Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1405706
14 The rise of the subscriber site – and the sex workers at the core of its success maltatoday | SUNDAY • 29 AUGUST 2021 NEWS CONTENT subscription servic- es are becoming an increasingly popular way for digital creators to monetise their work and pro- tect their copyright, but among the various subscription sites has emerged OnlyFans, a platform most associated with nudity and explicit content. With its if-all-else-fails-be- come-a-porn-star mentality, the site has provided an easy avenue to pursue a career in self-propa- gated content. But last week the company al- most banned porn last week after it said it would no longer allow "explicit sexual content" in the future, before reversing the policy unexpectedly the next week. Sex workers had built OnlyFans into a multibillion-dollar subscription platform, before early reports speculated that a new set of Mas- tercard rules and banking regu- lations on what payments they process, had forced OnlyFans to rule out porn. OnlyFans founder and CEO Tim Stokely said three major banks had refused service because of "reputational risk" as- sociated with its sexual material: Bank of New York Mellon, Met- ro Bank, and JPMorgan Chase. Still, OnlyFans' decision to rule out porn has been reversed since then. Maltese creators like porn star Shyli Rose and gamer Rachel Thake warn that the OnlyFans route can be quite the rocky road for content creators putting out their work to paying subscribers. "I take a photo session and post new things every single day, apart from having to reply to the hun- dreds of subscribers on the daily," Shyli Rose said in her run-down on this most unconventional of jobs. Rachel Thake, who works full- time in the igaming industry, starting her OnlyFans account on a whim. "It was a random thought from one of my best friends. We kind of joked about it at first. I think I said jokingly that I'd start an account and see where that goes. It started off as a joke, and then I woke up one day and just did it. It was quite impulsive." Thake references Shyli Rose's work as having kick-started the OnlyFans avenue for Malta, not- ing the sheer amount of money she was making when she first set up an account last October. "I wasn't sure how big OnlyFans was in Malta or how many people knew about it. I may have come across it before but when Shyli shared her story it really came to the fore." For the most part, Shyli Rose says her experiences on Only- Fans have been quite positive. "My subscribers are very sweet people, they're very kind and re- spectful towards me and my lim- its." Thake shares this sentiment: No weird requests since setting up her account. "I think my sub- scribers are very respectable and understanding, but there are people out there who look at you and think 'I want to use you and that's it'. Still, it's nice to be able to speak to respectable people." OnlyFans is open to any sort of content, but it has become widely associated with nudity and ex- plicit content. Shyli Rose disa- grees with the connotation. "Hav- ing OnlyFans doesn't mean you do sex work. It could be whatever type of content they like and they can choose their limits." Thake, despite not publishing nudity or explicit content on her account, is more embracing of the sex work label. "In Mal- ta we're very behind in terms of OnlyFans was founded in 2016, but quickly became the go-to for sex workers looking into alternative ways to pro- mote their content. The plat- form has admitted that the OnlyFans community wouldn't be what it is today without sex workers and vowed to come up with solutions to its recent ban on explicit content. The company announced its ban on adult material on 19 August after mounting pres- sure from its payment proces- sors. It said that it would allow some posts containing nudity, but any content containing "sexually-explicit conduct" would be banned This decision was met with major controversy. Cathy Re- isenwitz, an OnlyFans creator with bylines in VICE and Dai- ly Beast, said that OnlyFans would not exist without sex workers, and that companies often generate a lot of profit and a huge audience on the back of sex workers, only to remove their content once they reach a certain level of success. OnlyFans founder and CEO Tim Stokely says banks were behind the online fundrais- ing platform's recent ban on sexually explicit content, pressuring it into banning the promotion of sexually explic- it material. The 'ban' would affect anything that "shows, promotes, advertises, or re- fers to" real or simulated sex, masturbation, and sex-related bodily fluids. It will still allow nudity, but an email to Only- Fans creators suggested that things like zooming too close to body parts could violate the rules. And while many websites re- port on a few OnlyFans cre- ators earning considerable cash, one website estimates that the average OnlyFans creator earns a measly $180 a month. 'This is an actual job...' A near-ban on porn by the widely popular subscriber platform OnlyFans sheds light on the world of content creators whose faces, and bodies, are their fortune, Nicole Meilak finds out