OnlyFans, a social media platform finest known for express content, has boomed in the course of the pandemic. But from receiving terrorism movies to racial abuse and rape threats, a BBC investigation based mostly on the experiences of dozens of ladies reveals considerations about how the British-run site is structured, managed and moderated.

Warning: Story accommodates grownup themes and language

Tina Bean had been dwelling in her automobile for two months when she began selling nude photos of herself on OnlyFans.

The 22-year-old had been kicked out of residence after a "large combat" and spent most of last summer sleeping in automobile parks within the heat of Phoenix, Arizona.

Everybody else she knew was making "a hell of some huge cash" on the positioning. "So, I used to be like, I might as nicely simply bounce on it."

She is likely one of the million content creators on OnlyFans who share photographs and movies with subscribers for a month-to-month charge. In return, the positioning takes 20% of their earnings.

Creators can submit a range of content from beauty to health movies, however it's broadly recognized for pornography.

Soon Tina was making $2,000 (£1,450) a month and able to rent her own flat.

But in January, a hacker seized control of her account, blackmailed her for $a hundred and fifty and uploaded streams of IS terror movies.

The footage, seen and verified by BBC News, depicts folks being held hostage in warehouses, or operating in concern, before being shot in the head.

"They seemed terrifying," she says. "I saved deleting them and altering my password but kept getting locked out of my account."

The perpetrator then spammed more than 40 of her fans, calling them the N-phrase, before stealing all of her photographs and posting them on a porn site.

Tina says after a tortuous cycle of repeatedly being hacked over a month, she reported this to OnlyFans and quickly disabled her account. She has now lost practically all of her subscribers and earns just $one hundred a week - if she's fortunate.

In a press release, OnlyFans said the account didn't have two-issue authentication, which made it weak. The company stated Tina did not report the racial slur and it was not detected by the positioning's moderation system because it was pluralised.

It added that this system has now been upgraded and "in mild of this particular incident", protocols have been updated to ensure that any hacked account's content is totally reviewed earlier than access is restored.

OnlyFans turned a cultural phenomenon in the course of the pandemic, as lockdowns pushed folks online to make and spend money.

Founded by Essex businessman Tim Stokely in 2016, it has change into one of many UK's quickest-growing tech platforms, with more than a hundred and twenty million users worldwide.

Celebrity endorsements and articles about unusual ladies making life-changing amounts of money from promoting nudes has boosted its profile, and last 12 months the location dealt with funds price £1.7bn.

The social media platform allows creators to put content material behind a paywall and cost a month-to-month subscription price - which ranges from $4.Ninety nine to $49.Ninety nine - for entry. Creators can top up their earnings by sharing exclusive pay-per-view posts and receiving suggestions.

OnlyFans thrives on excessive engagement, and considered one of its large appeals is that creators and fans can construct relationships by means of livestreams, personalised messages, and direct requests for custom-made photographs and movies.

Much of the content material is specific - earning it a status because the "paywall of porn" - and users have to be 18 or over to sign up.

But behind the glamour of how it's presented, the fact for some has been very totally different. Tina's experience highlights what creators and digital consultants describe as systemic issues with how OnlyFans is structured, managed, and moderated.

The BBC has interviewed dozens of creators within the UK and US, seen copies of complaints and correspondence with OnlyFans, and found:

- Terror videos, rape threats and racial abuse have been posted on the positioning in the past year in violation of its terms of service, as well as explicit photos of a scholar uploaded with out her consent
- Data protection specialists have raised issues about the safety of the web site's server after creators have been hacked, or affected by glitches leading to nude pictures of others appearing on their accounts
- OnlyFans' coverage of granting automated refunds to followers who're blocked can perpetuate and incentivise abuse, according to creators
- The site has now adjusted its processes around closing creators' accounts after the BBC questioned why one had her page shut down without clarification, which resulted in it being restored
OnlyFans explicitly states on its website that it is "not responsible" for moderating content, or detecting breaches of the legislation or its insurance policies, which includes bans on harassment and sharing illegal or non-consensual images.

However it told the BBC that, while it was not legally obliged to proactively overview content material on the platform, freefans.tv it goes "above and beyond" what present laws require through the use of neighborhood reporting and synthetic intelligence software to assist keep customers protected.

The corporate says it evaluates over 300,000 media recordsdata a day, and has more than 500 agents concerned in compliance and moderation. It mentioned that all flagged content material is reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Digital specialists have told the BBC that artificial intelligence may be unreliable for porn, and OnlyFans needs more human moderators as explicit content is extra vulnerable to problems with abuse or copyright.

"The distinction with OnlyFans is the way it is arrange," says Matt Navarra, a social media guide. "Due to the type of content material, and the chance it doubtlessly presents to extra vulnerable customers, the stakes are greater, and subsequently the level of responsibility is higher as well."

