OnlyFans

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.740 --> 00:00:04.580
The Tech Policy Design Institute acknowledges and pays our respects
2
00:00:04.799 --> 00:00:09.839
to all First Nations people. We recognise and celebrate that
3
00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:15.070
among many things, Indigenous people were Australia's first tech innovators.
4
00:00:19.929 --> 00:00:23.690
I always think that when we're talking about creator culture
5
00:00:23.730 --> 00:00:28.230
and creator economies, that we should be including adult content creators.
6
00:00:28.230 --> 00:00:29.960
100%.
7
00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:34.530
I have read Australia's Digital Economy Strategy 2030 and it
8
00:00:35.289 --> 00:00:38.130
does not mention porn once and that makes me think
9
00:00:38.469 --> 00:00:41.780
it's a bit of an oversight to not include some
10
00:00:41.820 --> 00:00:46.670
of the most profitable and the most sought-after porn. content
11
00:00:46.929 --> 00:00:52.969
that content creators provide. There are really blurry distinctions between
12
00:00:53.009 --> 00:00:55.009
the art world and the porn world in a lot
13
00:00:55.030 --> 00:00:59.539
of cases. And what counts as this or that, explicit
14
00:00:59.619 --> 00:01:04.060
or not, pornography or art, these are deeply human questions.
15
00:01:10.780 --> 00:01:15.069
Hello and welcome to another episode of Tech Mirror. I'm
16
00:01:15.109 --> 00:01:18.019
Johanna Weaver, your host, and this is the podcast where
17
00:01:18.060 --> 00:01:22.060
we talk about how technology is shaping our world, but
18
00:01:22.120 --> 00:01:27.560
how we, the humans, can shape technology back. And today,
19
00:01:27.579 --> 00:01:31.799
I'm absolutely delighted to have as our guest, Dr. Emily Vandenagle.
20
00:01:32.420 --> 00:01:35.859
Emily is a scholar in digital culture at Monash University,
21
00:01:36.329 --> 00:01:40.670
and her work spans social media platforms, online identity, and
22
00:01:40.709 --> 00:01:45.489
the politics of adult content. Emily has a new book out,
23
00:01:45.709 --> 00:01:50.390
which is looking at the platform OnlyFans. In particular, the
24
00:01:50.450 --> 00:01:56.019
book looks at how platform design, creator labor and corporate strategy,
25
00:01:56.420 --> 00:01:59.560
which perhaps people don't necessarily think about when they think
26
00:01:59.599 --> 00:02:04.900
about OnlyFans, is really shaping the lives and the livelihoods
27
00:02:05.319 --> 00:02:09.729
of creators who use OnlyFans, but also having quite a
28
00:02:09.750 --> 00:02:13.830
big impact on our society as well. Now, given all
29
00:02:13.870 --> 00:02:18.090
of that, today's podcast does have adult themes. So I'll
30
00:02:18.110 --> 00:02:20.569
leave it up to your judgment as to if and
31
00:02:20.659 --> 00:02:24.139
when you listen to this episode. But for my part,
32
00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:27.860
I'm really looking forward to the discussion. Welcome to Tech Mirror, Emily.
33
00:02:28.060 --> 00:02:29.280
Thanks so much for having me.
34
00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:32.500
I think the logical place for us to start is
35
00:02:32.900 --> 00:02:36.860
what is OnlyFans for people who maybe haven't been on
36
00:02:36.900 --> 00:02:37.680
the platform before?
37
00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:41.669
It's a great question. OnlyFans in its purest form is
38
00:02:41.750 --> 00:02:46.580
content subscription, much like Patreon or Kickstarter, for example. It's
39
00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:49.780
a place where fans can go to see content that
40
00:02:49.939 --> 00:02:54.180
is put up by people they already know and usually
41
00:02:54.219 --> 00:02:57.710
love from social media. The difference with OnlyFans is that
42
00:02:57.819 --> 00:03:03.069
it has a huge reputation for adult material, sexualized and
43
00:03:03.110 --> 00:03:07.189
erotic content. And that's really what drives people to the platform.
44
00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:11.740
It's of interest to me always that the comment on
45
00:03:11.800 --> 00:03:18.770
somebody's Instagram post reading OnlyFansWhen is a little bit of
46
00:03:18.969 --> 00:03:21.409
a clue that that person might want to see more
47
00:03:21.590 --> 00:03:23.650
intimate content from that creator.
48
00:03:23.669 --> 00:03:29.259
And how did you, as a researcher... get into researching
49
00:03:29.379 --> 00:03:31.479
this particular field? Because I don't think there are a
50
00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:33.979
lot of people who think that there are scholars of
51
00:03:34.099 --> 00:03:37.120
adult content and the platforms and the social media. And
52
00:03:37.139 --> 00:03:39.469
I've had some really fascinating conversations with you and I
53
00:03:39.500 --> 00:03:40.189
love this story.
54
00:03:41.159 --> 00:03:45.949
I think getting into studying adult material specifically, you know,
55
00:03:45.969 --> 00:03:49.789
the not safe for work of social media really came
56
00:03:50.009 --> 00:03:53.210
from the way I approached my PhD thesis, which I
57
00:03:53.229 --> 00:03:56.830
started in 2012. Now, that was a time when there
58
00:03:56.870 --> 00:04:01.949
was a real battle raging in internet politics around should
59
00:04:02.090 --> 00:04:05.689
people on social media be allowed to be anonymous and
60
00:04:05.710 --> 00:04:09.050
pseudonymous or should we all be using our real names?
61
00:04:09.330 --> 00:04:13.389
Of course, the landscape on that has changed dramatically, especially
62
00:04:13.469 --> 00:04:16.550
since the social media ban came into force because it's
63
00:04:16.629 --> 00:04:19.769
led to a lot more age verification systems, which are,
64
00:04:20.490 --> 00:04:24.870
in essence, identity verification systems. So when I was putting
65
00:04:24.910 --> 00:04:27.680
together my PhD project, I really wanted to know more
66
00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:32.930
about social media identities. And I found that the politics of...
67
00:04:33.980 --> 00:04:37.420
when somebody wanted to not use their real identity on
68
00:04:37.500 --> 00:04:42.660
social media was the most fascinating aspect of that particular concern.
69
00:04:42.759 --> 00:04:45.300
And the more I followed it, I think the more
70
00:04:45.379 --> 00:04:49.620
I came to really wanting to understand what drove people
71
00:04:50.170 --> 00:04:54.329
to try to stay private, anonymous and secret on the
72
00:04:54.370 --> 00:04:58.810
internet while still accessing parts of themselves that were actually
73
00:04:58.850 --> 00:05:02.360
really genuine and really authentic. And I think the adult
74
00:05:02.399 --> 00:05:04.360
space is just so crucial for that. It's such a
75
00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:07.879
good case study for me as a researcher to explain
76
00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:12.060
that sometimes people work really hard to compartmentalise their identity,
77
00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:15.490
not because they want to bully other people or they're
78
00:05:15.509 --> 00:05:18.110
up to no good or they're doing something they shouldn't,
79
00:05:18.470 --> 00:05:23.509
but simply because our intimate and private and sexual lives
80
00:05:24.290 --> 00:05:28.709
should be compartmentalised and people really strive for that across platforms.
81
00:05:29.189 --> 00:05:33.629
And so when you look at OnlyFans, your proposition is
82
00:05:33.689 --> 00:05:37.779
that it's a paid adult layer that sort of sits
83
00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:42.980
over mainstream social media. What does that show us or
84
00:05:43.060 --> 00:05:48.480
teach us about the way that the platform ecosystem works
85
00:05:49.019 --> 00:05:53.079
in terms of the interaction and the layering between traditional
86
00:05:53.139 --> 00:05:55.920
social media and a platform like OnlyFans?
87
00:05:56.480 --> 00:06:00.319
So key to understanding OnlyFans is the way that it
88
00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:04.899
actually does not offer discoverability. And what I mean by
89
00:06:04.959 --> 00:06:08.000
that is that when you go to a platform like
90
00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:11.600
Instagram or TikTok or there is content there for you
91
00:06:11.660 --> 00:06:14.240
to discover. In fact, the platform would very much like
92
00:06:14.279 --> 00:06:17.699
you to find things that you enjoy watching and looking
93
00:06:17.819 --> 00:06:20.430
at on their platforms because it means you'll stay there longer.
