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The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

theguardian.com

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Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#11

Post by IAmEveryone »

The decision was reversed due to public pressure, so how unaccountable are they, really?

And even before that, the decision was made because they were afraid of public opinion. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to refuse to do business that generates revenue. The credit card companies’ puritanical values are a reflection of what they think public opinion, among the public that matters to them, is.

They were wrong, or at least outdated, or maybe online sex workers just somehow happen to be better at PR than evangelical christians. But (trying to) follow public opinion isn’t unaccountability, it’s the opposite.

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#13

Post by ryeguy_24 »

I was thinking of this just the other day. Just the past few weeks, Apple with CSAM, OnlyFans getting between people and their fans/clients. All of these big corporate moves are making me think more and more of decentralization of platforms. Is that coming?

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#14

Post by willis936 »

tobylane wrote: post #3
Causality1 wrote: post #2

It's incredible to me that a private business can discriminate so wantonly while also being fully supported by the FDIC.

Is it either a form of discrimination that doesn’t line up with any protected class, or a bona fide discrimination against areas that have a high chargeback rate? I’m interested in how much the morals we don’t like line up with the cold stats we would follow.

Sex workers are effectively a subset of women. I'm not sure if this qualifies as a protected class. My personal sense of justice leads me to think that there should be some amount of protection for any worker, even if the powers that be disagree.

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#15

Post by pydry »

float4 wrote: post #9

> for these corporations this is not a matter of free expression, as it ought to be, but one of morality Is it really true that banks block transactions related to sex work because they are morally against it? Last time I checked banks just want to make money. This is a genuine question by the way. > But just a few weeks in, Twitch shut it down after a change of policy that included, among other things, a ban on visi…

They're reacting to regulations designed specifically to make it too much of a headache for them to service these customers.

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#17

Post by rob_c »

Looks like the same thing as wikileaks to me. A combination of bad optics and lawyers getting involved causing a monopolistic supplier to pull their services.

Doubt this has much to do with MasterCard attacking the adult industry, it looks more like they want to strongly protect their existing stranglehold on the payment systems. Anything which impacts the way they're seen costs them real actually money I'd bet at their scale.

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#18

Post by [deleted] »

float4 wrote: post #9

> for these corporations this is not a matter of free expression, as it ought to be, but one of morality Is it really true that banks block transactions related to sex work because they are morally against it? Last time I checked banks just want to make money. This is a genuine question by the way. > But just a few weeks in, Twitch shut it down after a change of policy that included, among other things, a ban on visi…

[deleted]

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#19

Post by gonehome »

pydry wrote: post #15
float4 wrote: post #9

> for these corporations this is not a matter of free expression, as it ought to be, but one of morality Is it really true that banks block transactions related to sex work because they are morally against it? Last time I checked banks just want to make money. This is a genuine question by the way. > But just a few weeks in, Twitch shut it down after a change of policy that included, among other things, a ban on visi…

They're reacting to regulations designed specifically to make it too much of a headache for them to service these customers.

This is also my understanding - though I think it’s mostly a side effect of the regulation (which is intended to increase the liability around enabling sex trafficking).

The article mentions this, but I agree with pessimizer that the article seems to get the causality backwards.

I also agree with float4 re: why platforms may not want sexual content. I’m sensing some agenda driven motivated reasoning behind this article that’s being used to shoehorn the events into its frame.

There is something to centralized software companies and payment processors being in a position to do this at all though (whether required by regulation or not). Both blockchain based protocols that create decentralized incentive structures like Audius, and (non-blockchain) approaches like Urbit (along with just regular crypto) help to solve this problem. I’d bet this is what will enable them to be more resilient in the long run.

https://urbit.org/understanding-urbit

Re: The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks

#20

Post by colordrops »

rob_c wrote: post #17

Looks like the same thing as wikileaks to me. A combination of bad optics and lawyers getting involved causing a monopolistic supplier to pull their services. Doubt this has much to do with MasterCard attacking the adult industry, it looks more like they want to strongly protect their existing stranglehold on the payment systems. Anything which impacts the way they're seen costs them real actually money I'd bet at th…

This is still attacking the adult industry. You are just suggesting alternative motivations.
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