OnlyFans reverses promised porn ban after social media outrage

Controversial U.K. subscription service OnlyFans announced Wednesday that it had reneged on plans to ban pornography on its platform just six days after the company first publicized the intended policy change.

The service — which is widely used by sex workers who provide sexually explicit content to subscribers in return for payment — ignited outrage from subscribers and sex workers last week after declaring that porn would no longer be allowed on the platform starting Oct. 1.

But in a tweet Wednesday, OnlyFans thanked its followers for being outspoken and declared that the policy change had been suspended.

"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," the service said in a tweet.

"OnlyFans stands for inclusion and we will continue to provide a home for all creators," the company added.

In announcing the proposed ban last week, OnlyFans indicated its reasoning for the policy change was financial, not ethical. In short, banks were refusing to partner with the service.

"The change in policy, we had no choice — the short answer is banks," OnlyFans founder and CEO Tim Stokely told the Financial Times.

According to the Verge, Stokely also indicated that large financial institutions — including the Bank of New York Mellon, Metro Bank, and JPMorgan Chase — had begun flagging and rejecting wire transactions between OnlyFans users and subscribers. Other banking partners and payment partners had also reportedly pressured the service to drop its porn content.

The conflict with banks, however, appears to have been resolved and so the ban on porn has been dropped before it was ever officially introduced.

The initial policy change announcement, though perhaps being better for society as a whole, sparked immediate backlash from many sympathetic toward the sex work industry.

"I can only imagine how many sex workers are feeling blindsided and terrified for their incomes right now. This is a slap in the face to those who made OnlyFans what it is today," Huffington Post reporter Jesselyn Cook noted.

Teen Vogue reporter Kim Kelly added: "OnlyFans would be nothing without the sex workers whose labor built it up into a major platform. Now it's tossing them aside, and removing a vital source of income from a population of workers who are disproportionately marginalized and have no protections under U.S. labor law."