94
00:06:21.029 --> 00:06:23.490
OnlyFans is set up in a really different way. It
95
00:06:23.569 --> 00:06:27.529
doesn't do discoverability. When you first sign up, it might
96
00:06:27.589 --> 00:06:30.930
show you a few recommended accounts just to get you started,
97
00:06:31.529 --> 00:06:35.329
but most people are coming to OnlyFans because they're looking
98
00:06:35.370 --> 00:06:39.430
for somebody they already know. And that is built into
99
00:06:39.589 --> 00:06:44.579
the way it works, especially in terms of how people
100
00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:48.339
on social media use social media platforms that don't allow
101
00:06:48.620 --> 00:06:52.769
explicit or adult material like Instagram to drive their audience
102
00:06:52.930 --> 00:06:55.449
to their OnlyFans page. And that's what I mean about
103
00:06:55.529 --> 00:06:58.990
OnlyFans being a paid and additional layer of on top
104
00:06:59.029 --> 00:07:02.790
of existing social media. OnlyFans is not where you usually
105
00:07:02.829 --> 00:07:07.050
go to find somebody to follow. OnlyFans is a kind
106
00:07:07.089 --> 00:07:11.769
of paywall that people unlock to see more explicit or
107
00:07:11.810 --> 00:07:15.410
more intimate content from a creator they already know and
108
00:07:15.569 --> 00:07:16.879
are already interested in.
109
00:07:17.300 --> 00:07:20.060
And one of the interesting things about OnlyFans, which you
110
00:07:20.100 --> 00:07:23.279
really explore in your book, is that it doesn't portray
111
00:07:23.480 --> 00:07:29.410
itself as, you know, it doesn't portray itself as a
112
00:07:29.689 --> 00:07:33.180
adult content site, although that is what it is predominantly
113
00:07:33.649 --> 00:07:36.339
known for. So can you talk a little bit about
114
00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:41.600
why that is? And then I guess what the policy
115
00:07:41.740 --> 00:07:45.339
implications of that are when we're thinking about how we
116
00:07:45.399 --> 00:07:47.360
might regulate something like this?
117
00:07:47.740 --> 00:07:51.000
It's interesting to me that OnlyFans, I believe, has said,
118
00:07:51.550 --> 00:07:56.129
missed an opportunity in not coming out more strongly to
119
00:07:56.170 --> 00:08:01.329
support its adult creators. It keeps its user statistics really
120
00:08:01.350 --> 00:08:05.819
close to the chest, only releasing required information through the
121
00:08:05.860 --> 00:08:09.459
House of Commons, which governs corporations in the UK where
122
00:08:09.480 --> 00:08:13.639
it's based. But what we know about OnlyFans is definitely
123
00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:17.300
that it makes the huge majority of its money from
124
00:08:17.339 --> 00:08:22.220
adult content. However, if you look at its corporate blog,
125
00:08:22.300 --> 00:08:26.420
for example, or its advice to creators. It uses language
126
00:08:26.819 --> 00:08:32.259
that deliberately sidesteps all of the adultness of what's going on.
127
00:08:32.440 --> 00:08:37.460
Only very rarely will OnlyFans, the company, acknowledge that it
128
00:08:37.539 --> 00:08:41.580
is a place where adult content and adult content creators
129
00:08:42.220 --> 00:08:45.529
really have to use the platform to thrive. And I
130
00:08:45.629 --> 00:08:48.450
feel like this is kind of a disingenuous strategy because
131
00:08:48.509 --> 00:08:51.500
it means that the people taking on the risk and
132
00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:55.580
the stigma of producing adult material are the creators and
133
00:08:55.639 --> 00:08:58.779
not the platform who can very easily hand wave any
134
00:08:58.820 --> 00:09:02.720
accusations that it is a porn platform by just suggesting, no,
135
00:09:02.879 --> 00:09:05.799
it's just for creators of all kinds. And of course,
136
00:09:05.820 --> 00:09:09.820
this has implications. In my book, I talk about the
137
00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:14.179
2021 threatened ban of all adult material on OnlyFans, which
138
00:09:14.230 --> 00:09:19.000
was quickly revoked after enormous backlash. But what it proved,
139
00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:23.610
I think, was that if OnlyFans had to get rid
140
00:09:23.710 --> 00:09:28.649
of or stop supporting or stop facilitating adult content because
141
00:09:29.450 --> 00:09:32.840
several changes in the policy environment, they would. And I
142
00:09:32.919 --> 00:09:36.779
feel like there's a real kind of disingenuous approach there
143
00:09:37.279 --> 00:09:40.460
Because if they came out more strongly and said, yes,
144
00:09:40.519 --> 00:09:43.240
we're for adult creators. Yes, we're for sex workers. Yes,
145
00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:45.679
we support them in all the ways that we can
146
00:09:46.220 --> 00:09:50.250
as a platform. It would do a lot to really
147
00:09:50.279 --> 00:09:54.230
build a stronger level of trust between the platform and
148
00:09:54.250 --> 00:09:55.509
the creators that use it.
149
00:09:55.769 --> 00:10:00.899
And so when we look at the regulatory environment around online, OnlyFans,
150
00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:05.750
you mentioned earlier the social media minimum age restrictions. What
151
00:10:06.039 --> 00:10:13.210
pieces of Australian legislation are focused on or applicable to OnlyFans?
152
00:10:13.629 --> 00:10:16.610
And how is that shaping the platform to the extent
153
00:10:16.629 --> 00:10:17.269
that it is at all?
154
00:10:17.820 --> 00:10:21.669
Important legislation to know about in terms of OnlyFans definitely
155
00:10:21.750 --> 00:10:26.710
includes the ways that Australia interfaces globally with banking providers
156
00:10:26.809 --> 00:10:31.559
and payment providers. It's very interesting that Visa and MasterCard
157
00:10:31.659 --> 00:10:35.139
are these enormous global corporations that Australia must deal with
158
00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:38.850
because they are payment infrastructure that underlies payment. a lot
159
00:10:39.230 --> 00:10:41.409
of what we are allowed to pay for on the
160
00:10:41.470 --> 00:10:45.049
internet and how. And they actually have their own rules
161
00:10:45.110 --> 00:10:49.049
and restrictions around what people can buy using their services.
162
00:10:49.549 --> 00:10:52.730
So this is something that could be addressed at a
163
00:10:52.889 --> 00:10:57.629
banking layer, this more permissive rules around what is allowed
164
00:10:57.700 --> 00:11:01.759
to be processed. The other factor too there is how
165
00:11:01.840 --> 00:11:05.559
people are identifying themselves to the platform and how that
166
00:11:05.620 --> 00:11:11.129
interacts with Australian legislation around identities. As in, what sort
167
00:11:11.350 --> 00:11:15.710
of identity documents do the Australian government consider valid? The
168
00:11:15.730 --> 00:11:19.830
driver's license, the passport. Who has access to those documents?
169
00:11:19.909 --> 00:11:22.570
It's not everybody in Australia that has a passport or
170
00:11:22.610 --> 00:11:28.129
indeed a driver's license. How do those government-issued identification documents
171
00:11:29.129 --> 00:11:33.840
interact with big platforms that suggest that they are safe
172
00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:39.759
because they rely on government identification documents to verify a user.
173
00:11:39.960 --> 00:11:44.019
And in the case of OnlyFans, their consent to upload
174
00:11:44.399 --> 00:11:46.049
very intimate material about themselves.
175
00:11:46.649 --> 00:11:51.529
And the work that you've done in drafting or writing
176
00:11:51.830 --> 00:11:56.490
this book, you have spoken to a lot of OnlyFans creators.
177
00:11:57.379 --> 00:12:02.519
What messages stood out for you from those conversations maybe
178
00:12:02.570 --> 00:12:07.009
which challenged the assumptions of people who are on OnlyFans
179
00:12:07.090 --> 00:12:10.529
or who use OnlyFans that it's sex work or that
180
00:12:10.570 --> 00:12:14.769
it's easy money having had those conversations directly in a
181
00:12:14.950 --> 00:12:19.789
two-way interaction as opposed to often my understanding is OnlyFans
182
00:12:19.830 --> 00:12:24.059
is sort of more of a one-way interaction what was
183
00:12:24.100 --> 00:12:25.399
surprising that you learned?
