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Even with porn ban suspended, Austin OnlyFans creators say they won't forgive too quickly

Austin-area OnlyFans creators were left reeling after the app banned explicit content and later suspended the ban in the span of a week. (Shutterstock)
Austin-area resident Hannah likes to say she's an accountant in two ways: she's finishing up her master's in accounting, but she often uses the euphemistic term to describe her role as a creator on subscription site OnlyFans as well.
OnlyFans, which mostly gained popularity from explicit user-created content, is a major source of income for many. It's made thousands for Austinites like Laura Lux, who has over 1 million Instagram followers after gaining fame on the site, and is a significant revenue stream for many others including Hannah, who asked her last name not be used to protect her privacy as a creator. But the site left many of its users reeling after it announced it would ban pornographic content from its creators, later suspending the ban less than a week after.
Hannah's content doesn't really fit under the definition of pornography, she says—she mostly posts lingerie photos—but the decision still left a slightly bitter taste in her mouth as she realized other sites may be more accommodating to the needs of their creators. "This just opened my eyes more to more sites that also could be more mindful of sex workers and how policies change," Hannah said.
OnlyFans founder and CEO Tim Stokely said the ban, which was scheduled to go into effect on July 1, was made because banks including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon and the UK's Metro Bank were no longer allowing OnlyFans to pay creators.
Thank you to everyone for making your voices heard.
We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change.
OnlyFans stands for inclusion and we will continue to provide a home for all creators.
— OnlyFans (@OnlyFans) August 25, 2021
But this isn't the first time sex workers have been shunned or discarded despite making much of the revenue for big-name companies, said Noor ZK of the Sex Workers Outreach Project of Austin.
A ban on the site could be devastating for many, ZK said. While Hannah, who left the site for a few months and has made around $300 in her first month back, doesn't rely on OnlyFans as her primary source of income, many others do. Some have been part of the community for years, cultivating a large following and posting thousands of photos and videos to their profile.
"These policy changes intentionally target sex workers to prevent us from having access to survival, and ultimately to force us out of the industry," ZK said. "For survival sex workers, for whom sex work is our only access to income, this is literally life-threatening."
Austin-area OnlyFans creators say there might be better alternatives to the site for their content. (Shutterstock)
OnlyFans certainly has brand recognition—the London-based site boomed during the pandemic and rose to $2.4 billion in transactions in 2020—but some are seeking other alternatives. Hannah knows many sex workers in her support groups who have already jumped ship. Some already had issues with payment on the site, while others are looking for more supportive ownership. But ZK said that every site comes with its challenges given the nature and stigma of their work.
"These sites lure workers with false promises but ultimately are not equipped to handle their safety, protect their privacy or prevent similar payment processing outcomes," ZK said.
Although the ban has been lifted, ZK said it serves as a reminder that support for sex workers is fleeting and can only be combated with outreach and donations as well as a stronger sense of community within the industry.
"The best thing that can come of this is for us to create stronger networks of solidarity within our industry... and uplift each other," ZK said.
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(U.S. Marshals)
The Austin woman suspected of killing star cyclist visiting from out of town, Moriah "Mo" Wilson, has now been captured after evading arrest for more than a month.
Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, an Austin yoga instructor, is believed by officials to be the killer of Wilson, who was found with gunshot wounds in a friend's house on May 11. The murder is being investigated as a crime of passion after Wilson met up with Armstrong's ex-boyfriend.
According to the U.S. Marshals, Armstrong was located at a hostel on Santa Teresa Beach in Provincia de Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Officials said she may have been using her sister's name after fleeing Austin on May 14, the day after police questioned her. She was last identified at Newark Liberty International Airport on May 18.
Federal authorities say they plan on returning Armstrong to the U.S., where she'll face charges of murder and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Here's a timeline of events since the night of Wilson's murder.
- The night of her death, Wilson met with Armstrong’s ex-boyfriend Colin Strickland, a fellow pro cyclist. According to an affidavit, the pair went swimming, then to dinner, before he dropped Wilson off at her friend's home where she was staying in East Austin at around 8:30 p.m.
- While Wilson and Stickland had previously had a romantic relationship, Stickland said the two were friends. The affidavit says Strickland lied to Armstrong about his whereabouts that evening.
- Video footage shows Armstrong’s Jeep pulled up nearby the home within a minute of Wilson arriving home.
