Original subtitles

This programme contains some scenes of a sexual nature and some strong language.

The sex industry is changing.

People are becoming online entrepreneurs by selling nudes.

So, maybe you turn around and give her a little twerk. I'm going to...

Or do you want me to just twerk my bum... Yeah. Perfect. Yeah.

The appeal is simple.

It's fast, it's easy...

I've taken a picture in my seat before. Topless.

On a flight?

Yeah.

SHE CHUCKLES

..and the money you can earn is huge.

So, how much money were you making at that point?

At that point, I was making, like, 15,000 to 20,000 a month.

Can you think of any other jobs in this area where you could earn

anything near that? Definitely not, nowadays. 100%.

Unless you're a drug dealer.

SHE CHUCKLES

But is it exploiting young girls' desire to earn money fast,

leading them into a job in porn?

How many messages have I had?

They want to see stuff, like, me and him.

It's basically porn, isn't it? OFF-SCREEN: Well, yeah.

And how old were you?

16.

Welcome to OnlyFans.

OnlyFans is a social media platform similar to those you use already,

but your content is hidden until your fans subscribe to you

for a monthly subscription price that you set.

I want to meet the women shaking up the sex industry.

23-year-old Lauren from Northamptonshire is on her way

to being one of the top earners in the world when it comes

to selling nudes.

Keep that. Very nice.

Widen your knees for me, and take your hands through your hair.

Push it up a little bit now. Yeah.

18 months ago, Lauren quit her 9-5 job in an office,

and now this is her life.

That's nice. Perfect.

I'd be so useless at this.

SHE SMIRKS

I'm really impressed. Really?

Yeah. You make it look so easy, and so natural.

What kind of photos get the most likes?

So, like, girl-next-door?

Like, I don't really wear a lot of make-up, and things like that,

and quite an innocent look is...

It's, like, that's my niche, I would say.

Head back a bit for me and lean forward more.

How much money do you make from this?

So, every month, it goes up,

and I don't have an average,

and I used to make 20,000 a year,

and now I make a lot more than that every single month.

OK. Those are all, like...

So it's what you would have earned in one day,

and then what you get paid every day. Just... That is mad.

You're making $10 every, like, four minutes.

THEY CHUCKLE

That's bad.

SHE LAUGHS

Lauren's biggest source of income is from a social media site

called Only Fans.

Her page has over 2,000 subscribers.

She charges each one $15 a month to unlock her page.

That's nearly 35 grand EVERY month,

and puts her in the top 0.06% of their earners.

I mean, you can make so much money.

How many of them would you kind of chat to on a daily, weekly basis?

Oh, my God.

So many. It's like...

It never, ever stops. Hundreds.

They're always online, because they're all around the world,

so I have to try.

I think that's a priority of mine to be different,

and to just reply all the time,

even though it's getting bigger and bigger.

Every single person that messages you, you reply to?

Yeah. And is that because you want to try and keep

those people engaged, and you want to keep them subscribing?

That's part of the experience - talking to me.

They're paying to talk to me. So, just from a standard subscription.

So, I think it's pretty important to reply to them.

It's fascinating cos it's, like...

Do you think that...?

Do you think these people feel like they know you?

Yeah, some of them. Yeah.

Do you ever feel scared?

Yeah, I do,

but I don't publicise where I live.

The only thing that upsets me is when I have friends that strongly

don't agree to the point of cutting me out of their life.

You have to be smart. Yeah.

If I spend all this money now, like obviously I'm aware

this doesn't have longevity.

My biggest fear is going back into an office and being normal again.

Really? Mm-hm.

And to prevent that happening, Lauren has to be strategic.

She keeps it relatively censored on her main feed.

It's in her private messages where she sells her more explicit,

and most lucrative content.

Yeah, can I get a water, please?

What colour are you going for? Maybe, like, a red.

OFF-SCREEN: What do you usually wear? Me? Yeah.

I don't know. I'm really bad at making decisions.

I get a bit overwhelmed.

NARRATOR: With her growing success,

Lauren's career choice hasn't gone unnoticed in her hometown.

Thank you. OK.

Were you quite surprised when Lauren came with a film crew?

No.

THEY LAUGH

That's so funny.

SHE CHUCKLES

What do you guys think of it?

I think I used to come in here upset and tell them about it.

Have you seen a change in her?

What was she like when she was in her old job?

