expect their target audience to be.
- redder23 3y ago
  These are lawyers who found a cause, they get their cut if they win the case, they see that there is a change of getting settlements from high tier girls and agencies for this. It's pretty obvious what going on. Why would I expect anything shady, and what would they have to gain or sell from people porn activities? Every other website with a bit of tracking cookies/fingerprinting knows more about your porn use that you could every tell a bunch of lawyers on your own. You make zero sense and think you are smart. That is hilarious.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cheriot 3y ago
"I'm paying to be deceived, but not like that!" - Robert B. Carey probably This is like getting mad that the Ariel you met in Orlando wasn't the same mermaid as the movie. It's an entertainment business; you're talking to a performer.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
beau_g 3y ago
Is there a precedent that suggests there must be a reasonable expectation that if you are contacting someone over the internet or phone and giving them money, that person has some duty to ensure their internet/TV/professional/social media etc. persona is the person on the other end of the line? I'm sure many have experienced calling phone support for a product you subscribe for, the associate is "Brian from Wisconsin" but clearly someone in another country. Bit different case as you were not calling "Brian" specifically, but still someone that you are ostensibly paying pretending to be someone else. There were also countless fortune telling/psychic phone lines were clearly Miss Cleo et al. were not fielding the calls, these businesses ran into other legal troubles but was having people essentially play their character on the other end of the line one of them? I assume on Onlyfans creators can assumed to be "characters" to some degree, don't most go by pseudonyms to begin with?
- prepend 3y ago
  I think there’s precedent for fraud if something is sold as “pay $x for y service” and the vendor accepts $x and then delivers something that looks like y but is not. The Miss Cleo lines clearly said that you would talk to other psychics and not just Miss Cleo. And of course while psychics are BS, good luck proving that they aren’t actually telling the future.
ilaksh 3y ago
It's interesting to think about how this situation will evolve as "AI girlfriend" software (and underlying ML models) improves. Perhaps along with next generation consumer hardware. If there is a good chance that any popular "online personality" of that sort will be an AI, then I might as well skip a step and just install my "girlfriend" locally. Also, systems like Stable Diffusion or other similar models like instant-id can generate imagery of any "personality" for any desired situation at will. I think personalities will have trouble suing everyone who is doing that on their own computer. Or ever knowing how many are doing it. I think there are actually already somewhat convincing versions of this. At least on a surface level. (Sometimes I suspect that r/localllama could be called r/localwaifu and it would be mostly accurate). Just haven't investigated thoroughly. Could be an interesting weekend project. I was doing an interview for a project where someone wanted to build a more "empathetic" AI. Not necessarily a girlfriend, maybe more useful (but perhaps not necessarily not a girlfriend). He had someone from BlackRock on the call with him. Which I think was just his buddy from college and that was a coincidence. Probably. But it's hard not to think that sort of thing as being a profitable investment.

42 points by harambae 3y ago

> Have you ever talked to an OnlyFans model? She's NOT talking to you. It's a team of paid chatters she works with to defraud you. Like duh. Maybe it's just my IRC roots showing but why is this a surprise to anyone?

vdaea 3y ago
I get it, but "duh" is not a legal defense. If they are saying they are talking to you but you are actually talking to some guy in India, that seems very illegal.
- sshine 3y ago
  What law is that?
  - user_7832 3y ago
    Some sort or variant of misrepresentation of services received I would guess. I assume consumer law would cover it.
mingus88 3y ago
Just because the fraud is obvious doesn’t mean it’s not fraud
- bozhark 3y ago
  What’s the fraud? Really?
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    If I'm paying to talk to Person X, but it's actually Person Y pretending to be X, is that not outright fraud?
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
      What is the difference between popular Instagram accounts? Surely celebrities have media managers who handle day to day fan communication.
      - jstarfish 3y ago
        People don't pay to talk to media managers.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        JetSpiegel 3y ago
        Well, Twitter Blue exists...
      - pavel_lishin 3y ago
        Do those popular Instagram accounts charge you money to send and receive messages, while explicitly claiming that it's the person whose account it is that's reading your messages and sending those responses?
pyuser583 3y ago
There’s a current scandal at a US university. The University President and his wife had an OF account, and were producing content as a passion project. I don’t know how common that is. I expect the people trying to optimize profit are more common, but also switch platform and genre a lot, according to where the money is. But OF is certainly trying to portray itself as a passion project type place, however dishonest that may be.

lupire 3y ago

They are seeking class representatives for a class action lawsuit. Or it's a honeypot scam. Class action lawsuits are always on random websites with no security.

richardfey 3y ago
The part about blackmailing sounds like hand-waving to me, I also suspect that the whole thing is not genuine.

bdcravens 3y ago

Isn't the implication here that they would be suing OnlyFans, rather than the models? Unless OnlyFans is in on it, don't see how that's doable.

retrac 3y ago

Some more info about the lawsuit: https://avn.com/business/articles/legal/attorney-wants-to-sue-onlyfans-creators-for-fraud-923118.html https://avn.com/business/articles/legal/attorney-wants-to-su... (NSFW warning -- AVN is "Adult Video News") It's an interesting legal thought experiment. Possible analogy: if I claim that Celebrity Y is going to be at an event, and that people who buy a backstage pass will get to briefly meet Celebrity Y, but Celebrity Y is actually a Celebrity Y impersonator, is that dishonest dealing? False advertising?

