UK website OnlyFans has been accused of directing an unidentified social media company to blacklist many competitor adult websites in 2018, according to a BBC report.
OnlyFans is an online subscription platform known for its adult content, with performers often linking to adult websites using their social media accounts, including Instagram and Twitter.
BBC News said it has learned that rival adult website FanCentro has begun legal action in the US against OnlyFans' owner Leonid Radvinsky and the company which receives OnlyFans' payments, Fenix Internet LLC.
The claim was submitted to a US court in Florida last November.
FanCentro claims the social media content of adult performers promoting rival websites to OnlyFans were placed on an international database - the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), the BBC said.
OnlyFans representatives allegedly paid bribes to the social media company’s employees to facilitate the practice, the report added.
According to the legal action, FanCentro believes the database was "manipulated", which meant that many adult performers had their social posts removed and accounts disabled despite no terrorist content.
This happened most noticeably on Instagram, the social media platform owned by Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:FB), according to the filing.
FanCentro is seeking financial damages, claiming the reduced visibility of performers on social media led to a marked decline in traffic being driven to rival websites of OnlyFans, the BBC reported.
An OnlyFans spokesperson told the BBC it is aware of the legal claim and it has "no merit".
Facebook, another Meta subsidiary, is not named in the legal action but BBC News said it has learned that Facebook has been issued with a subpoena that requests copies of any internal documents showing rival websites to OnlyFans included on lists of so-called Dangerous Individual or Organizations held by Meta and any payments received from OnlyFans representatives.
"These allegations are without merit and we will address them in the context of the litigation as needed," Meta said in a statement.