YOU DID US DIRTY, CLAIM PORN RIVALS
OnlyFans accused of bribe-and-smear tactics
OnlyFans squashed competitors in the online porn industry with the help of a bizarre scheme that bribed Meta employees to throw thousands of porn stars onto a terrorist watchlist, according to a group of explosive lawsuits.
Adult performers who sold X-rated photos and videos on rival sites saw their Instagram accounts falsely tagged as containing terrorist content — crippling their ability to promote their business and devastating their incomes, according to the suits.
Sellers of smutty pictures were then “shadowbanned” across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other sites, the suits allege. Targeted accounts also included businesses, celebrities, influencers and others who “have nothing to do with terrorism,” according to the suits filed in state and federal courts in California and Florida.
“When I heard that my content may be listed on the terror-watch list, I was outraged,” Alana Evans, an adult performer and California plaintiff along with Kelly Pierce and others, told The Post. “I was angry because it affected my income when my social-media traffic dropped significantly, and I was angry because I am the daughter of a veteran who fought for this country.”
Evans and the other stars were all allegedly placed in a database of terror-linked accounts run by the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, or GIFCT, a nonprofit intended to stop the spread of mass-shooting videos and other terrorist content.
21,000 targets
After adult performers on rival sites were added to the terrorlist, their traffic drastically fell, the suits allege. Meanwhile, OnlyFans’ traffic and profits soared as the site became a household name.
Law firm Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman says it has found more than 21,000 Instagram accounts unfairly tagged as potential terrorists.
In a statement to The Post, Milberg called on Meta and the GIFCT to “open up” their records “to help figure out whether our clients or their content are indeed on any databases intended for terrorists and how to get them off.”
In a statement to The Post, OnlyFans said, “We are aware that these cases have been filed. We are not aware of any evidence which supports these allegations. The alleged participants have all publicly stated that these cases have no merit.”
Meta did not respond to requests for comment but told the BBC, which first reported the bribery allegations, it had investigated and found no evidence the terror database was abused. “These allegations are without merit,” Meta said.
The GIFCT likewise did not respond to The Post but told the BBC it was “not aware of any evidence to support the theories presented.”
‘Blacklisted’ others
The plaintiffs claim the bribes were routed from OnlyFans’ parent company, Fenix International, through a secret Hong Kong subsidiary into offshore Philippines bank accounts set up by the allegedly crooked Meta employees, potentially including at least one unnamed senior executive.
The suits — which also name OnlyFans majority owner Leonid Radvinsky as a defendant — claim bribes were paid around October 2018, when people sold content through OnlyFans’ rivals were allegedly hit with a “massive spike in content classification/filtering activity” that limited their reach. Meanwhile, users of OnlyFans enjoyed a “mysterious immunity” to the crackdown, the plaintiffs claim.
“The blacklisting of plaintiff and others has caused OnlyFans to achieve a drastically enlarged market share while its competitors stagnated or declined,” attorneys in a class action led by OnlyFans competitor JustFor.Fans wrote in an August court filing in California state court.
Other suits include a California federal court suit filed on behalf of a group of women led by the Adult Performing Artists Guild and a suit filed in Florida’s Broward County on behalf of adult site FanCentro.