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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

#311

Post by bufferoverflow »

archildress wrote: post #84
bufferoverflow wrote: post #81

It's interesting to see the comments from people who supported Youtube/Twitter/FB/Patreon/Visa political censorship, but are suddenly against the porn censorship by the payment same systems. "Rules for thee, but not for me."

There are compelling alternatives for many of the platforms you mention; what was happening to OF amounted to a complete disqualification from infrastructure.

There are no popular alternatives to Youtube and Twitter.

The number of users is important, and they have monopolies on the user base.

Learn about network effects.

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

#312

Post by acchow »

pessimizer wrote: post #25

The reason the banks, and through the banks OnlyFans, attack sex is because they are accountable, and don't wish to take risks unless they are very profitable risks. The real danger of platforms and banks is how happy they are to censor for the government, or simply the loudest, richest mouth, in order to keep the profit flowing. If you want to fix it, you put in legal protections for people to do business, rather th…

Through this whole OF debacle, seems like the free market sorted itself out and consumers got what they wanted.

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

#313

Post by xdennis »

GiorgioG wrote: post #153
OrvalWintermute wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am concerned about the coercive power of these platforms against speech they find unpopular, whether porn, or something else.... > A girl pleasuring herself isn’t the same thing as encouraging people to storm the White House and overthrow democracy Enough with the hyperbole, the FBI has already stated they found little evidence of a grand conspiracy to overthrow the govt [1], despite the fact we know that the…

Care to peddle your bullshit somewhere else? There may have been no 'organized' conspiracy to overthrow the gov't, but they sure as hell were trying to illegally pressure politicians into not certifying the election.

Americans disagreeing over fair elections is nothing new. In 2016, Democrats made more objections than Republicans in 2020: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-democrats-object-mor...

Let's also not forget about Stacy Abrams and Bush. There's even the whole Kennedy election controversy.

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

#314

Post by ckdarby »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #308
evgen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the dirty little secret that everyone clutching their pearls over the OnlyFans 'scandal' won't talk about. There are plenty of providers who will deal with porn, but porn customers are shit customers who no one wants -- the fraud and chargeback rate is incredibly high so the cost of processing payments is equally high. The advantage that crypto brings to porn payments is not the pretend anonymity, it is that…

How is there any fraud these days with 3d secure, etc?

Sometimes merchants will turn off 3d secure because of the approval drop with 3ds. This is one of the main reasons why 3dsv2 was introduced to elimate the friction.

Even with 3dsv1 the liability doesn't always shift to the issuing bank. For example, I believe it is Mastercard NA(Might be Visa NA) that doesn't allow any 3ds liability shift for high risk merchants.

Source: Worked at payment processor in high risk processing +$1B in volume

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

#315

Post by ckdarby »

evgen wrote: post #83
542458 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of payment processors who will deal with explicit content. They tend to be fairly expensive though - partially justified since apparently chargebacks are outlandishly common. For example, CCBill will process essentially anything that isn’t illegal, albeit with 6% fees for “risky” industries and 10-15% fees for “adult” industries. https://ccbill.com/pricing (As an aside, one sort of neat thing about CCB…

This is the dirty little secret that everyone clutching their pearls over the OnlyFans 'scandal' won't talk about. There are plenty of providers who will deal with porn, but porn customers are shit customers who no one wants -- the fraud and chargeback rate is incredibly high so the cost of processing payments is equally high. The advantage that crypto brings to porn payments is not the pretend anonymity, it is that…

This isn't the case across the entire industry. There is a large portion of customers who keep their CB ratios below the requirements of Visa & MCs. Hell, plenty of the customers in the industry could get it even lower but that runs the risk of leaving money on the table by turning away a potential customer that doesn't do a chargeback.

There are some customers in the industry who run silly numbers like +10% and do "Mid burning" with different banks.

The highest CBs tended to be the "online dating space" or "find X nearby hookup" kind of sites.

If you've got any other questions feel free to ask.

Source: Worked at payment processor in high risk processing +$1B in volume

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

#316

Post by luckylion »

vidarh wrote: post #289
luckylion wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, OnlyFans made the choice (and reversed it), not the payment provider. Granted, they did it because of the payment provider, but Twitter etc don't make their decisions in a vacuum either, they react to different kinds of pressure. That said, the same people made the same arguments ("private businesses, no rules should apply") with payment providers boycotting Gab, but turn around now. Will they learn tha…

Onlyfans made the "choice" the way someone with a gun to their head makes a "choice". It's meaningless to suggest they had one. And I'm a concrete example of someone who considers Gab a haven of extremism, but who still believes payment processors should not be allowed to boycott legal businesses.

Sure, just as Twitter, Facebook and the cloud providers make a "choice" when they ban someone who has become a persona non grata in the establishment media. Nobody does anything out of ideology at that level, it's all damage control.

The WSJ imagines pewdiepie to be Hitler incarnate? Advertisers pull their ads and Disney has to cut ties. Not because they think pewdiepie is a Nazi, but because there's only one "choice".

This is nothing new, it's been done before, but it hurts a different group this time, so the people who celebrated these same actions are now angry that this kind of thing is allowed to happen.

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

#317

Post by harry8 »

superkuh wrote: post #231
harry8 wrote: post #222

This story cannot be discussed in any meaningful way without reference to Wikileaks being fully denied access to payment tech while having been charged with no crime.

The article did explicitly reference Wikileaks being blockaded by financial services. >One salient example occurred in 2014 when WePay – a payment service provider that had gained traction with sex workers and activists after its CEO described the company as the “anti-PayPal” after the latter’s denial of service to WikiLeaks...

And visa and all others without any due process at all because a politician requested it be done to their political enemy(!)

I'm not seeing that being meaningfully discussed nor am I seeing how WePay stepped in and solved that problem for Wikileaks because, iirc, they did no such thing.

Why do you think they left a proper discussion of that out given it's clearly the most relevant example of what they're claiming to discuss?

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

#318

Post by ckdarby »

I've got numerous years of software development working in the high risk space (adult & gambling). With a lot of experience specifically around payment processing for high risk merchants.

If anyone has questions feel free to ask and I'll answer within reason/if I have the answer.

Disclaimer: Just solely my own opinions being expressed.

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

#320

Post by ckdarby »

unity1001 wrote: post #291

Indeed - Payment companies like Visa and Mastercard enforcing American cultural and religious conservatism on other countries and nations is an illegal situation - per other countries' laws. These are effectively monopolies. It doesnt matter whether there's two of them. If they collectively enforce something onto the people of other countries - like Europe - then they are violating those countries' laws They must be…

One of the reasons why this happens is money and specifically money from pension funds. The largest pension funds nearly all have "morality clauses" with them and won't invest with an entity that goes against that.

The other portion of this is the hassle of dealing with the adult industry in terms of politics. You can Google to see how the news articles came out claiming PornHub was being used for pornographic material related to children. Visa & Mastercard from public pressure revoked their ability to process any payments on that site. Canadian House of Commons Ethics Committee did hearings against the company. Nobody wants that kind of attention.

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