184
00:12:25.899 --> 00:12:30.419
I think despite my personal understanding of OnlyFans as a
185
00:12:30.460 --> 00:12:35.830
very adult content-centric platform, there was still a reluctance with
186
00:12:35.850 --> 00:12:38.870
the content creators I spoke to to describe themselves as
187
00:12:38.929 --> 00:12:43.690
sex workers or indeed as porn performers. And that's part
188
00:12:43.710 --> 00:12:46.409
of the reason why I use the term, the broader
189
00:12:46.450 --> 00:12:50.019
term of content creator throughout the book, because not every
190
00:12:50.649 --> 00:12:54.370
person on OnlyFans who has an account who takes erotic
191
00:12:54.409 --> 00:12:58.340
or sexual images of themselves to sell, not every person
192
00:12:58.480 --> 00:13:02.139
who does that describes themselves as a sex worker. And
193
00:13:02.179 --> 00:13:05.139
that's of interest to me because I want to represent
194
00:13:05.259 --> 00:13:08.340
people in the way that they would like to be represented.
195
00:13:08.899 --> 00:13:12.100
So for some of my participants, they were suggesting to
196
00:13:12.139 --> 00:13:13.759
me that what they do is art and they are
197
00:13:13.820 --> 00:13:17.899
artists and they represent themselves in the artistic way that
198
00:13:17.919 --> 00:13:20.759
they feel most comfortable with in terms of the genre
199
00:13:20.820 --> 00:13:24.419
and what they show in their photography, their videography. For
200
00:13:24.490 --> 00:13:27.529
other people, they hadn't really wanted to put a label
201
00:13:27.629 --> 00:13:31.529
on it. It's just doing OnlyFans, like OnlyFans itself was
202
00:13:31.629 --> 00:13:36.529
the practice. And so I feel like going for the
203
00:13:36.549 --> 00:13:41.870
term content creator allows for some of that slippage in language.
204
00:13:42.190 --> 00:13:45.840
And it means that I'm more able to focus on
205
00:13:45.980 --> 00:13:49.340
the work that they do to produce content and how
206
00:13:49.379 --> 00:13:52.080
it interacts with a platform and therefore with an audience
207
00:13:52.600 --> 00:13:57.659
instead of simply assuming that everybody on the platform would
208
00:13:58.120 --> 00:14:01.289
respond well to the label maybe of sex worker or
209
00:14:01.309 --> 00:14:01.950
porn performer.
210
00:14:02.330 --> 00:14:06.730
When you're looking at the platform, what particular design choices
211
00:14:06.789 --> 00:14:10.470
in how the platform has designed to monetize content or
212
00:14:11.299 --> 00:14:15.299
You mentioned there the non-discoverability, these choices that are made.
213
00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:20.200
What and why do you think those choices have been made?
214
00:14:20.580 --> 00:14:23.669
Here I'm kind of getting to questions around things like
215
00:14:23.870 --> 00:14:30.230
labour conditions, safety, intimacy, reputation, even economic security, right? The
216
00:14:30.269 --> 00:14:32.690
choices that are being made by the platform around how
217
00:14:32.730 --> 00:14:33.850
these things are considered.
218
00:14:34.429 --> 00:14:38.179
The platform is set up. to take as much subscriber
219
00:14:38.220 --> 00:14:40.950
money as they can. And they're not shy about it.
220
00:14:41.580 --> 00:14:45.379
And I think that that is probably a good and as,
221
00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:50.059
you know, as transparent a strategy as they can put forward,
222
00:14:50.340 --> 00:14:54.720
they will, by they, I mean, platform spokespeople, including Keely Blair,
223
00:14:54.779 --> 00:14:57.860
who is the current CEO, will talk about the way
224
00:14:58.019 --> 00:15:02.019
that they are proud that they don't do discoverability and
225
00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:04.840
that they don't host any kind of advertising at all.
226
00:15:04.940 --> 00:15:07.519
They say they don't collect user data and then use
227
00:15:07.580 --> 00:15:11.570
it to fuel targeted advertising. And the reason they don't
228
00:15:11.649 --> 00:15:15.149
do that is because they would like you to pay.
229
00:15:15.470 --> 00:15:19.429
OnlyFans takes a 20% cut of every payment, leaving 80%
230
00:15:19.429 --> 00:15:23.509
for the creator. And there are multiple ways to pay
231
00:15:23.539 --> 00:15:28.039
for things built in layers in the platform. So it's
232
00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:32.740
not just... OneKey unlocks absolutely everything that a creator has posted.
233
00:15:32.759 --> 00:15:37.470
You can subscribe to a person's OnlyFans account. You can
234
00:15:37.570 --> 00:15:40.830
see what they've posted on their wall by paying a
235
00:15:40.850 --> 00:15:44.289
monthly fee. But then within that, there's also layers. There
236
00:15:44.330 --> 00:15:48.710
are also particular videos or photos that are locked and
237
00:15:48.750 --> 00:15:52.110
that require an extra fee or a tip to unlock
238
00:15:52.149 --> 00:15:56.860
them and look at them. Some creators have a policy
239
00:15:56.940 --> 00:15:59.980
where you may only send them a direct message if
240
00:16:00.019 --> 00:16:05.309
you tip first. And some will send additional extra content
241
00:16:05.389 --> 00:16:08.909
that might be tailored to a specific subscriber in the
242
00:16:08.929 --> 00:16:11.980
direct messages that also requires another fee to unlock. So
243
00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:14.500
there's lots of different levels at which payment is possible.
244
00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:20.559
requested of subscribers and audiences. And that's something that the
245
00:16:20.600 --> 00:16:25.070
platform is really upfront about. The idea is that fans
246
00:16:25.870 --> 00:16:29.590
are encouraged to financially support the people who are making
247
00:16:29.629 --> 00:16:30.690
the content they're enjoying.
248
00:16:31.330 --> 00:16:35.529
Which you're empowering people to be paid for the work
249
00:16:35.610 --> 00:16:38.309
that they're doing or the art that they're creating. I
250
00:16:38.350 --> 00:16:41.750
think something that really strikes me as I'm listening to
251
00:16:41.789 --> 00:16:45.159
you is we talk a lot about how design choices
252
00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:49.279
in traditional social media. Things like imagine a world where
253
00:16:49.299 --> 00:16:52.450
we could go back to having a chronological feed on
254
00:16:52.529 --> 00:16:57.509
social media or where your feed was filled with the
255
00:16:57.549 --> 00:16:59.570
people that you actually wanted to see as opposed to
256
00:16:59.610 --> 00:17:02.129
the ads that were being served up to you. And
257
00:17:02.149 --> 00:17:03.980
when I'm listening to you, and I have to confess,
258
00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:06.380
I've never been on OnlyFans as you can probably tell
259
00:17:06.420 --> 00:17:09.000
from some of the questions I'm asking. But when I
260
00:17:09.079 --> 00:17:12.279
hear you talking, there is a lot of elements of
261
00:17:12.339 --> 00:17:16.450
the design structure of OnlyFans that are the things that
262
00:17:16.490 --> 00:17:20.250
we talk about as design choices that would make traditional
263
00:17:20.329 --> 00:17:24.109
social media perhaps a nicer place to be. So how
264
00:17:24.130 --> 00:17:26.890
do you think about that in terms of are there
265
00:17:26.930 --> 00:17:30.140
lessons that we can take from the way that OnlyFans
266
00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:33.500
is built that would make traditional social media a better
267
00:17:33.539 --> 00:17:35.839
place to be in terms of the town square?
268
00:17:36.660 --> 00:17:39.710
I think about something that one of the content creators
269
00:17:39.750 --> 00:17:43.069
I interviewed for the book told me, which is that
270
00:17:43.130 --> 00:17:45.970
she very sincerely said OnlyFans is her favourite place on
271
00:17:45.990 --> 00:17:48.880
the internet. And one of the reasons why that's true
272
00:17:49.039 --> 00:17:54.000
for her is that when people come to her OnlyFans account...
273
00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:56.980
She has an account that's free to subscribe to, but
274
00:17:57.059 --> 00:18:01.019
a lot of her content is pay-per-view or paid to unlock.
