Platform control beyond the organization of work: autonomy and erotic content creation on OnlyFans

Platforms shape the labour process of digital sex workers by imposing restrictions through affordances, terms of service, and content moderation policies. However, knowledge of the impact of their interconnectedness is limited, not only among platforms themselves but also in relation to other actors. This article uses the case of OnlyFans to explore the interconnected and overlapping forms of control exerted by platforms, management agencies, payment intermediaries, and state institutions over erotic content creators’ autonomy and labour conditions. Although OnlyFans is likely to fall outside the scope of the EU Platform Work Directive due to the absence of a discovery feature within the platform, I analyse erotic content creation on OnlyFans utilizing the Directive’s definition of platforms’ role in the organization of work. Drawing on six semi-structured interviews with erotic content creators based in or originating from Slovakia, as well as two experts, this article contributes to existing literature by conceptualizing control as distributed across a network of actors, thereby expanding our knowledge of the impact of platform governance on the workers’ autonomy. The findings highlight the limitations of defining platform control through matching supply and demand, and instead emphasize the importance of analysing the labour process and underlying power relations.