I am not a lawyer. But OF models using O1 visa is totally fine. It is the intended purpose. The visa itself is meant for researchers, scholars who have job offers, athletes, actors etc. it has no cap and clear criteria. OF models who make a lot of money should totally qualify for this.
Also this visa in uncapped so giving visas to OF models does not take away anything from scientists and others.
O visa's original intent was to help pretty ladies from Eastern Europe to be brought into the country as indentured workers. That is why it is so easy to get this visa for an actor or a fashion model but very tough to get someone for their research.
I thought the reason for this to be a visa is because their fields' activities were in-person (acting in movies/plays/shows, academic life & research, sports training & leagues, etc). A streamer / OF worker is not like that as far as I know (but e-sports is). So this is purely to bring people with money and/or influence, nothing exceptional except the number of 0's.
What I know from news articles is that some of them openly "escort", like some traditional porn stars did more quietly. The fame on the screen can be brand-building for the even more lucrative in-person work.
As one said in a quote, regarding AI threat and crumbling economies: "The oldest profession will be the last profession."
If some of them want to move to the US right now, from currently healthier countries, one reason may be that social inequality means there are many deep-pocketed customers able to pay 5 figures for a weekend experience.
The decline of the US means that there will be increasingly fewer deep-pocketed customers able to pay 5 figures for anything.
Those who come to the US with enough money on the bank will have access to a lifestyle and experiences that are becoming more and more exclusive, which makes for great content for the peasant class to consume on their phones.
> The decline of the US means that there will be increasingly fewer deep-pocketed customers able to pay 5 figures for anything.
Those at the top are doing very well, it's those without access to capital who are struggling. America in decline looks like a bifurcated economy where low-paying jobs catering to the desires of the wealthy take up an increasingly large share of the economy. You can decide for yourself to what extent this is already happening.
A world war and a socialist-minded president could correct that for a good couple of decades but this time the US is going to be on the wrong side of history.
As an outsider, it's interesting to watch Nero play the fiddle while the rest of the world sanctions the US (except India and the Middle East and Taiwan). I think this is how the average Roman felt during Honorius' reign.
US invading Greenland means all US troops in Europe risk getting captured/foxholed in their own military bases. That's 65k permanent staff and 20-35k on rotation. Or 10% of the US military, simply turning PoW (and a huge bargaining chip so early in the conflict).
It will also signal to the world that America is no longer world police, which means the Middle East, Japan and Taiwan will once again come under threat. The Middle East already foresaw this, which is why Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan are building a regional nuclear-enabled alliance, with open invitation to the other oil economies. Taiwan is most likely to get caught with their pants down, given the lack of US military support.
Interestingly, with the exist of the US from NATO, the largest military in NATO will be Turkey's, that country that Europe has long considered the unwanted bastard child.
That's fantasy. I seriously doubt Trump will invade Greenland, but even if so, there will be zero consequences for U.S. forces in Europe. Europe's armed forces are not capable of taking on U.S. troops in Europe.
Conversely -- declining countries usually have a lot of deep-pocketed customers, and mind less of whether their crimes go public. They also tend to care less of spending money in wasteful ways, as those money were easily earned.
I wouldn't prophesize the 'decline' of the US, but if you're sufficiently wealthy, the kind of services and lifestyle options (like living in a luxury apartment overlooking the sea, or decent medical care), is available in a lot of places nowadays.
Well it's already declining. Remove the AI and tech industry and the US economy is in literal decline. Invading Greenland ensures NATO is crippled, Taiwan is left undefended and China finds a great excuse to impose sanctions on the US as part of a coordinated effort. That's a huge chunk of the semiconductor manufacturing lifecycle that becomes inaccessible to the US.
USA is doing pretty well and far from decline not withstanding local minimas they might hit.
When economic outlook is bad, it is generally the middle class and lower class that gets hit the hardest and women in these categories end up joining sin professions. Vegas always sees a big boom in 21 year olds in strip clubs when economy is bad.
Right now strip clubs are full of 35+ women why ? All the young ones are on OF. It is safer and much cleaner way of making money
I believe they are implying that the US itself isn't in a healthy state. Economic disparity mostly, but also politically, socially, and likely physically. I think many would agree.
