OnlyFans
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:22 pm
Noel Titheradge and Rianna Croxford wrote:British subscription site OnlyFans is failing to prevent underage users from selling and appearing in explicit videos, a BBC investigation has found.
Under-18s have used fake identification to set up accounts, and police say a 14-year-old used a grandmother's passport.
The UK's most senior police officer for child protection also says children are being "exploited" on the platform.
OnlyFans says its age verification systems go over and above regulatory requirements.
Noel Titheradge and Rianna Croxford wrote:It started with feet photos
Leah, 17, was able to set up an account using a fake driving licence and sell explicit videos.
She told her mum Caitlyn about being on OnlyFans, on the way to Tesco's near their home in south-east England in January.
That week Leah's bank account had been frozen after she received a payment of more than £5,000 from selling explicit videos on the site, Caitlyn says.
Caitlyn says she was as shocked as "any parent" would be. "I don't understand why people are paying so much money for this," she told the BBC.
Leah had "big issues" growing up and missed a lot of education, Caitlyn says. Naked photographs of her were once shared around school without her consent.
She told her mum she originally intended to only post pictures of her feet after making money selling them on Snapchat. But this soon escalated to explicit videos of her masturbating and playing with sex toys.
In tweets advertising her OnlyFans account - some of which include teaser videos - people call her "beautiful" and "sexy", and ask if she would meet up.
"Post a pussy shot and I'll subscribe," is another typical response.
Caitlyn says she doesn't approve of her daughter using the site, but can see why people go on it, given how much money can be made.
Leah used most of the money to buy presents for her boyfriend, including more than £1,000 on designer clothes. They have since broken up.
In a statement, OnlyFans said that Leah's ability to access the site was an "oversight", and her fake driving licence did not trigger a red flag. It said her account was approved during a transition "from one effective ID and age verification system to a new exceptionally effective" one.
Leah's age was directly reported to OnlyFans by an anonymous social media account in late January. The company says this led to a moderator reviewing the account and double-checking her ID. As it appeared legitimate, no further action was taken.
Caitlyn says it was stated "everywhere" on other online accounts that her daughter was 17. There is no obligation for a website to investigate, but OnlyFans told the BBC it checks social media when verifying accounts.
Leah stopped posting on OnlyFans, but her account remained active on the site four months later, with more than 50 archived pictures and videos. She had logged on as recently as late April.
After being contacted by BBC News, OnlyFans shut down her page. It says it has also refunded all active subscriptions to her account. But images from her account have already been leaked all across the internet.
Leah's now anxious about leaving the house for fear of being recognised, her mum says. Her plans to go to college have been delayed.
"She won't go out at all, really," Caitlyn says. "She doesn't want to be seen."
Grandmother's passport
BBC News also heard of other cases of underage children gaining access to OnlyFans.
Hertfordshire Police told us that a 14-year-old girl had managed to use her grandmother's passport and bank details to sell explicit images. They say she then redirected money from that account to her own.
OnlyFans says the account was "fraudulent" and involved the help of others. The site says it is assisting police and has since updated its age-verification system to "further reduce the chance" of this happening again.
But BBC News tested the site's "new exceptionally effective" system in April. While a fake ID did not work, we were able to set up an OnlyFans account for a 17-year-old by using her 26-year-old sister's passport. The girl never had access to the account.
Noel Titheradge and Rianna Croxford wrote:Boasting to careers adviser
As a part of the investigation, we also spoke to schools, police forces and child protection experts who told us they are hearing from under 18-year-olds whose experiences on the site have had serious consequences.
One school in London says it became aware of the site after a 16-year-old pupil openly boasted to her careers adviser about how much money she was making from it, asking why she should listen to their advice.
The girl later revealed to staff that she had been posting "very sexualised, pornographic" images, says the school's head of safeguarding, who also told us about a 12 year-old girl who said she had used the site to contact adult creators and asked to meet up.
The deputy head asked to be anonymous to protect the identities of the children.
He said the 16-year-old girl had used Instagram to show-off her "exuberant" spending and build a large number of followers.
Childline counsellors have come across a number of cases in which under-18s, some of whom are vulnerable, reference their use of OnlyFans. It shared anonymised extracts from counsellor notes with BBC News.
Children using the site who contacted the service reported being victims of prior sexual abuse, while others presented "mental health issues including anger, low self-esteem, self-harm and suicide ideation".
One girl told a counsellor she had been on OnlyFans since she was 13.
"I don't wanna talk about the types of pictures I post on there and I know it's not appropriate for kids my age to be doing this, but it's an easy way to make money," she said according to the notes, which have identifying details removed.
"Some of the girls have thousands of followers on Instagram and they must be raking it in," she added. "I wanna be just like them."
While most of Childline's cases referred to girls, counsellors also heard from boys who said they subscribed to the site, including one who said it had affected his opinions of sex.
Another, who was 16, said he had lost sleep and was "worried to the point of throwing up" about someone discovering he had bought nudes on the site.
Because the reports were provided to the BBC without any identifying details of the children or OnlyFans accounts in question, we were unable to provide the platform with account names. It said it could not comment on the cases without those details.
It also said it manually reviews every application to stop under-age access, and has increased staffing numbers in compliance, in line with the growth of the site.
Maltida Boseley wrote:A spokeswoman for OnlyFans told Guardian Australia there are more than 1 million creators worldwide, 85 million registered users, and it paid out more than US$2bn ($2.7bn) globally this year.