275
00:18:01.720 --> 00:18:05.829
And the way she puts it is that when someone
276
00:18:05.910 --> 00:18:10.089
has come to OnlyFans to see what she has created
277
00:18:10.289 --> 00:18:13.390
or to engage with her, there are so few people
278
00:18:13.450 --> 00:18:16.430
who have come there in bad faith because they're invested
279
00:18:16.630 --> 00:18:19.490
in what she has put up and what she has
280
00:18:19.529 --> 00:18:22.619
decided to share that week. Whether their investment is a
281
00:18:22.670 --> 00:18:27.160
literal financial investment of paying money to see individual posts
282
00:18:27.700 --> 00:18:30.759
or whether they simply have invested their time and energy
283
00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:34.519
into setting up an OnlyFans account and following her from
284
00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:40.059
her other social media platforms to OnlyFans, she finds that
285
00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:42.900
the people who are there on purpose and they really
286
00:18:42.920 --> 00:18:45.779
want to be there and it changes the dynamic of
287
00:18:45.819 --> 00:18:49.319
the interactions that she has with her audience. She's comparing
288
00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:52.390
this to YouTube where she also has a following, but
289
00:18:52.450 --> 00:18:57.230
people don't really see that there's a high barrier or
290
00:18:57.269 --> 00:19:01.230
cost to entry. So there's something about that set up
291
00:19:01.309 --> 00:19:06.190
in a platform that seems to enable more, I guess,
292
00:19:06.359 --> 00:19:11.700
bad faith engagement because anyone can get into YouTube, look
293
00:19:11.720 --> 00:19:14.960
at a video, leave a comment that might be rude
294
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:18.240
or nasty and then bounce out. With OnlyFans, people are
295
00:19:18.299 --> 00:19:21.779
there because they're invested in one way or another.
296
00:19:30.019 --> 00:19:33.160
The other side of it is OnlyFans is not a
297
00:19:33.289 --> 00:19:37.430
utopia where bad things don't happen. And so how do
298
00:19:37.450 --> 00:19:40.380
you think about the content moderation or the rules and
299
00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:44.619
the terms of service around OnlyFans? And are there areas
300
00:19:45.589 --> 00:19:51.259
where you think need to be strengthened or that you're
301
00:19:51.539 --> 00:19:55.680
calling for greater protections for the content creators?
302
00:19:56.180 --> 00:19:59.720
I think the way OnlyFans is set up, because it's
303
00:19:59.819 --> 00:20:03.210
not so much open to the public in that you
304
00:20:03.250 --> 00:20:05.869
at least have to sign up with a user account
305
00:20:05.930 --> 00:20:09.359
to see most things. There's a high level at which
306
00:20:09.490 --> 00:20:13.859
creators can screen and monitor who is getting in touch
307
00:20:13.880 --> 00:20:16.700
with them and why and how. Of course that doesn't,
308
00:20:16.740 --> 00:20:19.039
you're right, it's not a utopia. Of course this doesn't
309
00:20:19.099 --> 00:20:23.960
prevent people from accessing your content in bad faith. Another
310
00:20:24.019 --> 00:20:27.000
insight from the creators I spoke with was that there
311
00:20:27.319 --> 00:20:32.630
are always people who are trying to find their content
312
00:20:32.710 --> 00:20:35.109
so that they can copy it, download it and leak
313
00:20:35.150 --> 00:20:41.190
it online. OnlyFansLeague platforms for free, which creators rightly interpret
314
00:20:41.410 --> 00:20:44.289
as a huge violation, not only because it loses them
315
00:20:44.349 --> 00:20:47.450
money if people can see what they put out for nothing,
316
00:20:47.549 --> 00:20:51.329
but also it violates their consent. If you as a
317
00:20:51.390 --> 00:20:55.019
creator are on OnlyFans and you say, you need to
318
00:20:55.059 --> 00:20:57.480
pay me however much, $ 10, $ 50 to see this particular
319
00:20:57.500 --> 00:21:03.490
piece of content, that is the consent contract. Those are
320
00:21:03.509 --> 00:21:06.019
the conditions under which that person is saying, you may
321
00:21:06.099 --> 00:21:10.119
see this image of me. Leak platforms really violate that
322
00:21:10.200 --> 00:21:13.279
kind of consent mechanism and also a lot of trust.
323
00:21:13.700 --> 00:21:17.420
So of course, there are ways that OnlyFans, the platform,
324
00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:21.900
could invest more in doing things like trying to digitally
325
00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:25.940
track and monitor the content that gets posted to their platform,
326
00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:31.450
whether that is technological watermarks or ways they can track
327
00:21:31.509 --> 00:21:35.829
and identify images from OnlyFans across the internet. There are
328
00:21:35.849 --> 00:21:39.309
third party companies set up like Rolta, for example, who
329
00:21:39.410 --> 00:21:42.829
promised to do that for creators with varying degrees of success.
330
00:21:43.289 --> 00:21:49.160
And there's also technology, for example, blocking things like taking
331
00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:55.490
screenshots or downloading material from the OnlyFans platform. It's always
332
00:21:55.970 --> 00:22:00.470
really difficult to stop people from copying and downloading and
333
00:22:00.529 --> 00:22:05.640
leaking content altogether. But this is something that is definitely
334
00:22:05.680 --> 00:22:10.299
worth investing in for OnlyFans, the corporation, because that's just
335
00:22:10.359 --> 00:22:13.849
another way that they build a kind of trust between
336
00:22:13.869 --> 00:22:16.369
themselves and the creators that make them work. all their
337
00:22:16.390 --> 00:22:17.710
money on their side.
338
00:22:17.910 --> 00:22:22.170
Yeah, it's interesting. And I've heard Claire Pullen, who's the
339
00:22:22.190 --> 00:22:26.029
CEO of the Australian Writers Guild, talk about how adult
340
00:22:26.130 --> 00:22:28.609
content is often out in front in terms of the
341
00:22:28.750 --> 00:22:33.950
impact on content creators, and particularly around things like copyright
342
00:22:34.059 --> 00:22:37.119
at the moment. There's a big conversation around essentially the
343
00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:39.119
issues that you're just talking about, right? How do we
344
00:22:39.180 --> 00:22:42.859
ensure that all creators have control and are paid for
345
00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:46.299
the work that they do? And it's interesting hearing you
346
00:22:46.359 --> 00:22:48.960
talk about those dynamics that are going on with the
347
00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:55.039
different intermediaries, the management firms, and also questions around watermarking, etc.
348
00:22:55.720 --> 00:22:57.920
Can you tell us a little bit more about the
349
00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:04.890
sort of surrounding industries around OnlyFans and how that works?
350
00:23:05.369 --> 00:23:08.890
And again, I guess what I'm looking at with this is,
351
00:23:09.819 --> 00:23:12.910
how that might actually be sitting sort of out in
352
00:23:13.009 --> 00:23:15.970
front as a precursor to, you know, other types of
353
00:23:16.089 --> 00:23:18.930
creative industries that we have in Australia and lessons that
354
00:23:18.950 --> 00:23:20.099
we can learn from that?
355
00:23:20.660 --> 00:23:22.759
Thank you. It's a great question. And I always think
356
00:23:22.819 --> 00:23:26.980
that when we're talking about creator culture and creator economies,
357
00:23:27.450 --> 00:23:30.950
that we should be including adult content creators.
358
00:23:30.950 --> 00:23:32.019
100%.