I mean, to be fair, when you're getting your nails done

two times a week, like two times a month.

SHE CHUCKLES

I think that the bad thing about this job that usually you shouldn't

tell people what you're earning, but doing OnlyFans

makes you so insecure that everyone is judging you,

and they're, like, "What the fuck are you doing with your life?"

So, you can just turn around, and be, like,

"Do you know what I'm earning?"

"Stop. You have no idea."

Like, people don't know, and then when they do know, they're like...

It is insane. "Oh, wow." Like, "Oh."

And then maybe they don't want to do it,

but they get it and they understand why you do it.

I thought I was going to find this quite seedy, and I thought

I was going to find it a bit sad.

It's kind of like...

You know when people say,

"How much would someone have to pay you to do this?

"How much would someone have to pay you to do that?" It's, like,

"How much would someone have to pay you to strip

"and put it on Instagram? And...

..it turns out my price is what Lauren's earning,

so I'm setting up OnlyFans.

SHE CHUCKLES

More and more people are catching on,

But unlike its Silicon Valley rivals -

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter -

OnlyFans is British, born-and-bred.

The brains behind OnlyFans is Essex entrepreneur Tim Stokely.

He created the site in 2016.

A quick look at his Instagram account shows a guy

living an influencer's dream,

and OnlyFans reflects this aspirational image.

It's a platform that brings adult work into the social media age.

Interestingly, he's pretty elusive when it comes to giving interviews,

or talking about his business.

OFF-SCREEN: I'm here with Tim Stokely.

Tim, how are you, by the way?

I'm really well, thanks. It's a pleasure to be here.

But that hasn't hurt OnlyFans.

The company has over 17.5 million users worldwide.

Oh! Good girl.

24-year-old Beth is another young woman who's clocked on

to the OnlyFans phenomenon.

She's not as established as Lauren, but still earns

a healthy three grand a month

just from selling naked content.

Is this your dressing room? Yeah. It's amazing.

I want one of these.

BETH CHUCKLES

I'll show you the bra drawer.

ELLIE CHUCKLES

Oh, my God.

I've genuinely never seen this many bras in one place. Ever.

This drawer is like the OnlyFans drawer.

Oh, OK.

So, this is the drawer with, like, all the stockings in

and stuff that I'd wear.

Living in the northwest of England,

Beth has had over 20 jobs since leaving school.

If you were to get a job around here,

would it primarily be retail, or...

Yeah. ..customer service? Like, working in a pub, or something.

Yeah. I assume that's all quite low paid, or minimum wage jobs.

Yeah. They're crap. Yeah.

OK. Outside of the adult industry,

can you think of any other jobs,

in this area, where you could earn anything near that?

No, not in this area.

Unless you're chief executive, or something, in a company,

or you own a really good, like, well-run business.

Definitely none around here. 100%.

Unless you were a drug dealer.

SHE LAUGHS They probably make the same money.

Is that literally it? Like, OnlyFans, or drug dealing? Yeah.

THEY LAUGH

Beth hoped glamour modelling and Page 3 appearances

would be her ticket to financial independence.

That one's yours. Oh, thank you. Perfect.

I think it was just the whole point of being able to say,

"Oh, I've been in Page 3",

cos not many people can say that, can they?

And it is a nice thing to, like, say you've done.

When you were 18 and you wanted to be a Page 3 model,

what were your expectations of what that earning would be?

Like, a grand a day.

Mm. It used to be better.

Did used to be good,

cos they used to do all the lads' mags, and Nuts magazine,

and it was good pay at one point, but it's kind of all died

out now, the glamour stuff.

Do you know what the top, top creators earn? No.

I think it's about 45 grand a month.

Shut up. Just from OnlyFans.

Piss off. 45 grand?! 45 grand a month.

And apparently...

Shut up. ..apparently it's going up every month. Shut up.

Oh, what's her name?

THEY LAUGH

Beth's boyfriend, Paul, shoots most of her content.

Bum.

SHE CHUCKLES

What do you enjoy about it, Paul?

Erm...

It's more, I'll see her...

I like how she likes it.

So, you don't like a half-naked girlfriend in front of you?

SHE LAUGHS Well, yeah. I mean... Course I do.

Anybody would, you know?

ELLIE CHUCKLES

Would you do it with her, Paul?

No.

BETH GIGGLES

Why not? No.

ELLIE CHUCKLES

How many messages have I had? They want to see stuff, like me and him.

