Blacklisting of Adult Entertainment Performers and Platforms Class Action

Was a process meant to blacklist terrorists from online platforms used to blacklist and curtail the businesses of competitors to OnlyFans? That’s the allegation of this class action, brought by providers of adult entertainment (AE) on platforms other than OnlyFans who claim to have seen their businesses drop off abruptly at a certain point in time. It brings suit against Meta Platforms, Inc. and its subsidiaries Instagram and Facebook, and companies associated with OnlyFans, including Fenix International, Inc., Fenix Internet, LLC, and Leonid Radvinsky.

In late 2018 or early 2019, the complaint alleges, “AE Providers that had promoted competitors of OnlyFans suddenly experienced a drop-off in traffic and user engagement on social media platforms.”

This involved the “deletion and hiding of posts, and reduction in social media traffic for certain providers,” that was so abrupt and substantial that the complaint alleges, “it could not have been the result of filtering by human reviewers of social media content.” However, this reduction did not seem to apply to AE providers and platforms associated with OnlyFans. The complaint alleges that the falloff in traffic was so consistent “that only automated processes could be responsible.”

This happened, the complaint alleges, through a “blacklisting” process on certain social media platforms which targeted competitors of OnlyFans.

The complaint defines “blacklisting” as “a process whereby social media accounts are identified to certain social media platforms in a way to prompt those platforms to suspend or delete those accounts or otherwise reduce their visibility.”

According to the complaint, it uses automated classifiers or filters at Facebook and Instagram that were entered into “a shared industry database of ‘hashes,’ or unique digital fingerprints.” The original use of this blacklisting process, the complaint says, was to identify and remove content that was created by terrorists or other “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations” to stop the spread of violent extremism and terrorism.

In this instance, however, the complaint alleges, the process was used to eliminate competition for OnlyFans.

Meta claims to have investigated these allegations and has said it did not find evidence that the database had been abused. However, the complaint alleges, Meta did not provide details as to how its investigation was conducted and that a more thorough investigation should be conducted and made available for review.

The class for this action is all adult entertainment providers who suffered economic injury because they either (1) used their Instagram or Facebook account to link to, promote, or demonstrate praise, substantive support, or representation of a competitor of OnlyFans when those businesses were falsely designated as a Dangerous Individual or Organization (DIO) under Meta’s DIO policy (or the DIO policies of Facebook or Instagram) or (2) were falsely designated as a DIO; including anyone who suffered damages from any shift in the scheme beyond the initial DIO tactic, such as suffering continuous effects through other computerized systems.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: News
Tags: Interference with Business Relationship, Tortious Interference with Contract, Unfair Competition