The BBC reports that FanCentro launched legal action in Florida against OnlyFans’ owner Leonid Radvinsky and the company which receives OnlyFans’ payments, Fenix Internet LLC, back in November, but it has only been reported now. The suit alleges that OnlyFans instructed an unnamed social media company to flag content from adult creators who promoted rival platforms so it would be added to the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) database. The GIFCT list was founded by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube with the aim of preventing terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting digital platforms.
FanCentro says this resulted in some creators seeing their social media accounts, mainly those from Instagram, being shut down or shadow banned. As these accounts had links to and promoted FanCentro, traffic to the site declined. It also claims any creators promoting their OnlyFans profiles were not targeted. It’s also alleged that one or more employees of the unidentified social media company may have been bribed to facilitate the scheme by OnlyFans representatives. Facebook is not named in the suit, but it has been issued with a subpoena for internal documents pertinent to the case. FanCentro is planning to subpoena more companies, including other social media firms, for evidence. OnlyFans told the BBC that the legal claim has “no merit,” and Facebook parent Meta said, “These allegations are without merit and we will address them in the context of the litigation as needed.” Back in August last year, OnlyFans announced it would ban sexually explicit content from its platform, which it said was to comply with the requests of banking partners and payout providers. It soon reversed the decision, but several creators had already left for other sites and won’t return over fears a similar ban could be implemented in the future.