It increases the countries' soft power if people around the world watch content from there.
Eg. a self-reinforcing cycle that you get the best from the other immigrant categories arriving because they choose the country where everything "seems to be happening".
> I thought the reason for this to be a visa is because their fields' activities were in-person (acting in movies/plays/shows, academic life & research, sports training & leagues, etc). A streamer / OF worker is not like that as far as I know (but e-sports is).
Just like film work (which it is a kind of, in a sense), any place can be an OF set, but you need a set and, for performances with more than one performer, you generally need the performers at the same set. Physical proximity to both sets that you want to use and other performers who you might do recurring joint performances with seem to have obvious utility.
As I understand it [1], usually if you try to cross the border declaring you intend to engage in sex work, they turn you away. Some combination of prudishness and concern about trafficking.
For there to be a special sex worker visa is a surprise, to me.
It's strange, but is it really surprising? It's not like hypocrisy and moat building are new things in American politics.
These days I wouldn't even be surprised to discover it was intentional. Some person or group wanted to ensure they could engage in sex trafficking with a superficially legal cover, but didn't want it to actually be legal.
The distinction is that this is meant to bring in women in service to a man such that they’re sponsor is also their new boss in sex work, rather than women who service men while maintaining independent free will to control their career in sex work. The phrase “sex worker” could refer to either scenario and it’s important to distinguish the former from the latter in order to understand just how that particular criteria came to be. (And, yeah, it can be quite uncomfortable to discover that the U.S. has a special immigration pathway for wealthy and/or politically-connected men to import women as sex servants. Isn’t history swell, congress protects its privileges quite effectively, etc.)
O visa is sponsored by an employer. The employer has to provide reasons why the person is being brought in USA. It makes perfect sense for USA to bring as many OF models as they want into USA as it could mean $$$$ in revenue for IRS, more money for US business and since these models are typically young there is lower load on any kind of welfare.
> A streamer / OF worker is not like that as far as I know (but e-sports is).
Well Streamer vs Influencer can be different potentially, that said I can think of one example even for video game streamers, that being the AGDQ charity event where speedrunners/streamers do stuff live for charity at the event space.
> I thought the reason for this to be a visa is because their fields' activities were in-person (acting in movies/plays/shows, academic life & research, sports training & leagues, etc). A streamer / OF worker is not like that as far as I know
An OnlyFans worker may make the bulk of her money by meeting fans in person for dates. That can't be done over the internet.
While possible to be for physical sex work, I think the previous commenter meant by meeting fans, would be like at a meet-and-greet at a Con, so they can further increase the parasocial relationship with the people giving them subscriptions, signing autographs. Also, they may be doing collabs with other content creators, just as comedians and actors will be on each others podcasts.
INA §212(a)(2)(D) renders inadmissible any alien who:
(i) is coming to the United States solely, principally, or incidentally to engage in prostitution, or has engaged in prostitution within 10 years of the date of application for a visa, admission, or adjustment of status,
(ii) directly or indirectly procures or attempts to procure, or (within 10 years of the date of application for a visa, admission, or adjustment of status) procured or attempted to procure or to import, prostitutes or persons for the purpose of prostitution, or receives or (within such 10-year period) received, in whole or in part, the proceeds of prostitution, or
(iii) is coming to the United States to engage in any other unlawful commercialized vice, whether or not related to prostitution
Obviously these people should be applying for EB-1s since that is the established visa program for prostitutes.
If they stream the sex on their OF feed, then it's not prostitution. Even if model is paid by the other person, it would be difficult to legally separate it from any other adult entertainment contract.
> An OnlyFans worker may make the bulk of her money by meeting fans in person for dates.
I don't believe it. Do you have any evidence? As I understand, the money is made two ways: (1) regular subscriptions and (2) whales that pay for extra content. Also, most of them have private chat and email, which I assume is serviced offshore from somewhere like the Philippines where it is cheap and easy to hire English speakers.
Until they retire and need end of life Medicare which is very expensive.
That's why some countries like Dubai have devised a work visa system that lets people work for decades but never lets them become citizens so Dubai can kick out the moment they stop working, before they need end of life care.
