OnlyFans could ban porn again in its push for an IPO

After a long period of failed attempts, OnlyFans may be looking to finally go public via SPAC. The potential of an IPO could bring drastic changes to the platform — up to and including banning porn — if potential investors are scared off by the messiness of moderating such content.

If this story is sounding familiar, that’s because OnlyFans has tried going public in the past, but previous attempts quickly failed when the company found investors didn’t want to deal with the massive amounts of porn on the site. Last year’s porn ban was directly influenced by this search for capital.

Right now OnlyFans doesn’t actually have enough interest to actually make a SPAC deal happen, Axios reports. One interested party, Forest Road Acquisition Corp. II, dropped out of talks because of — you guessed it — the porn.

OnlyFans wants to bring in the big bucks, and usually an IPO is a surefire way to do just that. But is it really worth it if you have to change the entire nature of your platform to do so?

OnlyFans is porn — OnlyFans is not only used for nudity and pornography, but it is one of the platform’s most popular forms of content. As one of the most well-known pay-per-view platforms that allows nudity and explicit content, many sex workers have flocked to OnlyFans in recent years, especially during the pandemic.

Despite the immense success of sexual content on the site, OnlyFans has been fighting against its reputation for a while now. Last year the platform launched OFTV, an app that includes only safe-for-work content from OnlyFans creators.

But money talks — The modern internet is inclusive in many ways, but nudity and porn are somehow still relegated to the web’s margins. Just take a look at mainstream social media sites for confirmation: Twitter and Reddit are the only ones that still allow explicit content.

The problem is money. The powerful people and corporations running these websites don’t want to deal with the liability of pornography, especially in the amateur sense. Big banks are extremely reluctant in processing payments for sites that do allow porn — and are willing to drop their support without notice.

Sex workers hit hardest — OnlyFans is stuck in the middle of the internet’s long-standing porn vendetta. The company can either continue profiting from the sex workers on its platform or kick them off in favor of investor cash. Given its significant interest in finding an SPAC to go public with, the latter option is looking more likely.

The decision to ditch porn in favor of an IPO would be nothing short of crushing to the online sex work community. Amateur porn creators will once again need to find a new home — until the pursuit of profits pushes them off their next platform, too.