Trigger warning: This article contains references to child abuse and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Reader discretion is advised.
When the father of a missing 16-year-old girl called 911, he didn’t have the words to describe what was happening.
Operator: “911, What is the address of your emergency?”
Father: “It’s a runaway, or abduction, some kind of sexual, I don’t know if it’s trafficking or what, some guy came from New Jersey and has her all hooked up… I don’t know if it’s outright pornography, but it’s something like that. . . “
When a 16-year-old girl from Florida vanished in April 2023, her parents were frantic. Searching her phone for any clue that might lead them to her, they uncovered messages that left them terrified.
For months, their daughter had been communicating with an adult man. The messages showed she had been sending him sexually explicit photos and videos. As her father read through the exchanges, he feared the worst.
The following day, after he called 911, sheriff’s deputies located the missing teen in a rented home with the man. According to police records, she was found partially naked. Investigators later determined that the man had uploaded dozens of sexually explicit images and videos of the underage girl to OnlyFans, a subscription-based pornography platform.
The content was sold for profit to paying subscribers on OnlyFans.
The man, identified as 22-year-old Ethan Diaz, was arrested and charged with human trafficking and additional offenses related to the sexual exploitation of a minor. He has pleaded not guilty.
For the teen and her family, the case revealed a devastating reality: her abuse had not only occurred in private, but had been recorded, sold, and distributed online—leaving lasting harm long after she was found.
How OnlyFans Fails to Protect Kids
A recent Reuters investigation revealed that OnlyFans — a platform marketed as adults-only — has repeatedly hosted sexual content involving minors, sometimes for months or even years before it was removed.
The findings expose not just isolated failures, but a deeper truth: pornography platforms are structurally incapable of protecting the vulnerable, especially children.
Reuters documented 30 complaints in police reports, court filings, and child-safety complaints in which explicit images and videos of minors were sold on OnlyFans from December 2019 to June 2024. The files revealed more than 200 instances of Child Sexual Abuse Material, and these instances were only from the files made accessible to them.
These children were often coerced, groomed, or trafficked by adults who monetized their abuse. Some of the content involving children remained online for as long as one year, viewed and exploited by countless individuals. Many victims only discovered the material after it had already been widely viewed and shared.
A volunteer football coach filmed and uploaded his sexual encounter with a 15-year-old boy. He made thousands on OnlyFans through content with the young boy.
“After I found out about the video, I couldn’t go outside without being scared somebody saw my face,” the 15-year-old victim said.
In one case, investigators traced a missing teenage girl to sexual content posted behind an OnlyFans paywall. In others, children described realizing years later that their abuse had been turned into profit.
Why “Safeguards” Aren’t Enough
OnlyFans claims to have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material. In fact, OnlyFans CEO Kelly Blair says “everything” gets moderated. Yet somehow, children are still exploited. So either moderators are not moderating, or they are, and allowing children to be sexually exploited on their platform.
“We moderate all of the content on our platform. Every text, every message, every audio clip, every livestream, everything gets moderated. We see everything,” CEO Blair said.
The March investigation by Reuters revealed significant lapses in OnlyFans’ moderation of adult content. Despite platform rules and criminal laws, the report identified over 120 instances in the U.S. and 18 in the UK where sexually explicit material was uploaded without the subjects’ consent.
They also found a case where two men exchanged over 125 explicit videos and images of 13 different children, including toddlers, through messages on OnlyFans. It took the platform 7 months to notice what was going on.
“You have any vids of y0ung you can upload?”
After receiving the content, he wrote, “That’s a little disturbing… lol it’s all good. The toddler stuff just kinda freaks me out…”
How does child abuse make it onto OnlyFans if it’s so protected?
From the Reuters investigation, most cases involved adult predators using minors to create content, then uploading to their adult accounts. Some minors created accounts themselves, getting through the verification process or using someone else’s information, or in other cases, taking over no longer active OnlyFans accounts.
Before monetizing the content on OnlyFans, predators often groom children first through other platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, and X. Then, they coerce the child into either creating sexually explicit content of themselves or meeting up to film. Reuters reached out to the social media platforms responsible, in part, for much of this exploitation, for comment.
X declined to comment.
Snapchat says people who promote OnlyFans or any pornography violate policies. (That clearly doesn’t stop people.)
Meta said Instagram doesn’t let users share links to porn sites, but they “don’t consider OnlyFans to be solely a porn site.”
Clearly, none of these social media sites is taking what happens to kids on OnlyFans seriously enough.
The Reuters report highlights other critical flaws: porn platforms rely on systems that can be easily exploited by those intent on harm.
Key issues include:
- Paywalls hide abuse. Content locked behind subscriptions is harder for outsiders, watchdogs, or even automated systems to detect.
- Verification isn’t foolproof. IDs can be forged, borrowed, or manipulated — especially when adults are involved in controlling accounts.
- Reporting is reactive, not preventative. Abuse is often removed only after harm has already occurred.
This isn’t a glitch in the system. It’s a consequence of a business model that depends on massive volumes of sexual content uploaded daily, where speed and profit outpace meaningful oversight.
The Allure of OnlyFans
For predators, selling explicit content involving children is easy money; for children who join OnlyFans themselves, it’s about so much more.
It’s about clout. It’s about status. It’s about attention.
Think about all of the barely 18-year-olds who, the second they turn 18, start to monetize sexually explicit images and videos of themselves. Piper Rockelle. Lil Tay. Or the countless others whose entire image is to appear young.
Elly Hanson, a clinical psychologist, spoke with Reuters and shared why teens are so eager to try the platform.
“[OnlyFans] presents itself as a platform that provides unrivaled access to influencers, celebrities, and models. . . This is an attractive mix to many teens, who are pulled into its world of commodified sex, unprepared for what this entails,” said Hanson.
That, combined with top-performing influencers boasting about their earnings, seems like an attractive option.
This Isn’t Just an OnlyFans Problem
What Reuters uncovered fits a pattern seen across the porn industry.
Similar revelations have emerged in recent years about major porn sites, including PornHub hosting:
- Non-consensual videos
- Trafficking victims
- Underage content
Each time, platforms respond the same way: promising reforms after the damage is done, yet the abuse still happens.
The reality is uncomfortable but clear: an industry built on sexual exploitation cannot reliably prevent abuse or exploitation.
The Cultural Cost of Normalizing Porn
Beyond individual cases, investigations like this raise a broader question:
What happens when porn is treated as normal, harmless entertainment?
When sexual content is everywhere, and platforms like OnlyFans are promoted on social media, normalized in pop culture, and marketed as empowering, the boundaries protecting children erode.
And when porn platforms fail to verify, to moderate, to screen, to protect real individuals, real children, the children are the ones who face the devastating consequences.
Stories and loopholes in child protection efforts like those uncovered by Reuters remind us why education is crucial. To be informed ourselves, to fight for others, and to take a stand against platforms and industries profiting from exploitation.
Because when an industry profits from secrecy and silence, awareness becomes an act of protection.
Your Support Matters Now More Than Ever
Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
This is why Fight the New Drug exists—but we can’t do it without you.
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