It's basically porn. Isn't it? Oh, yeah.

They want to see, erm...

They're offering money for us to do that.

Erm, like give blow jobs, and...

SHE GIGGLES

Erm, like, sex, that... They've asked loads.

Haven't they? Yeah.

But I've always said, "No."

Would you ever consider it, Paul?

No. I don't think I would to be honest. No.

And Beth's rising profile means she regularly gets messages

about how to start out.

If anyone comes to me, I'll tell them how it is.

And I will, I'll tell them exactly.

Like, if girls at 18, 19 want to go into modelling,

and do all these high levels, I'll be, like,

"No, you don't. You don't want to do that." Like, "You're young.

"You've got so many more years ahead of you.

"If you start doing that now,

"in two, three years, no-one's going to want to see you any more

"because they've seen it all."

What's the youngest girl that's messaged you,

saying she wants to get into it?

15. 15?! Mmmm.

Wow. When was that?

Not long ago.

Probably about four...four, five month ago.

On Instagram, that was. What did you say?

No.

SHE SMIRKS

I was, like, "What do you want to do? 'I want to be a model.'"

I said, "Yeah, that's fine. You can be a model for doing fashion stuff."

And she's stunning, as well. She's beautiful.

She's like, "No, I want to do glamour", I was, like,

"You're 15 years old."

At that age, I wanted to do it,

but, obviously I knew, in my head that I had to...

I was well too young to be doing that,

and obviously I didn't want to do it at that age,

but I knew what I wanted in life. Mm-hm.

So, whether you're a blogger, YouTuber, fitness trainer,

celebrity, model, or musician,

you can reward your loyal fans

with even more of the great content you already produce,

and get paid for it.

Beth and Lauren's earnings are at the very top-end of OnlyFans,

and neither say they do anything too graphic or sexual,

but there's a whole other side to this world.

I've searched #OnlyFans on Twitter,

and I've not come across anything that's not porn yet.

There's so many videos.

Just like porn.

I'm just looking at OnlyFans there's a guy just

wanking on a train...

..on his OnlyFans account.

I can't be looking at this in public. This is so bad.

SHE GIGGLES

Might stick this back on. Hang on. What is that?

This is a privacy screen. I'm just going to pop it on.

That is definitely not legal.

NARRATING: What I can't help thinking about now is the girl

Beth told me about who was 15.

Many OnlyFans creators use Twitter to drive traffic

towards their profiles

and, pretty quickly, I'm starting to notice a trend in hashtags.

I mean, this... I'm just looking at this now, this girl is...

I don't know how old she is, but it says,

"Happy I'm literally almost to 5K."

So I think she's almost got 5,000 followers.

"So here's a gift", and it's her taking her top off,

and the hashtags -

#teen,

#hugetits,

#chubbyteen.

She looks about...17 maybe.

I'm just looking at, like... There's so many accounts where I just think,

"These girls look so, so young."

Like, SO young.

The law is pretty clear.

You have to be 18 or over to distribute or sell explicit

and sexual content.

So, if any of these accounts are under 18,

it would make them illegal,

and technically guilty of a child sexual offence,

even if they're the ones taking the photos.

All these profiles are claiming to be 18+.

So, I wanted to see if there was anyway to test that.

So, I've been given access to some age-scanning software

that's meant to be pretty accurate in guessing how old someone is.

So, I'm going to use it to see

if I can work out some of the ages

of profiles I found on OnlyFans.

This software may not be 100% accurate.

It does say that it's more accurate the younger you are,

because you're more likely to have been affected

by external factors, like sun damage or pollution, the older you get.

OK. 18.

This one says 20.

That surprises me, I think she looks so much younger than 20.

OK. This girl, I think, looks really young.

This is saying 17.

OK, it's saying that this girl is 17, as well.

Oh, my God, this one says 14.

That's terrifying.

She looks so young.

Even for the girls who genuinely are 18,

it just makes you wonder when they started doing this.

In order to try and find some of these girls,

I'm heading to the British Library here in London.

I've come here because they have birth records for England and Wales,

which I'm going to look through to try and verify

some of the ages of profiles I found on OnlyFans.

There's one profile, in particular, I found that looks young.

The age-scanning software put her at 17,

and she's very active on social media.

She's advertising nudes,

but I'm not sure if she's still using her OnlyFans.