359
00:23:32.019 --> 00:23:36.880
I have read Australia's digital economy strategy 2030, and it
360
00:23:37.640 --> 00:23:40.509
does not mention porn once. And that makes me think
361
00:23:40.829 --> 00:23:44.130
it's a bit of an oversight to not include some
362
00:23:44.190 --> 00:23:48.009
of the most profitable and the most sought after content
363
00:23:48.369 --> 00:23:53.720
content that content creators provide. So certainly there are lessons
364
00:23:53.819 --> 00:23:59.359
that the broader digital economy and content creation industry can
365
00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:02.930
take away from adult content creators, some of whom are
366
00:24:03.230 --> 00:24:09.009
really pioneering techniques, strategies, and doing a whole lot to
367
00:24:09.750 --> 00:24:13.930
fight things like copyright issues from the position and the
368
00:24:13.990 --> 00:24:16.339
experience they have. One of the creators who spoke to
369
00:24:16.380 --> 00:24:20.400
me for this project was telling me about this fascinating
370
00:24:20.460 --> 00:24:25.380
system that she has set up in quite a DIY
371
00:24:25.460 --> 00:24:29.119
sort of fashion. She calls it poisoning her photos. And
372
00:24:29.140 --> 00:24:32.849
what she does is she attributes every single subscriber that
373
00:24:32.990 --> 00:24:37.349
accesses her content with a different number. And she organizes
374
00:24:37.569 --> 00:24:42.119
her content for OnlyFans in computer folders and Every time
375
00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:46.319
somebody spends money to unlock some of her content, she
376
00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:50.700
sends it out in a specific way where their number
377
00:24:50.859 --> 00:24:53.599
that identifies who they are to her as a fan
378
00:24:53.660 --> 00:24:57.589
in her OnlyFans account is attached to that image. And
379
00:24:57.650 --> 00:25:01.990
she says people have leaked her content before and she's
380
00:25:02.009 --> 00:25:05.069
been able to identify exactly who has done it, which
381
00:25:05.329 --> 00:25:09.640
is something that she has followed up with personally in
382
00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:12.180
terms of messaging that person and saying, I know it
383
00:25:12.799 --> 00:25:15.339
was you who leaked this particular thing because I can
384
00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:18.720
see which image I sent to you and I can
385
00:25:18.740 --> 00:25:21.940
see that essentially I've poisoned it, I've watermarked it myself.
386
00:25:22.569 --> 00:25:27.109
But something that's interesting about what the repercussions of that
387
00:25:27.309 --> 00:25:33.490
are is that unless that fan is demonstrably from Australia
388
00:25:33.509 --> 00:25:37.599
and there are legal restrictions around how she can pursue
389
00:25:37.660 --> 00:25:41.869
that person and try to fight them formally for some
390
00:25:41.950 --> 00:25:43.529
kind of payback.
391
00:25:44.210 --> 00:25:46.690
And I think what I find so fascinating about that
392
00:25:46.789 --> 00:25:50.569
is it is literally the questions that authors or the
393
00:25:50.849 --> 00:25:55.059
creators of paintings are looking at. How do you use
394
00:25:55.299 --> 00:25:59.839
technology to protect the work from, for example, being sucked
395
00:25:59.859 --> 00:26:03.730
into AI models without consent. And these are actually a
396
00:26:03.789 --> 00:26:07.069
lot of the things that OnlyFans, as you say, that's
397
00:26:07.089 --> 00:26:10.130
an example of DIY, but there are other examples where
398
00:26:10.630 --> 00:26:14.460
it's quite professional. There are intermediaries that are set up
399
00:26:14.599 --> 00:26:19.680
offering these services to particular content providers. And I I
400
00:26:19.720 --> 00:26:22.299
just think it hadn't occurred to me until I heard
401
00:26:22.339 --> 00:26:24.420
the conversation with Claire. And then when I did, I
402
00:26:24.440 --> 00:26:26.839
was like, yeah, that's really obvious because there is a
403
00:26:26.900 --> 00:26:30.299
monetary incentive to be doing that and to be out
404
00:26:30.339 --> 00:26:37.309
in front on it. You mentioned there a little bit earlier,
405
00:26:37.390 --> 00:26:41.750
the 2021 attempted ban on explicit content. Can you talk
406
00:26:41.789 --> 00:26:47.029
a little bit more about that? And what both content creators,
407
00:26:47.089 --> 00:26:50.869
but also policymakers can learn from that example.
408
00:26:51.089 --> 00:26:54.710
I call it the almost ban in my book because
409
00:26:54.769 --> 00:26:58.259
it was never put into effect in any meaningful way.
410
00:26:58.319 --> 00:27:02.460
It was simply an announcement that people mostly heard about
411
00:27:02.500 --> 00:27:06.509
through a tweet from the OnlyFans account and then simply
412
00:27:06.619 --> 00:27:11.579
pushed back hard enough. and made really compelling arguments about
413
00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:15.119
the value of adult content creation and the work it
414
00:27:15.160 --> 00:27:18.019
involves and also how their bottom line would be impacted
415
00:27:18.140 --> 00:27:21.500
as a company, that they changed their mind and simply
416
00:27:21.579 --> 00:27:23.700
put out a second announcement saying, don't worry, we're not
417
00:27:23.720 --> 00:27:26.869
going to do that. We changed our mind. So it's
418
00:27:27.009 --> 00:27:29.930
an almost ban in the book because it never really
419
00:27:29.970 --> 00:27:33.410
came about. But I think what we can learn from
420
00:27:33.470 --> 00:27:38.019
that in terms of legislating And this again goes back
421
00:27:38.039 --> 00:27:43.309
to global payment infrastructures that creators from all countries, including Australia,
422
00:27:43.349 --> 00:27:47.869
are really dependent upon. OnlyFans was in effect suggesting that
423
00:27:48.109 --> 00:27:51.529
companies like Visa and MasterCard were tightening their restrictions on
424
00:27:51.650 --> 00:27:57.140
what payments they would process. And when these companies start
425
00:27:57.220 --> 00:28:00.200
to pull in and tighten their rules around, we don't
426
00:28:00.259 --> 00:28:05.779
process payments associated with adult material or pornography, then OnlyFans
427
00:28:05.799 --> 00:28:07.980
was suggesting, well, that makes it harder for us to
428
00:28:08.700 --> 00:28:12.859
continue to process those payments in a back-end sense. So,
429
00:28:13.539 --> 00:28:18.200
Legislation should really be focused on what kind of role
430
00:28:18.220 --> 00:28:23.210
a bank or a payment provider can have in deciding
431
00:28:23.349 --> 00:28:28.410
who gets to be paid for what. It is something
432
00:28:28.490 --> 00:28:32.329
to grapple with, the role of these payment providers. in
433
00:28:32.450 --> 00:28:36.279
making rules and drawing lines around what is illegal to
434
00:28:36.319 --> 00:28:43.220
facilitate and what is simply culturally contentious enough to make
435
00:28:43.259 --> 00:28:47.660
a rule about it. Because just like content creators who
436
00:28:48.960 --> 00:28:52.220
insist upon their work being called art and not porn,
437
00:28:52.890 --> 00:28:57.069
There are really blurry distinctions between the art world and
438
00:28:57.089 --> 00:29:00.430
the porn world in a lot of cases. And what
439
00:29:00.579 --> 00:29:05.240
counts as this or that, explicit or not, pornography or art,
440
00:29:05.660 --> 00:29:09.559
these are deeply human questions that are not very well
441
00:29:09.660 --> 00:29:14.640
approached by enormous banking corporations. And indeed, their role in
442
00:29:14.740 --> 00:29:19.240
trying to tease out those really complicated questions is probably
443
00:29:19.980 --> 00:29:23.039
not suitable to what's going on. In the same way
444
00:29:23.140 --> 00:29:27.259
as big tech companies that run social media platforms have
445
00:29:27.339 --> 00:29:31.460
also been tasked inevitably with making rules around what is
446
00:29:31.559 --> 00:29:35.289
and is not allowed on the platform. Every platform moderates content.
447
00:29:35.970 --> 00:29:41.589
No platform allows illegal content and illegal material. on their site.
448
00:29:42.109 --> 00:29:46.529
So how they define what is permissible and not permissible
449
00:29:47.549 --> 00:29:51.259
is subject to intense scrutiny by academics who love to
450
00:29:51.319 --> 00:29:54.980
pick apart these documents and the language in them around
451
00:29:55.619 --> 00:29:59.599
where they will allow, for example, Instagram says no female
452
00:29:59.640 --> 00:30:04.039
presenting nipples is except in active breastfeeding, except in activism,
453
00:30:04.200 --> 00:30:07.230
except in art, except in sculpture. And they make all
454
00:30:07.269 --> 00:30:10.809
of these rules that just muddy the waters further. But
455
00:30:11.349 --> 00:30:16.390
I think from a policy perspective, platforms allowing some content
456
00:30:16.470 --> 00:30:19.910
and not other content is one of the functions they
457
00:30:19.930 --> 00:30:24.359
should be expected to perform. Banking and payment providers, on
458
00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:28.000
the other hand, I feel should not have so much
459
00:30:28.059 --> 00:30:31.420
of a cultural role in terms of what they are
460
00:30:31.480 --> 00:30:35.509
allowed to call permissible or block and ban.
