Türkiye blocks OnlyFans – media

The erotic social media platform is no longer accessible in the country, according to multiple sources

Türkiye blocked access to erotic subscription platform OnlyFans on Wednesday in response to a petition by conservatives on citizens’ platform CIMER. 

Ankara has not made any official statement on prohibiting access to the platform, whose users make money uploading raunchy photos and videos for subscribers who pay for different levels of access to their choice of creators. 

Reports from Turkish media confirmed the site was blocked, with access attempts returning a message warning users their traffic was not secure. At least one OnlyFans creator took to Twitter to ask her clients to seek her out using a VPN, a technology often used to circumvent country-specific blocks. 

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OnlyFans “encourages society to make easy money with immoral methods,” one signer of the petition warned the government in comments reproduced by Turkish news outlet Cumhuriyet. “If drastic measures are not taken against such platforms, public morals and the Turkish family structure will be eroded and eventually degenerate,” the person wrote, arguing for a ban not only of OnlyFans but of “all such platforms.”

Another signer echoed those concerns, noting that OnlyFans users were bragging about their income on Twitter and recommending it as a career to impressionable young people. The situation has gotten so out of hand, the individual wrote, that “some of the concept accounts on this disgusting platform have started to produce pornographic content with their parents to earn more money.” 

OnlyFans has 190 million users, adding another half-million every day, though most are subscribers downloading other people’s content without uploading their own, according to Earthweb. The site boasts 2.1 million creators. 

While popular uploaders can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars every month, the average creator makes just $151 per month, and the site takes 20% of all creators’ earnings.

OnlyFans briefly tried to pivot away from allowing users to upload and share explicitly pornographic content in 2021. However, widespread outcry from its user base convinced it to change its mind within days. Less than a month later, it had emerged that former employees retained access to the personal information of both content creators and subscribers, including credit card information, addresses, and other potentially incriminating data. The UK-based site pulled out of Russia last April, ending its relationships with content creators from the country due to the difficulties of navigating payment restrictions amid increasingly broad Western sanctions.

NATO has doubled forces in Eastern Europe since 2021

Despite the expansion, doubts about the bloc’s military readiness remain unaddressed

NATO has doubled the number of troops stationed in Eastern Europe from 5,000 to 10,000 since 2021, spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said on Monday. However, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s plan to have 30 times that number on standby has not materialized.

Four new NATO battle groups have been set up in response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, with new deployments in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia adding to existing battle groups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, all of which border Russia.

Currently, there are 10,000 troops spread across these eight battle groups, compared to 5,000 in the four groups in 2021, Lungescu told the Washington Post.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wants these 10,000 forward-deployed troops backed up by 300,000 high-readiness troops in reserve. Stoltenberg announced this plan a year ago, explaining that 100,000 would be deployable within ten days of a potential conflict with Russia breaking out, with the rest ready to hit the battlefield a month later.

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However, Eastern European and Baltic officials told the Post that they still have no idea where these troops will come from, and whether they could arrive in time to repel a hypothetical Russian invasion. Since Stoltenberg’s announcement, NATO has offered no further details, including on who will finance the force.

While the battle groups are intended as a permanent presence, some NATO members doubt the commitment of their allies to the mission. Germany leads the battle group in Lithuania, but has opposed calls from Vilnius for a permanent brigade there. Instead, Berlin wants to withhold 6,000 troops and keep them in Germany, from where they could be deployed “if necessary.”

NATO describes Russia as “the most significant and direct threat to allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.” Moscow argues that the bloc’s continued expansion to the east following the Cold War, and its insistence on membership for Ukraine, constitute unacceptable threats to Russia’s national security.