- At around 10 p.m., Wilson's friend called Austin police after finding her in a pool of blood. Wilson had been staying with the friend ahead of the upcoming bike race in nearby Hico, Texas.
- Armstrong was brought in for questioning the day after the murder and released after appearing “very still and guarded” when confronted with video evidence.
- The Lone Star Fugitive Task Force said her black Jeep Cherokee was sold to a South Austin CarMax dealership on May 13 for $12,200.
- She leaves from the Austin airport on May 14.
- Shell casings found on the scene matched a gun belonging to Armstrong.
- Austin police obtained an arrest warrant for Armstrong on May 17.
- She took a flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to San Jose, Costa Rica on May 18 using a fraudulent passport, according to the Marshals.
- On May 25, another warrant was obtained for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
- On June 29, she was captured by the U.S. Marshals
As the EPA faces limits on greenhouse gas regulations, Texas researchers work on carbon capture tech
UT is developing technology targeted at power, steel, cement and other industrial plants to lower emissions. (UT Austin)
On Thursday, the Supreme Court limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority in regulating greenhouse gases, a move that comes at a time when experts have warned about the need to take action on climate change.
The ruling was brought after a challenge to a lower court opinion brought by Texas and more than a dozen other states.
Vaibhav Bahadur, an associate professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin called the SCOTUS decision significant, noting that Texas is the biggest energy producer in the U.S., and produces more energy than the United Kingdom.
“Power generation accounts for a significant fraction of U.S. carbon emissions, and the EPA loses its ability to control what's happening in about half of that sector,” Bahadur said. “And it's not just the U.S., I think people and environmentalists on pretty much anywhere on the planet will be disappointed because this is going in the wrong direction. We know we want to be decarbonizing, and this is essentially putting a roadblock on progress toward decarbonization.”
So, we’re going to need some insurance, Bahadur says. He’s carrying out work that’ll act as such through his research on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the process of sucking carbon from the air and burying it.
For the past five years, he’s been working on a novel approach to storing carbon. It involves supercharging the formation of carbon dioxide-based crystal structures and storing billions of tons of carbon under the ocean floor.
“If all of this is successful, then we will have another option for safely and responsibly storing carbon at the bottom of the seabed for essentially eternity,” Bahadur said.
Still, Bahadur talked about a different approach to responsibly cutting down emissions in the next decade, and doing so in a meaningful and substantial way, then the environment will eventually heal itself and we might not need CCS.
But that’s not the path we’re headed down.
“We're already starting to see temperature records being shattered this year, and we're still to hit peak summer,” Bahadur said. “All of this just makes me think that we need CCS to a larger extent, and possibly sooner than what a lot of scientists anticipate, especially if we can't keep our emissions in check.”
Gary Rochelle, a professor in the department of chemical engineering at UT, thinks CCS was ready to be deployed in 2010 and those 12 years have made a difference.
“But now we've emitted all that CO2,” Rochelle said. “And unfortunately, unlike other pollutants, when you emit CO2, it's there. It's not going away.”
Gary Rochelle and Vaibhav Bahadur are both researching technology to address carbon emissions. (UT)
Still, the delay is good in that now researchers like him have had time to learn about and improve the technology, allowing for fewer problems once it's deployed.
In December, UT announced a licensing agreement with advanced technology company Honeywell. The technology from that is targeted at power, steel, cement and other industrial plants to lower emissions.
Rochelle has been working on the technology since 2000 as part of an international collaborative effort. When he talked to Austonia on Thursday, he had just had calls with collaborators in Germany and Norway. Currently, he’s working with some Ph.D. students on addressing a chemical reaction that can happen with the technology known as oxidation that could lead to ammonia emissions and cause problems for a large-scale commercial unit.
Rochelle says he’s driven to this work because he wants to make a contribution.
“We're trying to develop this technology so that we can make a difference,” Rochelle said. “It's a nice problem to work on. The students are motivated and those are the primary things which drive us.”
Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated the high court’s decision which acted as a blow to President Joe Biden’s plan to reduce emissions.
“Today’s landmark victory against an out-of-control administration is also a big win for Americans who worry about skyrocketing energy costs due to expensive federal regulations that threaten our energy industry,” Abbott said. “President Biden cannot keep attacking the energy industry and the hardworking men and women who power our nation.”
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