461
00:30:35.849 --> 00:30:38.789
Yeah, and yet actually we impose quite a lot of
462
00:30:38.829 --> 00:30:43.450
rules on our banking institutions in terms of transparency, the
463
00:30:43.470 --> 00:30:46.859
requirements that they're not, know your customer, all these types
464
00:30:46.890 --> 00:30:49.779
of things. And I think that just reaffirms for me,
465
00:30:49.819 --> 00:30:52.359
I have a statement that, and actually it's originally from
466
00:30:52.400 --> 00:30:55.269
Nick Davies, that tech policy is just policy, right? It's
467
00:30:55.309 --> 00:30:59.269
just public policy. And this just reaffirms, like people wouldn't
468
00:30:59.410 --> 00:31:04.029
necessarily think that, you know, the rules, banking infrastructure shapes
469
00:31:04.089 --> 00:31:06.579
an experience on an online platform to the extent that
470
00:31:06.619 --> 00:31:10.849
it does, but it absolutely does. So I guess two
471
00:31:10.910 --> 00:31:14.410
questions that flow for me from that. One is, how
472
00:31:14.450 --> 00:31:19.460
does OnlyFans specify what is and isn't allowed on the platform?
473
00:31:20.279 --> 00:31:24.759
And then what percentage of content on OnlyFans would be
474
00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:28.490
considered to be adult content? So to the first question,
475
00:31:28.650 --> 00:31:32.869
OnlyFans has its own community guidelines. There are actually a
476
00:31:32.890 --> 00:31:35.650
lot of things that are not allowed on OnlyFans that
477
00:31:35.750 --> 00:31:39.509
still do fall under that broader category of adult or
478
00:31:39.569 --> 00:31:43.410
explicit material. One example that I raise in the book
479
00:31:43.470 --> 00:31:49.279
is that OnlyFans does not permit everyday objects to be
480
00:31:49.910 --> 00:31:53.660
used in an unsafe manner, which they think is using
481
00:31:53.700 --> 00:31:56.369
them as a sex toy. Which is really interesting for
482
00:31:56.410 --> 00:32:00.880
me because there are many places across the internet in
483
00:32:01.019 --> 00:32:05.900
lifestyle magazines or women's websites or even sexual health places
484
00:32:06.420 --> 00:32:09.940
that say things to you like, you can actually use
485
00:32:10.019 --> 00:32:15.039
everyday objects like fruits, vegetables, cucumbers, carrots, zucchinis, what have you,
486
00:32:15.160 --> 00:32:19.539
as sex toys, provided that you use an appropriate barrier
487
00:32:19.579 --> 00:32:21.720
method like a condom on them so that you don't
488
00:32:21.940 --> 00:32:25.450
introduce bacteria where it shouldn't be introduced. So that's just
489
00:32:25.970 --> 00:32:30.470
one example in which OnlyFans has decided that no vegetable insertion,
490
00:32:30.769 --> 00:32:34.509
whereas actually that is not necessarily an unsafe thing to
491
00:32:34.549 --> 00:32:37.730
do as long as you take appropriate health precautions. And
492
00:32:37.789 --> 00:32:43.559
that's just a kind of moralistic concern that people should
493
00:32:43.700 --> 00:32:48.359
only use certain objects as sex toys that are, you know,
494
00:32:48.400 --> 00:32:51.140
specifically designed to be sex toys and nothing else. There's
495
00:32:51.180 --> 00:32:53.740
no health reason for that. And in a similar way,
496
00:32:53.960 --> 00:32:57.000
there are lots of restrictions on things like plastic particular
497
00:32:57.019 --> 00:33:00.779
bodily fluids being allowed or not allowed to be seen.
498
00:33:01.099 --> 00:33:04.009
Blood is a really interesting one where blood from the
499
00:33:04.049 --> 00:33:09.269
human body might involve or intersect with menstrual blood, for example,
500
00:33:09.329 --> 00:33:12.890
and how that is expected or allowed to be shown
501
00:33:13.410 --> 00:33:16.619
is a really contentious area. And there have been plenty
502
00:33:16.839 --> 00:33:20.200
of people who who have run up against some of
503
00:33:20.279 --> 00:33:25.730
OnlyFans' policies on what is allowed to be on their platform.
504
00:33:26.329 --> 00:33:30.390
Even as a platform that allows sexually explicit and adult material,
505
00:33:30.750 --> 00:33:34.829
they certainly do not allow any kind of sexual expression there.
506
00:33:34.849 --> 00:33:48.269
MUSIC PLAYS.
507
00:33:52.400 --> 00:33:55.099
I want to pick up on the question that you,
508
00:33:55.319 --> 00:33:58.329
on the point you made there about the crossover between,
509
00:33:58.349 --> 00:34:05.150
for example, women's health websites or traditional influencers. The sort
510
00:34:05.170 --> 00:34:10.059
of grey line between influencer culture and adult content that
511
00:34:10.119 --> 00:34:14.199
is shown on OnlyFans is, How has that developed and
512
00:34:14.460 --> 00:34:17.139
what have you seen? How does that impact the way
513
00:34:17.239 --> 00:34:19.639
that OnlyFans operates?
514
00:34:19.659 --> 00:34:24.239
So I am arguing what I've seen on OnlyFans is
515
00:34:24.300 --> 00:34:29.570
essentially that the practices that creators are increasingly engaging with
516
00:34:30.150 --> 00:34:36.829
are entrenching influencer practice into the world of adult content creation.
517
00:34:37.329 --> 00:34:39.530
And what I mean by that is that it is
518
00:34:39.690 --> 00:34:45.739
in a lot of scenarios, no longer enough to act
519
00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:50.730
as a porn performer and then expect that the marketing
520
00:34:50.769 --> 00:34:56.050
and the promotion will be done for somebody, especially if
521
00:34:56.269 --> 00:34:59.590
a creator wants to be more independent and not work
522
00:34:59.650 --> 00:35:02.630
for a commercial enterprise or a studio or an agency,
523
00:35:02.650 --> 00:35:06.010
and they find themselves on OnlyFans trying to do this
524
00:35:06.070 --> 00:35:09.590
on their own. An enormous amount of the work will
525
00:35:09.630 --> 00:35:12.230
be the sort of work that influencers do, which is
526
00:35:12.809 --> 00:35:19.110
sharing relatable yet aspirational images of their lifestyle and their
527
00:35:19.190 --> 00:35:23.570
everyday experiences with a big audience in order to come
528
00:35:23.610 --> 00:35:28.360
across as somebody worth knowing, somebody authentic and somebody interesting
529
00:35:28.679 --> 00:35:31.500
that you might want to see more of. For influencers,
530
00:35:32.099 --> 00:35:36.179
This is a strategy that underpins the way that eventually
531
00:35:36.219 --> 00:35:39.699
they end up monetizing their content by suggesting that something
532
00:35:39.739 --> 00:35:42.239
they do in their everyday life is use particular brands
533
00:35:42.300 --> 00:35:45.119
that have sponsored them to be featured in their content.
534
00:35:45.570 --> 00:35:49.190
For OnlyFans creators, it means putting out an image of
535
00:35:49.230 --> 00:35:54.030
a person who is desirable and interesting and fun and
536
00:35:54.050 --> 00:35:58.690
authentic so that their audience will want to see more
537
00:35:58.750 --> 00:36:03.050
intimate imagery from them. And that involves a tremendous amount
538
00:36:03.090 --> 00:36:04.130
of work. Yeah.
539
00:36:04.349 --> 00:36:07.449
And so, I mean, what you're describing there is essentially
540
00:36:07.710 --> 00:36:10.010
a depiction of the gig economy, right? So it's saying
541
00:36:10.469 --> 00:36:14.840
we are providing more direct access to an individual. And
542
00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:18.099
in some instances, that can be incredibly empowering because the
543
00:36:18.139 --> 00:36:23.820
individual gets much more direct financial benefits. In other instances,
544
00:36:23.940 --> 00:36:27.219
we've seen that that can be quite exploitative and result
545
00:36:27.260 --> 00:36:31.739
in a lessening of conditions and protections, workers' rights, for example.
