Onlyfans It has been used by many users to generate money through the sale of adult content. The platform has more than a million content creators, who share images, videos, texts of various themes with their subscribers for a monthly fee. Nevertheless, creations of a sexual nature are the ones that have made the site more popular.
Although the company has declared that its age verification systems are greater than those required in the regulations, the BBC revealed that the lack of effective controls on the platform has caused minors to turn to it to sell its content explicit.
According to a British media report, there are teenagers who use fake IDs to set up their account. UK authorities fear that some kids are being exploited through the platform.
The popularity of Onlyfans skyrocketed during the global lockdown of 2020: the number of users almost multiplied by 10 since 2019 and now has more than 120 million subscribers.
“YOU START WITH PHOTOS OF FEET.”
A 17-year-old who spoke to the BBC said that she was able to set up her account with a fake driver’s license and was selling explicit videos. The young woman received more than $ 7,000 for its contents, until her bank account was frozen.
He indicated that he originally only intended to post photos of his feet, since he made money doing it on Snapchat, but that things escalated until came to sell explicit videos of her masturbating and with sex toys.
“I don’t understand why people are paying so much money for this,” said the teenager’s mother.
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A “NEGLECT”
The company referred to the teenager’s case as “an oversight” and defended itself saying that your fake driver’s license did not raise any suspicions. The account apparently would have been approved in the transition period from “an effective age identification verification system” to “a new exceptionally effective one”.
In January they would have already reported the account to the young woman, but the moderator, when reviewing and verifying her identification, thought it was legit, so he did not take any other action.
The BBC reported that the young woman stopped using her account in April. At the end of May, Onlyfans closed the account of the young woman, after the interview with the medium, but the images were already spread all over the internet.
The teen’s mother says her plans to go to college have been delayed because afraid to go out and be recognized. “She won’t come out at all, really,” he said. “She doesn’t want to be seen.”
NEW SYSTEM
Police in Hertfordshire, England, said a 14-year-old teenager used her grandmother’s passport and bank details to sell explicit content and then transferred the money to her account. The company mentioned that this action was “fraudulent” and involved the help of others.
He has since indicated that he improved his identity verification system, but the BBC found that a 17-year-old girl was able to set up an account using her 26-year-old sister’s passport.
The site asks people to pose next to their ID and then submit a photo holding it in front of their face, but the system could not distinguish between the two people at any stage of the process, despite the obvious age difference.
Those who do not want to provide bank details can organize with their customers the payment by external providers, such as the Cash application, thus also violating another Onlyfans rule.
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“CO-AUTHORITY”
The company requires creators who make “co-authored” material to prove that the participants are 18 years or older and registered on the platform. However, accounts of minors participating with adults were discovered.
A 17-year-old boy filming videos with his girlfriend, a year older than him, did not initially have an account, but was surprised to see how much money he could make and one was created. The couple earned 5,000 for a single video that showed a sexual encounter between the two.
Several of the boy’s friends said that he had a difficult childhood, which had made him very susceptible to manipulation and exploitation. Thus, his girlfriend showered him with gifts for his 16th birthday.
“He used to say: ‘Brother, you can do it, we earn a lot of money a week, it’s easy, you never have to work,'” said the friend.
The account had already been reported to the US police in 2020 but had not been removed from the platform until the BBC spoke to Onlyfans in May. The company said it had not received a police report from the account.
DANGEROUS REALITY
Some student counselors have stated that boys and girls brag about their activities on the platform. That is the case of a 16-year-old girl who bragged about the money she was earning from the sale of pornographic images and a 12-year-old teenager revealed that she used the platform to contact adult creators and propose to upload videos of a sexual encounter between the two.
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Counselors at Childline, a helpline for minors in the United Kingdom, commented that in many cases the adolescents who do this type of thing were victims of sexual abuse previously or present mental health problems such as anger, low self-esteem, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts.
UK Police National Child Protection Chief Simon Bailey said police are reluctant to criminalize minors for such crimes but focus on the risks children are exposed to.
“The company is not doing enough to implement safeguards that prevent children from exploiting the opportunity to make money, but also from minors being exploited,” Bailey said.
The blackmail and the dissemination without consent are some of the dangers that threaten this platform. In addition, missing children are increasingly linked to OnlyFans videos, according to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
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