The overlap between small-time OnlyFans creators and people hypervigilant about their privacy feels small. Streamers and idols have faced this problem for some time - with cases of people finding out where a streamer lives based on minutiae like reflections - but add porn and inexperience to the equation and it's not at all surprising that stalking behavior can get dangerously extreme.
Storytime - a girl at my uni mentioned in our school's subreddit that she does OnlyFans. She made the comment from the same reddit account she used to advertise her profile and she also wrote many regular SFW comments and posts. So... she was pretty hot, and me being a horny and curious college dude, I tried to see if I could casually ID them.
Yes, kind of creepy, I know. Horniness aside, the point is, it took me like 10 minutes to find their real name and identity, based only on information they decided it would be safe to publicly associate with themselves. Rest assured, I didn't do anything with that knowledge and I have no intention of ever doing so, obviously. Really big school, completely different majors that spend time in completely different parts of campus, I doubt I'd even notice if I ever crossed paths with them.
People who aren't techies who always have privacy on the mind often drastically underestimate how little information is needed to uniquely ID them. In this case, a) she posted in a specific school sub, b) she posted about her grades in a major-specific class, c) she mentioned her ethnicity in a regular SFW post, and d) she shared plenty of pictures of her body sans face from a variety of angles.
Well now I can know that there's an X-ethnicity person in Y grade of Z major at ABC university who has an identifying tattoo and a relatively uncommon hairstyle... Literally 2 or 3 Google searches later and I had a result. As I'm sure is often the case, she wasn't particularly concerned about the privacy of her regular, real life identity, presumably with the assumption that it wouldn't ever be connected to her OnlyFans. Name on school project websites, articles in the school newspaper, LinkedIns, public instagrams, things like that.
It doesn't take long to scroll through google images and recognize a body. And that's probably what's unintuitive about this risk - someone might think "well there are another 300 people who fit that description, so I'm good". But with computers, it's trivial to look through 300 people. Someone crazy enough could easily sift through 3000 pictures searching for you. They know roughly what you look like. And if the number of people fitting your description is only around 30, it's hard to even call that a search - a few seconds on a page or two is all it takes to ID you.
The good thing is that the vast majority of people are probably harmless. The occasional overly curious person like me might cross some boundaries and find out who you are, but it's not likely they'll have any desire to contact you in any way. The bad thing, of course, is that it only takes 1 nutcase to instill a lot of fear.
I don't think there's a solution other than more education - assuming this kind of content creation continues to exist without heavy regulation. Maybe OnlyFans could play a part. I'm sure most OF creators vaguely know the risks, but they may not be used to thinking carefully about sharing seemingly innocuous and vague details. Like, "Did you know you might be stalked? Yes. Did you know you might be stalked and identified if you share a picture of your dog at the park? Uh, what!?".
A quick 15 minute video on protecting yourself from the crazies could probably prevent a lot of dangerous situations. "Don't share your school or major", "Don't take pictures near street signs or stores", "Don't wear jewelry you usually wear", etc.
A truthful video would just say "the likelihood of your relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues and creepy stalkers linking your OF profile to your real identity approaches 100% in the long run. Even if you never show your face. Do not create an account if you aren't sure you are 100% fine with it"
Of course, OF itself would never scare off prospective sources of income like that.
It's like you see a girl you think is hot and you ask people about her and follow her home.
Great you know where she lives.
You have seen her naked and paid for her pictures.
You are worried someone is going be as smart as you but take it a bit too far and go knock on her door? And what.. Ask her for a date? Kill her?
I would think if you go to the same school you could follow home anyone. And you have the opportunity to see lots of girls naked in person while in school.
Not seeing the risk of a low level star here. It's the same risk as being your neighbour and leaving the blind open.
What you're failing to account for is that online sex work massively increases the number of people paying attention to you in a way that can turn dangerous, and at the same time tends to reinforce dangerous attitudes.
The risk of some bitter, lonely guy living three states away, going off the rails and deciding that you are a bitch who needs to be taught a lesson, after years of having his attitudes messed up by hot women trying to make money by telling him "I need your cock right now!" - that is not a risk you run by hooking up in real life.
Isn't that person as likely to assault a neighbour.
Most channels are not pushing messages with 'I need your cock now' and if they are they are probably run by a professional operator.
A lot of channels aren't about sex. A lot of channels have males.