546
00:36:32.840 --> 00:36:37.820
When you're engaging with the content creators on OnlyFans, what
547
00:36:37.909 --> 00:36:42.050
proportion of them do you feel are coming at this
548
00:36:42.170 --> 00:36:48.050
feeling that they are being empowered by the platform? Versus
549
00:36:48.150 --> 00:36:51.949
the risk that they're doing it because of an economic
550
00:36:52.030 --> 00:36:56.119
incentive or economic drivers that this is a good way
551
00:36:56.219 --> 00:36:57.900
for them to be able to make money.
552
00:36:58.239 --> 00:37:02.579
It's both. And my perspective on this is really influenced
553
00:37:03.320 --> 00:37:07.130
by another scholar, Heather Berg, who talks about porno dialectics.
554
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:10.460
And that is an approach in which she suggests that
555
00:37:10.599 --> 00:37:14.559
actually we need to be able to hold two apparently
556
00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:19.400
conflicting perspectives both at the same time, because OnlyFans can
557
00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:24.710
be both empowering and exploitative at the same time. It
558
00:37:24.809 --> 00:37:28.550
is impossible to divorce the conditions of content creation on
559
00:37:28.670 --> 00:37:32.940
OnlyFans with the broader economic realities that we are in.
560
00:37:33.480 --> 00:37:35.800
OnlyFans is a kind of work. It is a kind
561
00:37:35.840 --> 00:37:39.739
of gig economy work, as you've identified. And it is
562
00:37:40.340 --> 00:37:43.610
one of the options for people who think they can
563
00:37:44.150 --> 00:37:48.449
engage with that kind of work among many options. And
564
00:37:48.670 --> 00:37:54.230
whether that is a kind of exploitation is just a
565
00:37:54.289 --> 00:37:58.250
really hard question to answer and I think a really...
566
00:37:59.699 --> 00:38:06.849
something to layer on creators that they themselves have already
567
00:38:06.949 --> 00:38:10.269
reckoned with by the time they're at a point where
568
00:38:10.289 --> 00:38:14.119
they want to upload a photo or a video. It's
569
00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:18.280
a decision that creators make to put this content forward.
570
00:38:18.659 --> 00:38:21.539
If it's not their decision to put content on OnlyFans,
571
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:24.780
you are talking about a crime and not a form
572
00:38:24.860 --> 00:38:29.230
of work. That I always want to suggest is, like
573
00:38:29.289 --> 00:38:33.170
quite a different sort of conversation. OnlyFans is for creators
574
00:38:33.210 --> 00:38:37.369
who decide to put that content up for other people's consumption.
575
00:38:38.030 --> 00:38:40.980
As a form of work, it has aspects about it
576
00:38:41.079 --> 00:38:44.300
that are preferable to a lot of other jobs. It
577
00:38:44.340 --> 00:38:48.360
has aspects about it that are more risky or more
578
00:38:48.440 --> 00:38:51.699
unpleasant than other jobs again. And I think we see
579
00:38:51.719 --> 00:38:55.929
this borne out in broader research about sex work that
580
00:38:56.170 --> 00:38:59.650
has a much longer history than OnlyFans. This idea that
581
00:39:00.210 --> 00:39:04.489
when people are weighing up how to or whether to
582
00:39:04.690 --> 00:39:07.780
get into sex work, usually they are measuring it against
583
00:39:07.820 --> 00:39:11.480
a lot of other aspects and realities that they're living in.
584
00:39:11.880 --> 00:39:13.960
And look, the creators who have spoken to me about
585
00:39:14.039 --> 00:39:18.519
being on OnlyFans, for one creator in particular, she was
586
00:39:18.559 --> 00:39:24.199
suggesting that because of her chronic fatigue disability, OnlyFans provided
587
00:39:24.300 --> 00:39:28.530
the most flexible work option that she could do from
588
00:39:28.590 --> 00:39:32.699
home and that would still mean that her income was
589
00:39:32.760 --> 00:39:35.820
enough for her to afford the things she needed to
590
00:39:35.860 --> 00:39:39.199
live comfortably. And so that's a decision that she's made
591
00:39:39.239 --> 00:39:42.510
in the context of all of her other options. I
592
00:39:42.530 --> 00:39:46.309
think the agency that individual creators have shouldn't be minimized
593
00:39:46.869 --> 00:39:51.800
when we are all so constantly called on to be
594
00:39:52.420 --> 00:39:56.219
making money as individuals in an environment that is so
595
00:39:56.340 --> 00:39:59.179
heavily driven by what you can afford.
596
00:39:59.199 --> 00:40:05.940
Yeah. I am all for individual agency, but I'm also
597
00:40:06.099 --> 00:40:08.539
all for a society that supports people to be able
598
00:40:08.579 --> 00:40:11.280
to make best choices for them as individuals and not
599
00:40:11.320 --> 00:40:14.000
have to make tough choices. If they don't want to
600
00:40:14.039 --> 00:40:16.619
make those choices, if they do, go for it. I
601
00:40:16.659 --> 00:40:22.139
think one of the really central themes to this conversation
602
00:40:22.420 --> 00:40:26.619
for me, Emily, is the design choices that are made,
603
00:40:26.699 --> 00:40:30.420
whether it's by the platform or whether it's in the
604
00:40:30.519 --> 00:40:33.929
actual design of the technology, in the terms and conditions
605
00:40:34.219 --> 00:40:37.530
or community guidelines that they have, or whether it's things
606
00:40:37.570 --> 00:40:44.989
like the banking regulations. If you were redesigning OnlyFans to
607
00:40:45.070 --> 00:40:49.960
be the best place it could be to give people
608
00:40:50.019 --> 00:40:55.719
that individual agency but to minimise exploitation, what are the
609
00:40:55.780 --> 00:40:58.300
things that you would change? And what I'm really getting
610
00:40:58.360 --> 00:41:01.000
here is like we in the podcast talk about humans
611
00:41:01.090 --> 00:41:04.170
shape technology and it then shapes us. So how would
612
00:41:04.190 --> 00:41:07.800
you shape it differently so that it has people a
613
00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:11.110
really beneficial impact on the people that are using it
614
00:41:11.329 --> 00:41:12.909
and on the content creators?
615
00:41:13.570 --> 00:41:19.309
I think I would start not necessarily with a particular
616
00:41:19.869 --> 00:41:24.750
feature of the platform, but with the way that it's communicated.
617
00:41:24.769 --> 00:41:30.139
I think I would start with OnlyFans simply being more
618
00:41:30.579 --> 00:41:35.340
honest about what it is and who it's for and
619
00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:40.739
really coming out strongly in support of sex workers, porn performers,
620
00:41:40.889 --> 00:41:44.110
artists and content creators. of all kinds, in a way
621
00:41:44.150 --> 00:41:48.630
that actually includes their adult content creators in a way
622
00:41:48.710 --> 00:41:53.179
that doesn't further stigmatise them, includes them in the conversations,
623
00:41:53.820 --> 00:41:57.280
offers them any kind of support that they might need
624
00:41:57.320 --> 00:42:01.039
in terms of how best to communicate their content without
625
00:42:01.480 --> 00:42:05.610
hopefully running afoul of that content being leaked and distributed
626
00:42:05.650 --> 00:42:10.449
without their consent. But just importantly saying, we're for adult content.
627
00:42:11.030 --> 00:42:16.389
We support our adult content creators and... It's our mission
628
00:42:16.489 --> 00:42:20.530
to be a place where that work and labour is
629
00:42:20.650 --> 00:42:25.010
valued and those people are valued as important cultural workers.
630
00:42:25.380 --> 00:42:27.480
Yeah, it is kind of strange to me that they
631
00:42:27.519 --> 00:42:30.920
don't already do that, given that that is the prevailing message.
632
00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:32.300
Why do you think it is that they don't?