I've actually come across some tweets calling her out

for being underage, and they've given me a bit more information.

She's from Scotland and, checking the birth register there,

it says she's 17.

After messaging backwards and forwards, she agrees to meet me.

We're calling her "Hannah" but it's not her real name.

She's getting ready for a night out with a friend.

Hello! Hi, I'm Ellie. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, too.

Have you always been really into make-up?

Yeah.

As soon as I got into high school, even before that, I was wearing it.

What, in primary school? Yeah. You wear wigs, and stuff,

so do you like to play around with your appearance?

Yeah, I like to look different all the time.

I change my hair every day. It's different every day.

Every day?! Every day.

This is my...

..platinum. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, it's really nice.

I love that.

When she was most actively selling nudes,

Hannah had a huge following across social media.

So, how much money were you making at that point?

At that point, I was making like 15,000 to 20,000 a month.

And how old were you?

16. Really?

Yeah.

How did you feel when you first started earning

that amount of money?

Shook. Like, I think it was cos it was always my dream,

I was, like, "Oh, I want to be quite big, I want to be successful,

"I want to make money."

I wanted to, like... Designer stuff was, like, a big thing for me.

So, are you still at school now?

No. Hate it. You hate it?

Yeah. I hate school. Why?

I used to just get a lot of hate, like, I was getting, like,

really, like, bullied, and stuff.

So, when it was like 13, 14,

I wasn't, like, sticking up for myself and that.

I got, like, pushed out of school.

I couldn't go to classes.

How often do you come to London?

Erm, well, recently, I've been coming, like, every month.

Oh, right. That's loads.

And I go to... Or it'll be Birmingham, as well.

Oh, OK. I was in Liverpool a lot last year.

Like, I basically lived there, so...

That does some very young to be up and down the country.

I don't know. I was really mature at that age, as well.

Like, really mature. I just knew what I was doing.

I was really safe about it, and stuff.

I was gaining followers, then.

I don't know, I was just...

I was, like, to my mum, "I'm just, like, I'm not going to school."

"it's not happening."

How old were you when you started gaining followers?

15.

15? Yeah. 14 turning 15.

So, do you think those people didn't

realise that you were underage at the time?

No, a lot of them did, because a lot of them knew me, like, personally.

So, a lot of them were, like, actually 15, 16, 17, 18.

That kind of age group.

A lot of my buyers are that age group just cos it's my fan base.

Ready to go now?

Yeah. Yeah?

I'm just going to get dressed, though.

I'm going to get something else changed into cos this isn't

doing it for me.

SHE SMIRKS

What, the outfit's not doing it for you? Definitely not.

SHE CHUCKLES

OK.

So, am I right in thinking OnlyFans asks for ID?

Yeah. How did you get around that?

I just used my friend's. Do you look like your friend's?

No. Nothing? Nothing.

Do you ever wish you'd started a little bit later?

A little bit. A little bit.

But now I'm, like, I'm not really bothered.

I just think, like...

..the way that I act for my age, it's fine.

When do you think you would have started, ideally?

Obviously 18,

but I think everything just went so fast for me in high school,

college, and that, so I was, like, I've started young

to progress it to get really big.

NARRATING: Hannah tried selling her nudes on a number of different

OnlyFans accounts. They were suspended when reported,

but she repeatedly got around the checks.

So, I'm going to try and set up an OnlyFans account

posing as a teenager.

So, I asked my cousin, who's 17,

if he could sign up using his older brother's ID.

24 hours later, got an e-mail saying,

"You've been accepted for an account."

And...they look quite similar,

so I'm maybe not so surprised they'd get away with it.

But I am surprised that they didn't ask for any bank details

before confirming it,

and that it happened quite so quickly.

So, in order to get paid,

you need to put in your card details.

So, what I want to check is whether those card details

need to match the name on the ID that you sign up with.

So, now I'm going to put my 17-year-old cousin's bank details in

and see whether he could be paid.

Done.

So, what this tells me is that...

..if you look enough like someone else's ID...

..it's easy to sign up to OnlyFans when you're 17.

NARRATING: It makes me question -

how many underage users are there on OnlyFans?

OnlyFans' usership is exploding.

The business has now paid out more than $400 million

to over 150,000 creators worldwide.

But in a competitive market, making your content go viral

is vital.

Many creators team up.

I'm heading back to Northamptonshire to see Lauren.