trhway 3y ago
They do that with Putin. Works ok, even for the meetings with the heads of other states (except for China or Turkey - these guys get the real deal refusing to settle for the impersonator)
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  [citation needed]
- jowea 3y ago
  I understand the logic of that claim for when he's supposedly visiting occupied areas, but why do this when meeting another head of state?
  - trhway 3y ago
    his very bad state of health (while for example the double which went to Mariupol and to Saudi Arabia was in very good shape). The real one would soon or is already dead ("Schrodinger's Putin" - I subscribe for 90% to the theory that he is already dead as for the few recent months I didn't see the real one). The Russian power elite seems to intend to keep the charade going as long as they can, so "socializing" the doubles even at the highest levels makes for the easier transition into the state when the real one isn't available anymore, yet the country would still be led by "Putin" and would even elect him with 85% vote in the coming March elections.
pavel_lishin 3y ago

throwawayfans 3y ago

Throw away account for obvious reasons. My wife and I run an onlyfans account, a manyvids account and a few other related accounts. I can tell you from extensive networking with other onlyfans creators the number of them using chatters is pretty small, probably less than 1%. I personally have never interacted with someone that uses them. I also run a discord and telegram support server for creators so I interact with a lot, but certainly have not made any kind of scientific measure. Some higher tier models use agencies to run their stuff and that's usually where the chatters come into play. The general consensus is to avoid agencies or managers for obvious reasons. While I personally think it's kind of shady, I very much doubt it's illegal, but ianal. There is one fans platform that I know of that has integrated AI chat bots so shrug

breakfastduck 3y ago
> probably less than 1% Probably a significant overlap with the 1% of the highest earning creators though, I'd bet.
starkparker 3y ago
> Some higher tier models use agencies to run their stuff and that's usually where the chatters come into play. If this suit is real then I think that's who it's targeting anyway, since that's where the money is. The whole thing seems spurred on by the WaPo article from November about Bryce and Brian Adams, which opens with their $120,000 driveway and piles on the mentions of how much money they make from there. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/onlyfans-bryce-adams-top-earners-creator-economy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/o... > but ianal Cheeky.
nickthegreek 3y ago
My anecdotal evidence is the opposite. One couple I know, the male does a lot of the botting for his partner. One of my aging model friends switched from having an OF to running other girls. 3rd model friend use to employ their friend to run around 60% of their operation but the quality suffered a bit and the lost a whale. I recently did a little demo for a friend on how ChatGPT could be used to create Twitter copy for various market types to push OF.

pierat 3y ago

> We’re investigating the OnlyFans industry and have found widespread questionable practices that could put you at risk of extortion, blackmail, or humiliation. > We are working to get justice for all subscribers who have been lied to and defrauded. Fill out the form below to learn more. All information is kept strictly confidential. GIVE US YOUR INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR ACTIVITIES ON A PORN SITE AND WE PROMISES WE'LL DO ONLY GOOD THINGS WITH IT. I mean, what kind of stupid do you all think we are?

bloopernova 3y ago
I'm sure they've already gotten a lot of responses. People will be suckered by that little dangle of "potential reward of up to 20k dollars!"
smsm42 3y ago
They target the same people who paid good money to chat with some poor guy in Bangladesh believing it's a gorgeous woman, so you tell me how gullible they expect their target audience to be.
redder23 3y ago
These are lawyers who found a cause, they get their cut if they win the case, they see that there is a change of getting settlements from high tier girls and agencies for this. It's pretty obvious what going on. Why would I expect anything shady, and what would they have to gain or sell from people porn activities? Every other website with a bit of tracking cookies/fingerprinting knows more about your porn use that you could every tell a bunch of lawyers on your own. You make zero sense and think you are smart. That is hilarious.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

cheriot 3y ago

"I'm paying to be deceived, but not like that!" - Robert B. Carey probably This is like getting mad that the Ariel you met in Orlando wasn't the same mermaid as the movie. It's an entertainment business; you're talking to a performer.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

beau_g 3y ago

Is there a precedent that suggests there must be a reasonable expectation that if you are contacting someone over the internet or phone and giving them money, that person has some duty to ensure their internet/TV/professional/social media etc. persona is the person on the other end of the line? I'm sure many have experienced calling phone support for a product you subscribe for, the associate is "Brian from Wisconsin" but clearly someone in another country. Bit different case as you were not calling "Brian" specifically, but still someone that you are ostensibly paying pretending to be someone else. There were also countless fortune telling/psychic phone lines were clearly Miss Cleo et al. were not fielding the calls, these businesses ran into other legal troubles but was having people essentially play their character on the other end of the line one of them? I assume on Onlyfans creators can assumed to be "characters" to some degree, don't most go by pseudonyms to begin with?

prepend 3y ago
I think there’s precedent for fraud if something is sold as “pay $x for y service” and the vendor accepts $x and then delivers something that looks like y but is not. The Miss Cleo lines clearly said that you would talk to other psychics and not just Miss Cleo. And of course while psychics are BS, good luck proving that they aren’t actually telling the future.

ilaksh 3y ago

It's interesting to think about how this situation will evolve as "AI girlfriend" software (and underlying ML models) improves. Perhaps along with next generation consumer hardware. If there is a good chance that any popular "online personality" of that sort will be an AI, then I might as well skip a step and just install my "girlfriend" locally. Also, systems like Stable Diffusion or other similar models like instant-id can generate imagery of any "personality" for any desired situation at will. I think personalities will have trouble suing everyone who is doing that on their own computer. Or ever knowing how many are doing it. I think there are actually already somewhat convincing versions of this. At least on a surface level. (Sometimes I suspect that r/localllama could be called r/localwaifu and it would be mostly accurate). Just haven't investigated thoroughly. Could be an interesting weekend project. I was doing an interview for a project where someone wanted to build a more "empathetic" AI. Not necessarily a girlfriend, maybe more useful (but perhaps not necessarily not a girlfriend). He had someone from BlackRock on the call with him. Which I think was just his buddy from college and that was a coincidence. Probably. But it's hard not to think that sort of thing as being a profitable investment.