'I'm going to hunt you down'

OnlyFans creators sell a fantasy - simply just like the thousands and thousands of movies freely available on porn websites. Yet within the media, it has developed a fame as being residence to the naughty lady subsequent door, who's more accessible than skilled grownup entertainers.

Tips for customised content could be lucrative, and one 20-year-outdated scholar, Charlie, stated she has acquired requests ranging from $50 for a video of her eating a pizza, to $200 for one among her masturbating with intercourse toys.

"It is not about someone that's simply searching for a fast video, like on Pornhub," says Victoria-May, a mother-of-two from Northampton. "It's about relationship constructing."

Two years ago, the 31-12 months-previous quit her job as a trainee accountant to sell homemade pornography on the location. She says she has now made greater than £1m.

But this hasn't come with out difficulties, and she says setting boundaries with some of her "followers", who pay $30 a month to view her triple-X-rated photos and videos, has led to a deluge of abuse, rape and dying threats.

She says that last summer, a male subscriber threatened violence after she declined to have intercourse with him - and sent messages to her OnlyFans account, together with:

"I do know the place you live.

"I'm going to hunt you down.

"I'm going to kill your youngsters.

"I'll rape you.

"I will make your husband watch me as I damage you, then I'm going to kill you.

"I hope all of your family get Covid and die."

When Victoria-May reported these threats, OnlyFans said "rude messages" did not violate its guidelines and the subscribers' account would not be removed. But as the company takes 20% of earnings, she feels it has a obligation to take action.

The positioning then took six months to respond to greater than 20 successive complaints - which have been seen by the BBC - together with studies of racial abuse directed at individuals in her movies.

OnlyFans mentioned it handled Victoria-May's complaints "in a timely manner" and that any fan reported and located to have been abusive is instantly faraway from the platform. It added that it solely started to assessment and investigate suspicious key phrases in direct messages from April this year.

'Obsessive behaviour'

Stalking, bullying and harassment is against OnlyFans' tips and the positioning says breaches of this policy might result in accounts being suspended or terminated.

For creators who do receive abuse, the positioning permits them to mute or block that fan. However, the platform mechanically provides anyone who has been blocked - regardless of the reason - a refund of their energetic subscription.

Many creators who spoke to the BBC felt this policy was misused by fans and a few stated it could possibly incentivise them to be rude or provocative, as their monthly subscriptions come to a close. Others added this made them really feel penalised for being mistreated.

"The refunds issued to abusive consumers needs to be re-evaluated," says SkylaRayne, 26, a creator from New York. "We are the ones placing the food on their tables. So, when I'm being harassed and insulted, I'd expect [OnlyFans] to permit me to dam somebody with out them getting a refund. That's simply naked minimal."

But creators say that blocked followers are able to create new accounts and sign-up to their pages again.

This was the expertise of Bell, a 23-yr-previous mannequin from Manchester, who says she was harassed by a fan last year who was requesting extreme content material in return for tips.

"It bought very intense, so I decided to cut it off after six months," she recalls. "And so they reacted fairly badly to that - it was obsessive, obsessive behaviour.

"They have been stalking me over a number of accounts, watching me by means of my friends' tales on Instagram, they'd numerous me, so I used to be anxious that they could use this in opposition to me."

Bell reported the fan to OnlyFans 3 times and she says the location later advised blocking him. But he continued to signal-up to her page using a number of new accounts.

She advised the BBC her expertise might have been better if OnlyFans had a stay chat perform, which might have enabled her issues to be responded to immediately.

The company says Bell was not willing to provide evidence of any specific abuse. It mentioned that on all the events the site was contacted by her, it replied promptly with recommendation and later blocked the IP address of the alleged abusive fan.

OnlyFans added that, as a subscription-primarily based platform the place fans pay for entry and content, it was "uniquely geared to dissuade and deter abusive behaviour from customers" as a result of, unlike anonymous social media, it could swiftly identify and take away them.

Find out extra

OnlyFans is failing to prevent underage customers from promoting and showing in specific videos, in response to a BBC investigation. Under-18s have used pretend identification to set up accounts, and police say a 14-12 months-outdated used her grandmother's passport.

The children selling express videos on OnlyFans

Leaks, hackings and glitches

For many creators, the enchantment of the positioning is that images and videos are locked behind a paywall.

Pirating content material is illegal, and towards OnlyFans' phrases of service. But practically the entire creators spoken to mentioned their photographs had been leaked and traded by males in different social media and messaging boards.

Some advised the BBC their pictures had been maliciously despatched to relations, or that they had been blackmailed into sharing nudes at no cost or told they could be made public.

"People are naively lulled right into a false sense of safety from the paywall, that what's behind it stays behind it," says Honza Cervenka, a lawyer in the UK specialising in image-based sexual abuse at McAllister Olivarius.