She's invited me to see her making content with a friend

who's recently joined OnlyFans.

It's mad that she's, like, 22, and I assume owns...

..this ridiculous...

SHE CHUCKLES

..house.

OFF-SCREEN: Why is it ridiculous?

Just, like... I don't know. This is like the kind of place that

you live when you're married, and you've got four kids.

SHE CHUCKLES

Hey. Hi. How are you?

Nice to see you again. I'm good.

Hi, you must be Annie. I'm Ellie. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

How long have you been here?

Erm, nearly a year.

It's so nice.

Yes. So, how long have you been doing this for, Annie?

Er, since, probably, the end of July...

Oh, OK, so quite recent. ..I started doing it.

Very recent. Very recent.

So, it's all very new to me right now.

That's good. How did you get into it?

Erm. It was random. I'd never heard about it before.

I just started doing some photoshoots with a friend,

just... Literally, just for fun.

It was, like, "Yeah, why not? Give it a go."

I mean, I don't live far. So, I reached out to Lauren.

Social media, obviously, Instagram.

I thought it'd be nice because I didn't know anyone else that was

doing it, and it's just nice to have that support, and then, obviously,

a friendship's blossomed from it. So, it's really nice.

I think, "So far, so good", and it's already, month-by-month,

it's getting ridiculously, like, better. Mm.

So, I think... I just want Annie to quit her job

so we can spend every day just, like chilling, getting our hair done,

working, and just having fun. So, you're still working in another job?

At the minute. Yeah.

What's that?

Er, it's just a waitress job. OK. Yeah. So is that...?

That's your goal, then, for Annie to be able to quit her job?

I think it's what she wants... Whatever she wants to do,

I'm not going to push her.

ANNIE GIGGLES

But it would be very nice because...

..you're free, and there's not that many people around in the day.

SHE LAUGHS

I was going to say, I imagine don't have loads of friends

who are around during the day.

No, but I do fill my time.

Are you messaging people from OnlyFans now, Lauren?

Yeah. What are you messaging?

Because I write people's names on my boobs sometimes.

Is that something that people can pay for in, erm...?

Yeah. It's $30...

Oh, yeah. ..and I just make a little video with their name on me.

So, what would you usually do together?

I mean, to be honest, I normally make content alone,

but, if I make content with somebody, erm,

just take a bunch of selfies

and then make a video. Oh, OK.

But everyone does different things.

Annie and I made a video recently where we kissed.

SHE CHUCKLES

Yeah? Yeah. How did that go down?

Erm, I think it made about two grand. Really?

Mm. Do you think you'll do that again today?

No. Because we've already done it. Don't need to do it again.

So do something else. But, then, a lot of my friends

aren't really up for doing that. SHE CHUCKLES

So, is Annie more up for it, more up for it than your other

friends are? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of my other friends that do it,

they're just a bit, like, "Mmmmm."

My fans kind of... They love it, and it's cool, and it's great,

but I have to keep my page predominantly me,

if that makes sense.

It's my page. Just like her page is her page.

So, maybe you turn around and give her a little twerk.

Right, I'm going to figure it out,

because I'm going to have to proper get at this angle.

How weird does it get, then, some of the things you get asked for?

I wouldn't... "When I drink - you'll piss."

Yeah. It gets so strange.

SHE GIGGLES

Someone's actually asked you that?!

Yeah. People ask, like, you to join their relationships

or, yeah, like weird things.

Would you do this if it wasn't big money in it?

No. Really?

SHE LAUGHS

There's been so many, like, horrendous downsides,

and horrendous judgment, and...

It's been, mentally, a lot,

and the only thing that makes it OK is,

obviously, the happiness it brings me

but money is freedom,

and I'm free.

And, like, if it wasn't for that,

then I think I would not do it.

Have you ever been offered a huge amount of money

for something you didn't want to do?

Yeah. What?

Probably, like, "Will you sleep with me?"

"I'll give you...

"..five grand", and you're just, like...

"No. Bye."

I understand why Lauren would say, "No," to that.

She has a huge financial safety net,

and neither she, nor Annie,

say they'd do what they'd considered to be porn.

The wrong way.

Just move backwards.

I just don't want to block you out.

You won't. No?

But I know the other side of OnlyFans

is full of explicit content.

How different is that world?

Because, like, the amount of guys I have from my high school

who have subscribed to it... Really? ..is crazy, and I'm just, like...

