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A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

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Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#191

Post by dijit »

inetknght wrote: post #160
dijit wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The content they’re talking about is reprehensible. (Beastiality, incest, prostitution) but I’m wary of things being labelled “illegal” since in the UK, facesitting, spanking and “water sports” are illegal. So it’s easy to cite 1 case of beastiality and later say there are “200,000 illegal articles” when 199,999 could be spanking.

> prostitution I argue: prostitution is illegal but not reprehensible.

I agree, actually. I guess what I mean is that it’s outside the intended purpose of the site and makes the site owner look a bit more brothelesque which has seedy undertones.

I was mainly pointing at the fact it’s “more obviously” illegal than, say, facesitting or spanking.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#192

Post by justinator »

surge wrote: post #143
twic wrote: post #29

Seen this thread going around, but it seems like it skips over the important bit. > So why the rule changes? Because last December the New York Times published an opinion piece by Nick Kristof caller “The Children of Pornhub” that accused the site and its parent company of profiting off revenge porn, child porn and sex trafficking. How do you get from 'opinion piece in a newspaper' to 'gigantic transnational financia…

It's the same crap as the ad-pocalypse. Journalists with an agenda use a disingenuous tactic, if they have a problem with a person or entity, they'll call up their sponsors, business partners, vendors, etc, and say "we're writing an article on X's platform which has been found to have (controversial material framed in a negative context), are we to believe that you're supportive and would your company care to comment…

That’s quite the axe to grind against journalists. Especially since their job is to ask questions. To think they’re a part of this mass conspiracy to take powerful entities down is laughable.

My partner, a journalist, has gotten death threats just by being at peaceful protests against certain groups that have wealth and pull in the community - just because members of that org were certain the journalist was the main provocateur. It’s just absolute paranoia. But it is a tell isn’t it? Maybe the rich and powerful should be worried about the common people learning about some truth that they invest a lot of resources to keep secret?

Also I think you may have to look and see how much journalists make. To be so entrenched in a mass conspiracy that takes down whole networks of industry, I’d negotiate a better salary then the equivalent of $20/hour.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#193

Post by ImprobableTruth »

relax88 wrote: post #95
ImprobableTruth wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>do we have a right to sacrifice one population to protect another? You're doing that one way or the other. The question is merely which one should be protected and which sacrificed.

I think it’s more about whether shutting down adult content on sites like OnlyFans actually does anything to reduce sex trafficking or abuse.

We know this is the case because there are some documented cases. It's just a matter of whether this groups size and weight is worth sacrificing the other.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#194

Post by imperistan »

Postcultrev says the rules about proving consent etc make it a lot harder for small indie producers. But is it really that hard for them to prove consent and identity for a small number of performers? I suspect that’s a lot harder for a bigger platform, right?

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#196

Post by optimalsolver »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #182
cblconfederate wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never gonna happen. Controlling the money flow is basically how power has always worked. Unless you have nukes, you can't enforce it

...and then they wonder why cryptocurrencies are getting more and more popular.

...and more and more centralized.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#197

Post by afavour »

crazygringo wrote: post #99
twic wrote: post #29

Seen this thread going around, but it seems like it skips over the important bit. > So why the rule changes? Because last December the New York Times published an opinion piece by Nick Kristof caller “The Children of Pornhub” that accused the site and its parent company of profiting off revenge porn, child porn and sex trafficking. How do you get from 'opinion piece in a newspaper' to 'gigantic transnational financia…

Honestly, in this particular case huge companies did make changes on the basis of this newspaper column. It's not common, but it's what happened here. It was an incredibly visible and influential accusation that seemingly came out of nowhere from arguably the most prestigious newspaper in the country, and legitimate businesses like PornHub and MasterCard are terrified of brand association with child porn and sex traf…

> in this particular case huge companies did make changes on the basis of this newspaper column

Well, they made changes based on the popular reaction to a newspaper column. I’m not sure why you’d point fingers at the column when the obvious reality is that it simply reflects societal norms.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#198

Post by throwaway444590 »

Scaevolus wrote: post #10
jmull wrote: post #5

I'm sorry, but blaming all this on a NYT opinion piece is idiotic.