633
00:42:32.539 --> 00:42:37.800
Because it gives them the opportunity to sidestep any aspects
634
00:42:37.840 --> 00:42:41.139
of the platform that attract attention that might be negative. So,
635
00:42:41.199 --> 00:42:46.480
for example... There has been a few instances in OnlyFans
636
00:42:46.579 --> 00:42:51.000
history where a very, very young creator will join. And
637
00:42:51.159 --> 00:42:55.670
so this is, for example, somebody who has been like
638
00:42:56.170 --> 00:43:01.809
a kind of celebrity before they have turned 18. And
639
00:43:02.190 --> 00:43:05.179
what they have done to make a splash and, you know,
640
00:43:05.219 --> 00:43:08.579
grab some publicity around their OnlyFans debut is connect it
641
00:43:08.619 --> 00:43:12.380
to their 18th birthday. This is not something that OnlyFans
642
00:43:12.719 --> 00:43:17.150
talks about in their corporate communication, on their official social
643
00:43:17.190 --> 00:43:21.969
media feeds or in terms of press releases. When, you know,
644
00:43:22.010 --> 00:43:26.909
for example, Little Tay did that strategy, announced that they
645
00:43:26.949 --> 00:43:30.179
had begun an OnlyFans on their 18th birthday, made a
646
00:43:30.380 --> 00:43:33.360
record amount of money, you know, a million dollars, the
647
00:43:33.400 --> 00:43:38.800
fastest anyone ever had on OnlyFans. This makes people uncomfortable because...
648
00:43:39.329 --> 00:43:44.820
It relies on sexualising a minor in a way that
649
00:43:44.940 --> 00:43:50.320
feels a little bit exploitative, uncomfortable, a bit icky. It's
650
00:43:50.440 --> 00:43:55.099
not something that the platform wanted to necessarily lean into,
651
00:43:55.179 --> 00:43:58.030
but they were very happy to let that go ahead
652
00:43:58.110 --> 00:44:02.369
and make headlines and, of course, drive more audiences to
653
00:44:02.889 --> 00:44:07.929
seeing what this very fresh adult had come to put
654
00:44:07.989 --> 00:44:11.670
on the platform. So I'm not suggesting that OnlyFans adopts
655
00:44:11.730 --> 00:44:15.179
a strategy of enlisting minors to drum up a lot
656
00:44:15.219 --> 00:44:19.659
of publicity about their transition into adulthood marked by starting
657
00:44:19.679 --> 00:44:23.679
an OnlyFans account. But I am suggesting that it's very
658
00:44:23.739 --> 00:44:29.030
convenient that on the day that somebody debuts as a
659
00:44:29.070 --> 00:44:33.010
very young creator that OnlyFans will simply put out a
660
00:44:33.050 --> 00:44:38.269
really benign post about its latest comedians who have participated
661
00:44:38.449 --> 00:44:40.150
in a comedy roast of a celebrity.
662
00:44:40.480 --> 00:44:42.860
And I mean, I'm so torn listening to that, honestly,
663
00:44:42.880 --> 00:44:44.719
because one part of me is like, oh, good on them.
664
00:44:44.760 --> 00:44:47.639
A million dollars, like fabulous. And then the other part
665
00:44:47.679 --> 00:44:49.900
of me goes to the exactly what you're saying about
666
00:44:49.960 --> 00:44:52.760
sexualizing a minor and the challenges around that. And I
667
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:56.719
think that to me just highlights the importance of the
668
00:44:56.780 --> 00:44:58.679
work that you're doing in this space.
669
00:44:59.380 --> 00:45:03.530
And in terms of what support do adult creators need
670
00:45:03.570 --> 00:45:08.949
that they're not getting, I think is something that is
671
00:45:08.989 --> 00:45:11.849
just like a future research question for me as well.
672
00:45:12.849 --> 00:45:17.909
OnlyFans is not the only adult content creation platform. And
673
00:45:18.329 --> 00:45:21.750
there's a lot going on in the social media porn
674
00:45:21.829 --> 00:45:24.889
space that is going to form part of of my
675
00:45:24.969 --> 00:45:29.440
own future research. And something that I would like to
676
00:45:29.500 --> 00:45:34.460
know more about is more stories from different people who
677
00:45:34.679 --> 00:45:38.610
are doing adult content creation and who are also involved
678
00:45:38.659 --> 00:45:41.550
in the broader kind of industry, right? Who are the
679
00:45:41.590 --> 00:45:45.829
OnlyFans agents? Who's running the leak platforms? How are so
680
00:45:45.909 --> 00:45:51.110
many different adjacent intermediaries making money from the value of
681
00:45:51.780 --> 00:45:56.800
That these content creators are making, but also how we
682
00:45:56.840 --> 00:46:00.460
could be better. And I think how we can destigmatize
683
00:46:01.030 --> 00:46:05.429
this form of work is so important to think more
684
00:46:05.469 --> 00:46:09.039
about and to ask creators more about. Because not only
685
00:46:09.059 --> 00:46:13.090
does it make their work and their lives safer, it
686
00:46:13.139 --> 00:46:16.550
also lets us learn from their experiences, which are so
687
00:46:16.630 --> 00:46:20.469
rich and so interesting and have a lot to contribute
688
00:46:20.550 --> 00:46:24.909
to the state of the Australian digital economy and really
689
00:46:24.929 --> 00:46:27.929
should be included in things like policy and in things
690
00:46:28.110 --> 00:46:33.210
like our imagination of and our summaries of the content
691
00:46:33.250 --> 00:46:38.889
creator industry more broadly. These stories should include the perspectives
692
00:46:38.989 --> 00:46:43.079
of adult content creators because it's such an area of
693
00:46:43.239 --> 00:46:47.320
interest and it is definitely an area of profit for
694
00:46:47.719 --> 00:46:52.079
Australians and whether they're working as creators or subscribing to
695
00:46:52.119 --> 00:46:54.139
this kind of content. And I think the more we
696
00:46:54.179 --> 00:46:59.780
can include those perspectives in how we understand digital society
697
00:46:59.820 --> 00:47:04.960
and creativity... the more we're actually going to know about
698
00:47:05.280 --> 00:47:06.320
how this all works.
699
00:47:10.260 --> 00:47:12.840
Emily, I've really enjoyed this. I've learned so much. Thank
700
00:47:12.860 --> 00:47:16.309
you so much for coming on Tech Mirror. If people
701
00:47:16.349 --> 00:47:18.329
want to get a copy of the book, where do
702
00:47:18.469 --> 00:47:18.750
we go?
703
00:47:19.110 --> 00:47:22.090
It's at a lot of bookshops that you can access
704
00:47:22.150 --> 00:47:24.670
on the internet. It's also on the Polity website, which
705
00:47:24.710 --> 00:47:26.210
we'll post it out to you in Australia.
706
00:47:26.429 --> 00:47:28.369
Thank you so much, Emily, for coming on the pod
707
00:47:28.550 --> 00:47:30.030
and hope to talk to you again sometime soon.
708
00:47:30.369 --> 00:47:31.869
Thanks so much for having me, Jahada.
709
00:47:39.800 --> 00:47:42.559
Well, that's it for this episode of Tech Mirror, which
710
00:47:42.639 --> 00:47:45.300
is brought to you by the Tech Policy Design Institute.
711
00:47:45.960 --> 00:47:48.210
We're based here in Canberra on the lands of the
712
00:47:48.250 --> 00:47:53.289
Ngunnawal Ngambri people. If you found today's conversation useful or thought-provoking,
713
00:47:53.710 --> 00:47:56.030
please do share it with a friend or a colleague
714
00:47:56.369 --> 00:47:59.659
or leave a review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
715
00:48:00.300 --> 00:48:03.199
If you're watching, please don't forget to like and follow.
716
00:48:03.219 --> 00:48:07.860
For show notes, you can visit techpolicy.au forward slash podcast.
717
00:48:08.400 --> 00:48:11.079
And this podcast was made possible with thanks to the
718
00:48:11.219 --> 00:48:15.730
generous contributions from government, industry and philanthropy to the Tech
719
00:48:15.769 --> 00:48:19.510
Policy Design Fund, the full details of which are available
720
00:48:19.670 --> 00:48:23.489
on our website. The team at Audiocraft produced this pod
721
00:48:23.650 --> 00:48:26.309
on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.
722
00:48:26.570 --> 00:48:30.349
Music is by Talia Skopelis. A big thank you also
723
00:48:30.489 --> 00:48:33.550
to the team at the Tech Policy Design Institute, without
724
00:48:33.610 --> 00:48:36.969
whom this pod would not be possible. Thank you for
725
00:48:37.010 --> 00:48:41.079
joining us. And as always, get in touch and get involved.