I'm meeting 20-year-old Sasha.

She's been doing OnlyFans for a year

while working part-time in a shop.

Her content's far more explicit than anyone I'd yet encountered.

What kind of requests do you get from your fans?

I do most things.

I'm just not really into anything that involves, like,

extreme bodily fluids.

Erm, so a lot people will request videos of you, like,

going to the toilet, and that's something that, you know,

I've spoken to customers about it, but I've never followed through.

What do you think?

SASHA LAUGHS

I don't know how to, like, initiate it.

That feels a bit risky, doesn't it?

It's fine. Let's do it. Do you think?

Right, ready to take a photo? OK.

One of her fans has requested a naked photo in a graveyard.

Sasha's here because she wants to make more money through extra tips

from her paying subscribers.

So you just put that onto your OnlyFans now?

And, erm... Yeah, I'll just be, like,

"Having some fun in the graveyard."

Ooh! So, you know, make it sound more interesting

than it actually was. Yeah.

And then that'll get you tips? Is that how it works?

Yeah, exactly. So, I'll be, like,

"Tip me if you want to, like, know exactly what happened."

What made you decide to get into this line of work?

I grew up in, like, a very strict Christian household,

and I had so many bad experiences with guys, and I just was

being rebellious, like, typical, rebellious teenage girl.

I just wanted to kind of put two fingers up to my parents

and be, like, "I can do what I want. I'm an adult now,"

and I just think I had this attitude that...

..I was below men.

It's something that I've always had, like, in the back of my mind

that I'd be good at this because, from a young age, you know,

I'd be sending like Snapchats to boys and that kind of stuff.

But I must've been about 15,

and I sent it to this guy thinking,

"He's popular, maybe he'll see it and suddenly fall in love with me,"

or something stupid and it ended up getting spread around

the whole school, and I kept doing it thinking

that I was getting this validation from these guys.

There's almost a bit of vengeance there in getting men to pay.

Yeah, it's kind of like a big, "Fuck you", to them, to all the guys

that have hurt me in the past who, you know, I have them messaging me

now like, "Oh, if you ever break up with your boyfriend - come back."

So, in a way, did that first photo getting leaked...?

Did that lead you to send more?

Yes, I think it was kind of my way of trying to fight back

and being like, "Well, it's my photos.

"You don't have control over them",

and I think that really showed how young and naive I was like.

What's the situation with your parents now?

Erm, so, unfortunately, they've kicked me out.

So, I'm... They're just aren't ready to deal with the way I lead,

like, lead my life.

And have you got someone to go?

Not at the moment.

I'm getting help from the council.

Is there a danger...

..in OnlyFans being so accessible when you're that age?

Yeah, 100%.

Because I definitely think when you're young and you start

having your first sexual experiences and it's like,

"Oh, I can make money for sending pictures to random strangers."

Like, "How fun."

What might be the impact, do you think, on the 13, 14-year-old girl,

looking at girls who are doing OnlyFans

who are looking glamorous,

and feeling empowered, and making lots of money?

I'm not going to put up a photo of me having a crap day

on my OnlyFans, or me crying in my pyjamas, because what's that...?

That's not going to get me anything.

So, they're only seeing the good things.

It's a difficult time in Sasha's life

as she's still trying to find somewhere to live.

She needs emergency accommodation from the council.

MOBILE RINGS

Oh, is that...?

It's the council again. Oh, yeah.

Do you want to answer? Yeah.

Hello?

Yes.

OK.

OK.

Bye.

Oh, dear. What's happened?

I'm not considered a priority.

Erm, and I can, like, appeal it.

But, like, that's just going to take longer.

I'm so sorry. It's OK. I'll be fine. I'm so sorry.

How much money are you making, at the moment, from OnlyFans?

It's a very slow month at the moment.

So, I'm making like an extra...

..£100 to £200 a week,

which, obviously, sounds like a lot to some people,

but when you're going to have to start spending that

on finding somewhere to sleep,

and food, and transport...

..I'm needing to definitely get some content out,

and get some extra money.

How easy do you think is the progression from Snapchat

to OnlyFans, into something like escorting, or prostitution?

Pretty easy.

It's kind like a rabbit hole.

You can just go further and further, and further,

because something that could have started out as quite innocent fun,

it can turn sour quite quickly.

Starting out today,

Sasha was...