The payment processors banned MindGeek soon after that NYT article. Do you think that was a coincidence? MasterCard's new rules appear to be a direct response to the concerns the article raised. Is that coincidental?

while that is true mindgeek sites still take mastercard. if i am not mistaken mastercard never left them just asked for stricter control.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#199

Post by crdrost »

yarcob wrote: post #170
surge wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same crap as the ad-pocalypse. Journalists with an agenda use a disingenuous tactic, if they have a problem with a person or entity, they'll call up their sponsors, business partners, vendors, etc, and say "we're writing an article on X's platform which has been found to have (controversial material framed in a negative context), are we to believe that you're supportive and would your company care to comment…

No. If a journalist asking uncomfortable questions about your business endangers your business, then the problem is not the journalist, the problem is your business. If a journalist blows a story out of proportion, then usually nothing happens and the story is forgotten after a few months. But in the porn hub story, the uncomfortable truth is that there was a lot of involuntary porn on the platform. The NYT story jus…

Thank you. Hearing these stories I always feel like commenters treat the companies involved as having no real agency.

“Of course the New York Times article came out, so even if the information was sensationalized or whatever, MasterCard had to cut them off... It was out of MasterCard’s hands...” No, they made a political-humanitarian choice to use their gatekeeping to influence the world. Same with Apple choosing to go to war with CSAM, we can talk about worries about their methods or whatever but these big companies are making their own choices and they could choose to just ignore the problems with marketing spend, do like Amazon does and purchase ads about how green they are and how they improve local communities and whatever. They chose to instead take their own moral stances and act accordingly, they weren't forced to by some article. And as far as I can tell it's not a purely calculated profit move either.

For that better OnlyFans and PornHub also have agency. So yes MasterCard is making a decision to put financial pressure on a sleazy industry overall, but then PornHub is making their own choices to screw over indie creators and bank on their bigger porn producers. They could instead say, “hey, the indie porn market is about to face this stressor, we could lean into it and become their main ally and then we will basically corner the market on the indie/amateur stuff as others flee.” The business case is not at all open-and-shut you-must-screw-over-the-indie-producers. The story link above acts like this decision was forced; that decision is not forced upon them either. OnlyFans doesn't have to stop doing adult content. They are choosing to pivot away, we'll see if their choice is successful.

Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong

#200

Post by arp242 »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #177
surge wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same crap as the ad-pocalypse. Journalists with an agenda use a disingenuous tactic, if they have a problem with a person or entity, they'll call up their sponsors, business partners, vendors, etc, and say "we're writing an article on X's platform which has been found to have (controversial material framed in a negative context), are we to believe that you're supportive and would your company care to comment…

It's easy to criticise the article in general terms, but what specifically did you find problematic with the article itself? Go ahead and have a read, I'll wait. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...

There is nothing wrong with the article (from memory, I read it some time ago), the problem is going from "there is a small minority of users who abuse user-generated content platforms" to "zomg, this platform is a horrible and encouraging all sorts of illegal things!" One does not follow from the other. The problem with the article isn't that it exposed a problem, that part was excellent journalism, the problem is also that it advocated for all sorts of companies to boycot PornHub, as well as being laced with a kind of accusatory attitude towards PornHub I don't much care for, almost as if PornHub themselves uploaded the videos.

The same problem exists on YouTube, Twitter, reddit, and even Hacker News to some degree. Of course, being a text-only platform makes the scope a lot less dramatic, but I've seen some people advocate for violence against certain groups and the like. I'm sure dang can tell you about some of the horrible things he's had to ban people for.

This is a difficult problem to solve, I don't really have a good solution for this, I'm not sure if anyone does. I do know that private companies acting solely in their own interest acting as custodians of what is and isn't allowed based on what does and doesn't generate "negative publicity" is most definitely not a good solution.

How often do we see "{YouTube,Apple,Google,...} blocked my account and is threatening by business and I don't have a good recourse"-stories on HN? Too often, and those are just the ones that manage to get publicity. There is often no good recourse to address mistakes or really get a good impartial judgement on things that might be on the border.

You might say "these are private companies and can reject the customers they want, you don't have a right to do business with them", well, fundamentally I don't really disagree with that, but a lot of these companies are monopolies or duopolies they can really have a big impact and even make basic participation incredibly hard or even impossible. Sometimes that's not a bad thing, but again, it doesn't seem to me that we really want to leave it up to private companies acting in their own interest to make these kind of decisions.

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