"Legally, content material creators give OnlyFans a licence for their content however they keep the copyright," he says. "That leaves the primary responsibility to treatment a leak on content material creators, which might be a hard, lengthy and expensive legal course of."

Risks of being on OnlyFans also can embody data safety breaches and hackings, according to creators who shared screenshots about the safety of the location.

BBC News found that at totally different instances some creators have confronted "glitches" which have resulted in different peoples' photographs showing on their accounts.

Kandii Kitten, 26, was a type of affected, and stated a picture of a man holding his penis had been posted on her page when she had attempted to upload a nude picture.

Another creator, Katja Miyatovich, was hacked whereas utilizing the platform in May, regardless of having two-factor authentication safety enabled to prevent this.

As she was logged-in when it was happening, the 27-year-old from Canada was in a position to quickly regain access. She shared the e-mail alerting her to the unidentified access to her account with BBC News.

"That's extraordinarily disturbing and definitely a private knowledge breach," says Rowenna Fielding, a data safety consultant. "Surely that [hacking] should have been investigated and reported to the knowledge Commissioner's Office."

Tim Turner, who also specialises in information safety, agrees and stated that because Katja was hacked regardless of having two-issue authentication, and these glitches weren't a one-off fault, it raises questions on the security of OnlyFans' server.

He added that OnlyFans should consider making two-issue authentication mandatory for creators on the platform given the intimate nature of the content material.

In response, OnlyFans says Katja's account might have been accessed by someone with entry to her linked Twitter account and phone number, and says it suggested her to utilise the authenticator app as a substitute of SMS verification.

It additionally said it runs a major takedown team to assist creators take away leaked content, with a 75% success fee, and now works with third-occasion suppliers to proactively locate, establish and remove stolen content material.

The positioning added it was "very conscious of its obligations under knowledge safety laws" and as with all online platforms, there are generally system points and incidents, which can or will not be data breaches. It mentioned it investigates and experiences them as appropriate.

'My footage were sold with out consent'

Madison, a 22-year-old student from Texas, discovered that her former roommate had been selling topless photographs of her on OnlyFans for almost 4 months final yr without her information.

As photographs on the positioning are hidden behind a paywall, she had solely discovered after her photographs have been cross-promoted on Twitter to drive traffic to the account.

What had started as a evening of taking part in round and taking what she describes as "sexy footage" together with her mates in their dorm, ended along with her being exploited and the Polaroids falsely advertised as lesbian content.

Her "intestine sank" at the realisation as she scanned by means of the images on OnlyFans, which had been seen by the BBC. "I like women who like ladies," one publish read, while one other inspired $5 suggestions.

"When I think about what she did, it stays with you, that you bought used, that she violated me," she stated.

OnlyFans' pointers ban creators from sharing intimate pictures without permission and requires any customers making content material featuring different people to have written proof of their consent, or says they should even be registered creators.

But the BBC understands proof of consent is just requested if an account is flagged or reported, which depends on people being aware that their photos are on the positioning.

"OnlyFans overnight grew to become one in every of the biggest cowboys within the wild wild West of the [unregulated] porn trade," says Kate Isaacs, who campaigns towards picture-primarily based sexual abuse, generally known as revenge porn.

"But unfortunately the lack of moderation on the location and making certain its expertise is robust enough to protect individuals who choose to put their content material on there's simply seriously lagging behind."

Digital consultants say OnlyFans might deploy more refined, automated know-how whereby creators are required to submit recorded proof of consent at the point of upload to proactively prevent this because of the added difficulties the paywall presents for neighborhood moderation.

Madison's pictures were deleted by her ex-roommate after she reported the incident, final May, to state police, who confirmed an investigation is below approach. She is now contemplating taking authorized action against the creator.

Despite having breached the company's insurance policies, BBC News discovered the alleged perpetrator remains to be utilizing OnlyFans under a distinct pseudonym.

OnlyFans stated it uses proprietary software program as well as guide critiques within its content material moderation system to observe and handle compliance with its phrases and situations.

OnlyFans' place within the porn world became more distinguished after payment suppliers Mastercard and Visa ended their relationship with PornHub following allegations of unlawful content material final 12 months. Many of its performers relocated to OnlyFans.

Brian Honigman, a advertising marketing consultant and adjunct professor at New York University, mentioned OnlyFans ought to over-decide to moderation to safeguard its user base.

"And at the tip of the day, this does protect your long-term ability to generate revenue and be a profitable business," he says.

"The subscription model is great, and the paywall is great when used correctly, but it is important that platforms like OnlyFans be sure they're being used in a method that leads to constructive impacts."

Many of the creators who spoke to BBC News still use OnlyFans and say, financially at least, it has remodeled their lives. But they have spoken out within the hope it could lead to them receiving higher support.