Porn Superstar Maitland Ward is Ecstatic, Says OnlyFans Victory is Just the Beginning [Update]

In an opinion piece Maitland Ward wrote for The Daily Beast, she referred to OnlyFans victory as the beginning of something big. She basically wrote her heart out and describe what many porn stars go through due to various anti-sex-work groups like NCOSE and Exodus Cry.

Terming OnlyFans decision to support the porn industry as a historic moment, Ward recalled a moment when a Hollywood producer asked her what her name should be in her IMDB profile. She said that they met in a Beverly Hills café where some other notable mainstream celebrities were dining and it was the same place where a designer watch was snatched at gunpoint. She recalled that they were discussing the possibility of a film. She recalled how that producer tried to search her name on IMDB to find out her work, which she thought was just a pretentious act to not admit that he knows her.

According to Ward, when she tried to help him with the search by writing her proper name, she realized that all the work that she had done till now was not there. She was astonished by the fact that her work had been removed. She quickly jumped to a conclusion that she is being shadowbanned.

Shadowbanning is a term used to describe the unwritten censorship policy of online platforms to block sex workers and performers. She mentioned in the article that most social media platforms do that as well. People can’t easily search and locate the profiles of porn actresses or actors because these platforms have a belief that porn is the root cause of all things evil.

It is not uncommon for sex workers and performed to get punished by online platforms. Some have clear, biased, rules for people from THE industry, whereas other just shadowban them so that people can’t find them.

She revealed that when the news came out about OnlyFans also jumping on the bandwagon, it was a shocking moment of all the sex workers and performers who were using this platform. Surely most of the people who are OnlyFans because of people from the porn industry can’t openly criticize the decision. However, Ward said that she and other people didn’t give up and continue to struggle for their rights.

The recent announcement by OnlyFans of not banning porn has made people like Ward think that they have truly achieved something. But it’s a very small fraction of the struggle that these people go through. With no one to amplify their voices or march in their favor, sex workers and performers hardly manage to win many battles.

This is just one battle that Ward believes the porn industry has won, but there’s a silent war going on, which is not going to be easy for them to win. At least, not until people start admitting publicly that this section of the entertainment industry is exactly what they need in their daily lives.