..an empowered, young woman who was

reclaiming her sexuality,

who was really confident,

had gained a lot from Only Fans,

and who was making a decent income for a 20-year-old,

who was living with her parents.

And all of a sudden...

..that flipped.

And it was really quite powerful to see how quickly

OnlyFans can go

from something fun and empowering...

..and...

..enjoyable...

..into a really stressful way to earn a living.

This journey that Sasha's on began in high school

when that first picture leaked.

The same age as some of the girls I've seen that are using

these platforms, too.

After what feels like weeks of searching,

I've managed to find three other British OnlyFans profiles

which, from birth certificates, look like they belong to someone

under the age of 18.

As well as Hannah,

I reached out to all these suspected underage girls.

Only one replied to my message.

But after a couple of texts, I never heard from her again.

Other people have noticed the same trend as me on social media.

Young-looking girls selling nudes online.

But it's hard to know

if they've done the same level of research as me.

Even though Hannah's OnlyFans career is currently on hold,

her Snapchat content is in high demand.

She uses something called Snapchat Premium.

It's an unofficial way of earning money from your Snapchat account

using other apps like PayPal to receive money.

Can you describe what you do on Snapchat Premium?

So, obviously the normal -

boobs and twerking's a...

..like, a big... That's like a big thing for me.

Mostly when it comes to toys and that, more explicit, bath shows,

and that, they'll pay extra for.

So, that's how I get my money, et cetera,

like, longer videos and stuff.

I actually started off of lingerie and stuff.

Like, for quite a while, actually,

I started off with just teasing videos, I guess.

Not actually fully nudes cos

I wasn't, like, comfortable with that yet.

Then I went to, like, fully nude, et cetera. It just depends.

People do porn, obviously, on there,

and that makes a lot more, obviously.

So, is it the more explicit stuff people do, the more money they make?

More money you'll make, or more you'll charge, yeah.

So, for you, when you started,

was it quite a quick snowball into,

from lingerie into doing other things?

Yeah. I was, like, "Oh, wow, this is easier than I thought."

And do people ask you for...?

Will they offer you money for more explicit content?

Yeah, I'm, like, it just depends what it is.

Sometimes I'm, like, "Oh, no." SHE SMIRKS

It's, like, some stuff I'm, like,

"Oh, I don't care how much you offer, I'm not doing that."

What kind of stuff?

A lot of stuff with anal, and stuff. I'm like, "No. Not for me."

Do you get a lot of girls that message you

saying they want to get on it?

Yeah, a lot. A lot of people I know, and a lot of people I don't know.

And how many do you think have messaged you in total

asking for advice on how to do it?

Hundreds. Hundreds?

Underage girls. Hundreds?

Yeah.

Have you ever had any problems with the police, or...?

Yeah, I've had a couple.

Erm, more, like, last year when I was a bit younger, like 16,

people reporting.

And honestly, I've talked to social...

I think it was more kind of, like, they weren't that bothered.

Like, they were more, like, "Are you safe?

"Are you doing meets?"

And, so, did the police just drop it, then?

Yeah, they dropped it.

They just pop in now every few months, like, "Are you OK?"

You know, "I'm not doing prostitution and selling myself.

"I keep myself safe."

I think that's where they're worried about.

And, even though you feel very grown up,

and mature for your age,

what about other 17-year-olds who might want to do it

but aren't quite as grown up as you?

Yeah, that's why...

I don't know what to say about that one. It's just...

Yeah, a lot of people are like that, but...

..I can't really help them do anything about it.

I don't think they're the type of people who will do it anyway.

They're the ones who...that are in school, and stuff.

They're not really...

You never really see people do my job at that age. Ever.

What's the youngest that you've ever heard of someone

doing Snapchat Premium?

It was 14. 14? Yeah.

So, is it Premium that more younger people do?

Yeah, because it's easy to get onto it, or access.

It's just, you can just do it, like, "Do you want to buy?"

Just get a few followers, and that's that.

I think if one of my friends

had started selling naked photos for money...

..I don't know if there'd have been an alarm bell that said,

"This is child porn - it's illegal",

but there'd have been an alarm bell that was, like...

How long?

And there are hundreds of girls messaging her,

saying they want to do it and...

..it's difficult because, like,

I don't want to sound like some old woman who is...

..way out of touch with 16-year-olds, but also,

I don't sit here and say, that, "Yeah, cool."

Like, "That's so cool when you're 16."

