From toddlers to teenagers. Police found a lot of underage sexual content on the popular platform OnlyFans

OnlyFans defends itself, but the evidence is mounting

OnlyFans reassures the public on the website. It is strictly for adults only, with sophisticated measures in place to monitor every user, and with verification of all content and prompt removal and reporting of any child sexual abuse material.

"We know the age and identity of every user on our platform," CEO Keily Blair said in a speech last year.

"No children are allowed, no one under the age of 18 is allowed on the platform," the site reads.

The Florida girl's case, detailed in police records, court documents and interviews with law enforcement, undermines OnlyFans' claims. And it's not an isolated example.

Reuters documented 30 complaints from police and court records in the U.S. alleging child sex abuse material appeared on the site between December 2019 and June 2024.

The files include more than 200 explicit videos and images of children, including some adults, having oral sex with toddlers.

In one case, multiple videos of a minor remained on OnlyFans for more than a year and were brought to the attention of authorities in June, according to an investigator.

Minors bypassed the system, the platform didn't notice anything

In other cases, minors can very easily get past the OnlyFans check. The reason for this is the vision of earnings, the police inform.

In a case involving toddlers, a man used the site to send more than 100 child abuse files of all ages to another man.

Although nearly half of the agencies provided records related to the case to Reuters, many have heavily redacted them or refused to release any cases involving children, citing state laws protecting the identities of minors.

In response to detailed questions, a company spokesperson responded as follows, "OnlyFans is proud of the work we do to aggressively target, report, and support the investigation and prosecution of anyone who seeks to abuse our platform in this way."

Porn actors can't get enough of the platform

OnlyFans has even been praised by sex workers for making pornography safer and more profitable.

Celebrities and social media influencers, teachers and mothers boast that they have become rich thanks to the platform.

Its 3.2 million content creators typically sell explicit images and videos for a monthly subscription fee plus one-time payments, keeping 80 percent of the sales. OnlyFans takes the rest of the share.

You won't see the content without a subscription

So-called subscriptions make it difficult for police to inspect the site. Most content is inaccessible to non-subscribers and therefore harder to find and monitor compared to platforms like Facebook or X.

This can hinder investigations into alleged child abuse on OnlyFans, said Matt W. J. Richardson, a child abuse investigator with the U.S.-based nonprofit Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative, whose work includes identifying illegal content on the Internet.

"It's really hard to know specifically or accurately how much is out there," he said.

Visitors to OnlyFans.com can search for creators only by their account names; there is no search by interest category.

This makes creators very dependent on popular social media sites to drive visitors to their OnlyFans accounts.

Some predators also use social media to find minors to abuse on OnlyFans, police report.

Artificial intelligence is also becoming popular. See archived report from July 26, 2024 on AI scams.