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OnlyFans backtracks: Adult content ban no longer planned

By Chris Davies/

OnlyFans has reversed its decision to ban adult content from the subscription site, less than a week after it called its own future into question by seemingly ignoring the importance of those creators on its platform. The company had blamed banking partners for the freshly-puritanical switch, which was to go into effect on October 1, 2021.

Those partners, OnlyFans had claimed, weren't happy with the sexually explicit material that many users of the platform were selling. While OnlyFans bills itself as a way for creators of any kind to engage with their audience, the site became a destination for adult content in all its various niches.

From October 1, OnlyFans had said, no more sexually explicit content would be permitted. That would "ensure the long-term sustainability of the platform," though it also dropped the company into a firestorm of criticism. Amid the furore, accusations that OnlyFans had built its brand on adult performers but then was quick to abandon them when it wanted to appeal to mainstream partners.

Now, OnlyFans has backtracked. "We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change," the company tweeted this morning. "OnlyFans stands for inclusion and we will continue to provide a home for all creators."

Creators on the platform would get an official explanation of the about-turn "shortly," OnlyFans added, having thanked people "for making your voices heard."

While anybody who observed Tumblr's post-adult-content-ban decline could predict what would be the likely fate of OnlyFans if it went in the same direction, the big question now is whether the uncertainty for creators over the past week is reversible. Many have reported a loss of subscribers already, canceling their payments on the assumption that their favorite creators were going to leave OnlyFans in October.

Many others aren't pleased with just how fragile the relationship with what had once billed itself as an open – and open-minded – platform turned out to be. OnlyFans takes a 20-percent cut of subscription revenues, but seemed eminently ready to dump sex workers if they presented a challenge to its ongoing bottom-line.

How many will either continue with plans to jump ship to rival subscription-based platforms, or decide to do so simply as a way of protesting OnlyFans' fickle approach to its users, remains to be seen. We'll likely hear more about the decision as OnlyFans makes a public announcement to creators later.

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