Like, "Totally crack on - do the OnlyFans."

But this isn't just about OnlyFans now.

Billions of Snapchats are sent every day - mainly by teenagers -

and, from our research, Hannah isn't the only one selling nudes on there.

Two of the other suspected underage OnlyFans accounts we found

were doing the same thing.

Lloyd Richardson is in charge of

a world-leading team based in Canada.

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection has created

Project Arachnid.

Virtual crawlers that scour the Internet

to find and remove images of child sexual abuse.

Their work is focused on finding and removing illegal online images

of children under 18.

So, what laws are there that prevent a service provider

from hosting child sexual abuse imagery?

There's no legal requirement, that I'm aware of,

anywhere in the world, for people to actually scan proactively

for this material, which I think is a huge gap.

They would be required to remove it when someone tells them

that it exists on their service.

So, you're relying on the users on that platform to either,

A - report it to authorities to get it removed,

or B - the provider itself doing some sort of proactive measures

to detect that material on their systems.

And our film has been specifically looking quite a lot at OnlyFans,

and is that something you've come across

during your line of work at all?

So, what I can tell you is that we've...definitely seen

references to OnlyFans on the forums that Arachnid scrapes,

erm, definitely references to underage folks being available

on OnlyFans links to profiles and what have you.

So, we certainly know that the offending community

is talking about it,

and what I can tell you is that services like this

almost certainly have child sexual abuse material on them.

It's just... It's not a question of if, it's a question of when,

especially when you're dealing with scale of contents.

During my investigation,

the platform that's produced the most leads,

and is the biggest window into this world, is Twitter.

This is the main promotion arena for news for sale.

It's how you advertise your methods of selling nudes,

whether that be OnlyFans, Snapchat Premium, or something else.

So, we commissioned a bespoke piece of research

using the age verification technology I've already been using.

Nice to meet you. How you doing?

NARRATING: It's designed by a company called Yoti.

So, Ellie, what we've done is we've basically got

about 20,000 Twitter accounts, and we've basically been...

Looked and seen how many actual images can we detect. So, faces.

And that was about 7,500.

And then on the 7,500 images, we've basically said

what the estimated age is in column A,

and how many out of those 7,500 were in each age year.

So, you looked on Twitter for hashtags like #nudesforsale,

#buymynudes and, in one day,

you've found 2,500 accounts

of people that appear to be under the age of 18.

Correct. God, that's astonishing.

I can't believe how high the percentage is.

It will be shocking to quite a lot of people because they just won't

presume that that's the type of thing that's going on.

I mean, I'm shocked by it.

I had no idea about any of this until I started looking

into this documentary,

and even now, I've been working on this for six months or so,

and the numbers have shocked me.

I knew this was happening,

but I had no idea

that it was this big.

I'm genuinely shocked.

It is... I think that's the other thing, as well, like,

we sort of lost sight of this because we're, like, thinking...

I think that's the other thing.

We've met, like, one grown-up, 17-year-old who the police,

and social services, and her mum's given the OK to.

But, all 2,500 of them can't be Hannahs.

And that actually is quite sad to think about.

We've got in touch with each big company

we've come across making this film.

In response to our findings,

here's what Twitter and Snapchat have to say...

Snapchat said...

We do not scan the contents of private accounts,

but we continue to look for ways to find and remove these accounts,

including discussions with...

We aggressively fight online child sexual abuse.

Regarding our documentary, they said...

Once notified,

Twitter immediately requested details of the accounts concerned,

which have not been provided...

OnlyFans have given us a statement, too.

We constantly review our systems

to ensure they are as robust as possible to ensure that...

..we will always take immediate steps to investigate and...

When we were alerted in August 2019

to an allegation that an individual was...

..we took proactive, swift measures to...

She actively conspired with a number of adult accomplices. They all...

We would like to stress that we have since significantly

changed and upgraded our age and identity verification process.

In May 2019, we introduced an extra safeguard,

which was not required by law,

into our account verification process, so that...

Porn is, and always has been, a form of escapism.

The girls I've met are all selling some form of fantasy.

For their customers, though, it's fulfilling.

They get bespoke personalised content,

but for the girls - it's simply business.

This whole movement has the potential to be a positive,

empowering force, particularly for women who want to work

in the adult industry

but, while ordinary teenagers are seeing its appeal,

and the Internet remains so unregulated,

it could be a recipe for disaster.