If the words "OnlyFans terrorist watchlist" sound jarring together, you're not alone.
Though it may seem stranger than fiction, a lawsuit filed in California indeed mashes all those words together — and the actresses making the allegations are royally pissed about it all.
"When I heard that my content may be listed on the terror watch list, I was outraged," adult performer Alana Evans told the New York Post. "I was angry because it affected my income when my social media traffic dropped significantly."
According to the suit filed earlier this year by Evans and fellow porn content creator Kelly Pierce, OnlyFans reportedly bribed Facebook employees to wrongfully place the actresses — who used OnlyFans competitor sites to sell their content — on a terrorism watchlist run by a consortium of internet companies, resulting in them being "shadowbanned" on Instagram and other social networks integral to the promotion of their content.
The nonprofit in question, listed as a defendant on the suit, is called the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT). It was created by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube in 2016, purportedly to prevent those who commit mass or identity-based acts of violence "from exploiting digital platforms." Per the suit, the entertainers allege that they were placed on a "Dangerous Individuals and Organizations" database that essentially functioned as a blacklist.
Evans and Pierce claim in the suit that in early 2019 — soon after majority OnlyFans stakeholder Leonid Radvinsky, another of the listed defendants, took control of the company — they and tens of thousands of others were "shadowbanned" not only on Instagram and Facebook, but on YouTube and Twitter as well. They say this alleged suppression of their accounts often resulted in their posts being taken down, their accounts being deleted, hemorrhaging follower numbers and, of course, a major loss of income.
Creators on OnlyFans and other sites associated with Radvinsky, meanwhile, seemed to enjoy a "mysterious immunity" from this false terrorism flagging, the lawsuit suggests. In a July countersuit, Meta and OnlyFans denied all of the allegations in the lawsuit, and have not yet responded to media requests for comment about the latest iteration of the suit.
Neither the lawsuit nor any of the coverage about it so far have revealed how the plaintiffs believe they learned of the alleged scheme. At times it seems very far fetched — "shadowbanning" is a common conspiracy theory by people online whose content just isn't doing so great — but stranger things have happened, so we'll be watching with interest.
And if even part of these allegations are true — a California district court will begin deciding their veracity next month — it could have huge implications not only for the adult industry, but for all of social media.
READ MORE: OnlyFans bribed Meta to put thousands of porn stars on terror watchlist, suits claim [New York Post]
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