Read on Twitter
The Bella Thorne @OnlyFans story is wild, and it& #39;s about a lot of things - platforms, power, sex work stigma/legitimacy, but it& #39;s also about payments! 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="đ§”" title="Thread" aria-label="Emoji: Thread">1/? https://twitter.com/Refinery29UK/status/1300012278411034624">https://twitter.com/Refinery2...
A bit of context: Many âmainstreamâ payment companies stopped supporting adult-related services in the last few years. Thus OnlyFans was special in that it was one of a small and shrinking set of platforms where sex workers can safely get paid. More: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nz7b4k/how-sex-workers-get-paid">https://www.vice.com/en_us/art... 2/?
OnlyFans is not exclusive to sex work â anyone can put anything on there and charge âfansâ to view content. But âXYZ actress starts an OnlyFans accountâ has strong connotations for n00ds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIqjoO0-Bs">https://www.youtube.com/watch...
Bella Thorne, a well-known (?! guess Iâm old) actress, joined OF and âpromisedâ ânudesâ to her fanbase, and then delivered something widely considered to be disappointingly tame. This generated a record number of *chargebacks* for the platform. What are chargebacks? 4/?
Originally set up to protect consumers from merchant fraud (back in the 70s when folks were wary of making payments with by card!), chargebacks are a way of getting a refund via the merchantâs bank, instead of dealing directly with the merchant. More: https://chargebacks911.com/chargebacks/ ">https://chargebacks911.com/chargebac... 5/?
In short, chargebacks are very expensive for merchants. Back to OF. In response to the high # of chargebacks, OF enacted payment restrictions that limit income for EVERYONE, which of course disproportionately hurts sex workers who donât have a lot of alternative platforms. 6/?
An alternative might have been, say, just banning Ms. Thorne for generating all the admin and headaches, or putting in place a âchargebacks per accountâ policy, wherein creators who generate lots of CBs are warned and eventually kicked off. 7/?
Chargebacks make sense as a consumer protection mechanism, particularly when product/service satisfaction is pretty objective, and when merchants have a lot of power and consumers donât. But so much has changed in digital commerce since credit cards first appeared in the 70s! 8/?
Do CBs make sense for subscriptions to subjective content services? For microtransactions? For marketplaces of vendors or artists who are sole proprietors, often more economically vulnerable than those making the purchases? Are we have better ways to manage fraud risk today? 9/10
I& #39;d love to hear folks& #39; thoughts on this, from the payments space or elsewhere. Btw if you are interested in smart coverage on how tech, payments, privacy/gov& #39;t overreach play out re bodily autonomy, follow @ENBrown and @LuxAlptraum. (10/10)
