OnlyFans announced that it will ban sexually explicit starting 1 October 2021. The move is made to comply with requests from its banking and payment providers. OnlyFans has sent out updated terms of service to content creators it is housing. In the latest update, the company underlined the restrictions on what it calls “sexually explicit conduct”.

In the update, the platform specified that starting 1 October, it will ban anything that shows, promotes, advertises, or refers to “sexually explicit conduct”. All existing content that violate the policy must be removed before 1 December 2021. However, in Thursday’s (19 August) email to content creators, the company stated that “content containing nudity will continue to be allowed as long as it is consistent with the policy”.

Adult content creators who fortified the platform’s journey to become the way it is today are in a state of confusion. At this point, many are not sure what kind of nudity is allowed in the content-subscription service platform. Some are considering other platforms, such as JustForFans, as the platform that used to be celebrated to create an inclusive, safe space for sex workers is no more.

OnlyFans became a billion-dollar business and brand mostly thanks to sex workers creating content in the platform. In 2021, OnlyFans’ most popular creator is a sexually explicit content creator under the username OMGCosplay, who requires pay-per-view in their free-to-subscribe channel on the platform.

The platform made this change to avoid the same fallout between Visa and Mastercard and Pornhub, where the two payment providers cut ties with the adult video platform after the latter was accused of having content that show underage sex, rape and revenge porn. Pornhub, however, denied the claim and tightened its regulations on unverified users.

As of January 2021, OnlyFans listed over 1 million content creators, which is a fantastic growth from 70,000 in July 2019. It is one of the flourishing businesses during the pandemic as it also listed a handful of popular celebrities, such as Cardi B, Bella Thorne and Amber Rose.