Investigators believe that the OnlyFans platform, which is mainly used by sex workers, may underestimate the amount of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on the site. Essentially, law enforcement officials say that the individual payment systems that creators use to make money hinder them from getting a more accurate picture of the situation and disclosing crimes.
"It's not just paid access," said Magnet Forensics director Trey Amick. "It's paid access for each participant. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to obtain content that is posted behind OnlyFans paid access."
The same opinion is shared by child exploitation investigator Matt Richardson:
"It is really hard to know specifically or exactly how much is there."
According to Reuters, out of 30 cases related to CSAM on OnlyFans that were reviewed, more than half resulted in arrests, and three led to criminal convictions.
At the same time, OnlyFans claims to help combat child sexual exploitation on the platform. According to a representative of OnlyFans, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a non-profit organization established by Congress in 1984, has "full access." The company also intentionally provides most data to the police, including content and direct messages.
However, this only applies to accounts under active investigation. It turns out that any other accounts that have not been charged will remain behind paid access. The BBC report for 2021 found that teenagers used fake documents to create accounts on OnlyFans.
This is quite a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, it is crucial to protect children from sexual exploitation. On the other hand, providing law enforcement with free access to a site where users pay for explicit content creates clear privacy issues — and it remains to be seen whether the police will actually use access for strictly professional purposes.
Source: futurism
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