Content subscription site OnlyFans has announced that it will suspend its proposed ban on sexually explicit content.

Under the proposed ban, any depiction, promotion, or reference of real or simulated sexual acts would have been banned from October 1st. While nudity would still have been allowed, graphic depictions of genitals would be banned.

The company blamed pressure from banking partners for the decision, which sparked a backlash from the platform’s content creators.

In a Tweet from its official account, the company said that it had received assurances that it could continue allowing creators to create a variety of content.

Thank you to everyone for making your voices heard.

We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change.

OnlyFans stands for inclusion and we will continue to provide a home for all creators.

— OnlyFans (@OnlyFans) August 25, 2021

The company has not stated what these assurances are, or whether there will still be additional restrictions on content hosted on its site.

Despite the reversal, the OnlyFans ban has since brought into question the powers wielded by many of the large financial service providers.

Banking Power

OnlyFans Founder and CEO Tim Stokely blamed pressure from banking groups like Metro Bank and JPMorgan Chase for having driven the move to ban sexually explicit content from the platform.

In comments to the Financial Times, he said that “unfair” treatment by banks was behind the decision.

“The change in policy, we had no choice — the short answer is banks,” he told the newspaper.

He accused banks, particularly Bank of New York Mellon, as having created obstacles to prevent the company paying its users on the basis that it would create reputational risks. BNY Mellon would flag and reject every transfer between OnlyFans’ account and accounts belonging to the platform’s creators, Stokely claimed.

In addition, he said that UK-based Metro Bank closed the company’s corporate account on short notice back in 2019.

The new policy led to an outcry from many on the platform, who accused OnlyFans of having abandoned the people who had built its fortunes in the first place.

With the company seeking investors, who have proven uneasy about funding the company despite significant and consistent growth, banning sexually explicit content would have put the company’s future in doubt.

For example, the company produced an app this year aimed at smart TVs, OFTV. However, the end result was less than overwhelming – it offers around 800 videos from 100 creators across a variety of subjects, such as fitness, cooking, and music.

What it doesn’t feature is nudity or sexual content. This is due to restrictions on adult companies by the large app stores, such as Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store.

Grey area

Banking has long had a strained relationship with the sex industry. They are hesitant to allow sex workers access to vital financial services.

This can take the form of being denied access to card-reading devices – a far safer alternative to handling large amounts of cash for highly vulnerable workers.

Relying heavily on cash is difficult with many bank branches closed, especially during the pandemic. Sex workers are frequently denied business accounts, along with mortgages or insurance.

“JPMorgan Chase is particularly aggressive in closing accounts of sex workers or… any business that supports sex workers,” OnlyFans’ Stokely was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.

In part, this is because banks don’t want to be associated with an industry that, in many jurisdictions, is a legal grey area at best, and outright illegal at worst. Furthermore, even where the sex industry is legal, providing these services to sex workers opens up the risk of money laundering.

In addition, fraud and chargebacks are more common for businesses in the sex industry compared to others. And this is all on top of the reputational damage banks can suffer from being associated with the sex industry.

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Pornhub made a similar move earlier this year, which saw it cull the majority of videos from its platform. Again, it cited complying with demands from financial service providers as being behind the decision.

Around the same time, Mastercard introduced new rules for sellers of adult content. Citing the need to protect its users from illegal content, the payment processor said it would require age and identity verification for people depicted in the site’s content and those uploading it.

In addition, content would need to be reviewed prior to publication and it introduced more stringent complaint and appeals processes.

The identity verification process that is the a major obstacle for platforms that host sexual content. Before the ban, Pornhub had over 13 million videos. Even now, with over three million, verifying the age and identity of every uploader and performer would be virtually impossible.

It effectively makes the tube-site business model, of user-generated content building an audience and the host taking a slice of the revenue, impossible for adult content. In effect, it blocks not just illegal adult content, but all adult content.