Millions of paywalls prevent OnlyFans from being scrutinized

Researchers and experts say it is difficult to measure the extent of child sexual abuse images and videos on the pornography website OnlyFans.

The only publicly available statistics are provided by OnlyFans itself. Under federal law, US-based electronic service providers — including social media platforms and porn sites — are required to report suspected child abuse to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a nonprofit designated by Congress to serve as a clearinghouse for such reports. As a UK-based company, OnlyFans is not legally required to report to NCMEC, but says it does so voluntarily.

OnlyFans says it immediately removes any suspected child sexual abuse material it detects and reports to the NCMEC CyberTipline. In 2023, the company made 347 reports to the CyberTipline “out of hundreds of millions of messages,” an OnlyFans spokesperson said. “This is a testament to the rigorous safety controls OnlyFans has in place.”

Much of this suspicious material “does not turn out to be child sexual abuse material and/or is duplicate images or videos,” OnlyFans says on its website.

But five online child sexual abuse specialists told Reuters the actual amount of child sexual abuse material on OnlyFans is difficult to independently verify because of the existence of individual paywalls for many of its 3.2 million creators.

“It’s not just a paywall. It’s a paywall for every single taxpayer,” said Trey Amick, director of forensic consulting at Magnet Forensics Inc., a Canada-based company that provides law enforcement agencies with tools to search for child sexual abuse material.

The information that police can typically obtain from an account, without paying a subscription or seeking help from OnlyFans, is a website address, a non-explicit photo of the creator, and some text describing the account.

“Beyond that, it’s extremely difficult to get content hosted behind OnlyFans’ paywalls,” Amick said.

Once police request OnlyFans’ help on a case, the company provides them with all the information they need, including account details, content and direct messages, the OnlyFans spokesperson explained. “Police investigators do not need to subscribe to the content,” he said.

The spokesperson also noted that NCMEC has “full access” to the site behind its paywalls.

NCMEC said access began in late 2023 and was “limited” to OnlyFans accounts reported to its CyberTipline or connected to a missing child case. Beyond that, it added, NCMEC “does not proactively monitor, moderate, or actively seek to review content at scale” behind OnlyFans paywalls, or on any other website.

In 2021, OnlyFans appointed an “independent third-party” monitor, Michael Ward. “This effort will also allow us to provide even greater transparency into our industry-leading safety measures,” its website said.

Ward, a former US Justice Department prosecutor now at law firm Baker Botts, was tasked with reviewing and evaluating OnlyFans’ security controls, the website said. OnlyFans did not respond to questions about him.

Contacted by Reuters, Ward said he could not comment or confirm he played the role OnlyFans says he played.

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