If all of your fears were valid I would recommend getting off instagram, facebook, etc because someone could find a photo clothed or not from those sources. It could lead to..
Or, some stalker might try to blackmail her with making this information public. Some professor might lower her grades because he is outraged by her behavior. Some colleagues might distance themselves from her because they view this as immoral.
Given the status of sex work, there are many reasons why many who do it do not want to associate their private identity with it.
You can't live in fear of other people's prejudices. Sex work is nothing to be ashamed about.
You can't blackmail someone making a few bucks on fansonly. If you tried to do it to someone at the top who had money the platform, police and dmca notices would come flying your way.
Professors marking you low because of fansonly seems like a stretch. They can mark you low because you sleep in their class and are more likely to.
> You can't live in fear of other people's prejudices.
That is an extremely privileged take. When other people take their prejudices to extreme levels, you can and sometimes must live in fear of them. Anti-sex work prejudices in modern day USA may not be as bad as anti-gay prejudices in Saudi Arabia, but the principle is not entirely different.
> You can't blackmail someone making a few bucks on fansonly. If you tried to do it to someone at the top who had money the platform, police and dmca notices would come flying your way.
Imagine you are a college-age girl working anonymously on OnlyFans and you receive a message asking you to do something small - go out on a 'date', send more nudes, help cheat on some exam, even send some amount of money - or they will reveal your identity to parents and peers. Do you think you could be unfazed and calmly assume that authorities will take care of it?
> Professors marking you low because of fansonly seems like a stretch.
What if this was a religious college, or just a particularly religious professor? Do you think that having a reputation as a sex worker will not impact the way you are treated by some?
Storytime - a girl at my uni mentioned in our school's subreddit that she does OnlyFans. She made the comment from the same reddit account she used to advertise her profile and she also wrote many regular SFW comments and posts. So... she was pretty hot, and me being a horny and curious college dude, I tried to see if I could casually ID them.
Yes, kind of creepy, I know. Horniness aside, the point is, it took me like 10 minutes to find their real name and identity, based only on information they decided it would be safe to publicly associate with themselves. Rest assured, I didn't do anything with that knowledge and I have no intention of ever doing so, obviously. Really big school, completely different majors that spend time in completely different parts of campus, I doubt I'd even notice if I ever crossed paths with them.
People who aren't techies who always have privacy on the mind often drastically underestimate how little information is needed to uniquely ID them. In this case, a) she posted in a specific school sub, b) she posted about her grades in a major-specific class, c) she mentioned her ethnicity in a regular SFW post, and d) she shared plenty of pictures of her body sans face from a variety of angles.
Well now I can know that there's an X-ethnicity person in Y grade of Z major at ABC university who has an identifying tattoo and a relatively uncommon hairstyle... Literally 2 or 3 Google searches later and I had a result. As I'm sure is often the case, she wasn't particularly concerned about the privacy of her regular, real life identity, presumably with the assumption that it wouldn't ever be connected to her OnlyFans. Name on school project websites, articles in the school newspaper, LinkedIns, public instagrams, things like that.
It doesn't take long to scroll through google images and recognize a body. And that's probably what's unintuitive about this risk - someone might think "well there are another 300 people who fit that description, so I'm good". But with computers, it's trivial to look through 300 people. Someone crazy enough could easily sift through 3000 pictures searching for you. They know roughly what you look like. And if the number of people fitting your description is only around 30, it's hard to even call that a search - a few seconds on a page or two is all it takes to ID you.
The good thing is that the vast majority of people are probably harmless. The occasional overly curious person like me might cross some boundaries and find out who you are, but it's not likely they'll have any desire to contact you in any way. The bad thing, of course, is that it only takes 1 nutcase to instill a lot of fear.
I don't think there's a solution other than more education - assuming this kind of content creation continues to exist without heavy regulation. Maybe OnlyFans could play a part. I'm sure most OF creators vaguely know the risks, but they may not be used to thinking carefully about sharing seemingly innocuous and vague details. Like, "Did you know you might be stalked? Yes. Did you know you might be stalked and identified if you share a picture of your dog at the park? Uh, what!?".
A quick 15 minute video on protecting yourself from the crazies could probably prevent a lot of dangerous situations. "Don't share your school or major", "Don't take pictures near street signs or stores", "Don't wear jewelry you usually wear", etc.