TikTok accused of helping to promote sex industry to girls
TikTok is helping to promote and normalize the sex industry by allowing 'sexfluencers' to post videos marketing pornographic content on platforms like OnlyFans, a new report reveals.
After studying non-explicit content posted on TikTok over a year by some of OnlyFans' most popular young female performers, researchers found the women buried coded references to pornography in 'girly lifestyle content' showing them shopping, playing with pets, baking or offering skincare advice.
While TikTok prohibits mentioning OnlyFans or directly linking to it from TikTok accounts, performers use euphemisms, emojis and crude gestures to indicate their adult content is available for sale elsewhere. The platform distributes so-called safe-for-work material produced by popular OnlyFans performers.
Hidden Marketing Tactics
The report analyzes how hints about adult content are hidden in widely shared TikToks, including 'get ready with me' posts where performers film their hair and makeup routine. Performers may use the word 'corn' instead of 'porn' or add the corn emoji next to a star emoji to avoid content being blocked.
In viral posts, OnlyFans performers tell followers about money earned from selling sexual content, often promoting images of cash, big houses, private jets and expensive cars beneath headlines like 'how it feels knowing I own all of this at 23 thanks to 250,000 men'.
It is our view that young women and girls deserve to be protected from a predatory industry grooming them to be producers of explicit content.
Earnings Disparity
OnlyFans' own data shows its top 5,000 creators have made more than $1m each since the platform launched in 2016. However, the average earnings of the site's 5 million registered performers are estimated at about $1,000 annually, highlighting a significant income gap.
Many posts present OnlyFans as a solution to poverty and unemployment, with performers describing rag-to-riches stories. Opening an OnlyFans account is marketed as 'rescuing women and girls from bleak, underprivileged lives'.
Platform Connections
The study focuses on TikTok and OnlyFans because TikTok has a high proportion of young users and is where many OnlyFans careers start. Performers rely on building followers on TikTok to promote their content elsewhere.
OnlyFans stars like Sophie Rain and Ari Kytsya have huge followings on TikTok among teenage girls. Rain became famous with content filmed in the 'Bop House', a luxury pornography production in Miami, where auditions are shared on TikTok.
Many OnlyFans performers also brand promote on TikTok, advertising household items, sex toys and cosmetics. L'Oréal appointed Kytsya as a brand ambassador for Urban Decay, where she calls for makeup that 'performs well on mattresses'.
Calls for Action
The report's authors have called for extending bans on showing pornographic content to under-18s so they also include posts promoting or related to the sex industry.
TikTok spokesperson stated: 'TikTok strictly prohibits the sharing or showing of sexual content and we use advanced technologies to enforce our community guidelines.' OnlyFans said it is 'a platform for people aged 18 and over' with strict onboarding processes.
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