OF models make money until a certain age though. Sure, not too different to the current job market you could argue, but usually any "influencer" career today is quite short lived if you haven't a very specific niche.
In my country prostitution is legal, but I think some countries are very hypocritical here about OF.
In all car reviews, driver impressions and forums, there is near universal and near unanimous preference for physical buttons for common control like volume and climate control. It is beyond me why anyone would experiment with something that is like 100 year old tech and loved by people.
I hope Apple Carplay and Google Android auto can also take over other car control such as volume and climate control. Later someone can build uniform hardware buttons and knobs that I can place on my steering wheel and it can use the phone to control those features.
India supreme court is bonkers and often known for its BS judgements devoid of logic and law.
Aadhar is "identity", it is not a "card" of any kind though Indians have inherent love for collecting various cards for fun. I have my driving license, PAN, aapar, kisan and state government health insurance cards, labor department id card. I have few more in some drawer.
Once a person gets aadhar, it acts pretty much same as OAuth. You go to a hotel to get a room, Hotel by law is required to verify that your name and face match. You give your aadhar card to them which they scan on their computer and verify that your name matches your face. Because they are a hotel they have right to only verify that.
This is much more privacy preserving than what supreme court did. Because of Supreme Court, hotels no long bother to implement this and instead demand your passport and other identification, scan it and leave it in their system forever. They also are known to sell this data to other from time to time.
The technical idea behind was aadhar was similar to UPI. Government runs the core infra with basic APIs but private companies build apps on top of it. For example, say GPay builds aadhar interface where when you walk into a hotel to reserve a room, Gpay automatically generates a new aadhar number with permissions only to show your name, photo and age. Hotel system verifies that and stores a receipt. If in future government is investigating who stayed in which room, law enforcement can convert these receipts to identification.
This was a better model which would have unlocked a lot of potential. The government failed to argue the case correctly and supreme court acted more like an activist court.
I do think both Government and Supreme Court failed to show the correct user journey here.
I’d love to see a citation for a Hotel being legally allowed access to the Aadhaar KUA system, even before the Supreme Court judgement. No hotel in India does this, because Aadhaar as implemented is a “honor based system” for the majority of usecases where a photocopy of a Aadhaar (with or without QR) is assumed to be valid.
In comparison, a Voter ID and PAN are both hologram protected and forgeries are easily detected.
W3C verifiable credentials do not require a singular identity source, they work perfectly fine with multiple issuers.
Not op,I agree that hotels doesn't do any face matching.
However for getting a new mobile connection the flow is similar to what op has mentioned. It seems one can get a mobile connection by not opting for face recognition, but the process is cumbersome. Similarly for property registrations fingerprints (atleast in some of the states) of the concerned parties is matched against the ones that are associated with their Aadhar.
Yes, because Telcos are designated as AUAs, and expected to do a full KYC under DoT regulations. Hotels are not.
I have two SIMs, and I surprisingly got the newer of them in 20 minutes at a remote village in India without an Aadhaar. Telcos do a Liveness check with their phone instead these days.
> and instead demand your passport and other identification, scan it and leave it in their system forever. They also are known to sell this data to other from time to time.
Isn't this the problem vs the Supreme court judgement? Why does the hotel need to save this data forever?
A simple fix will be to make companies liable for leaks of personal data. That alone will incentivize then to delete personal data as fast as humanly possible.
Indians have this crazy love for idiotic paperwork and nitpicking around paperwork, coupled with mostly low IQ and less educated clerks everywhere it becomes worse. I once submited my PAN and Passport to the bank who refused it claiming the spellings of both names do not match as my middle name was shortened on PAN card. I showed them that my photo is present on both and both cards belong to the same person. But nopes.
A friend then showed me that he downloaded aadhar PSD online, put a random invalid number, his photo and a non-existent address on the bank and used it everywhere where people were asking for aadhar without any need. Building and Airport security, Hotel reservation staff, Bus tickets and so on and used real aadhar only for banking and sim cards. He said this simplifies life a lot.
This is the ultimate facade of Digital Identity that UIDAI lets happen while sitting idly by. They put a circular against “Aadhaar photocopies not being valid” only to rescind it the next day because everyone made fun of them.
The truth, as you point out, is that Aadhaar in reality is a an “honour based system”, where UIDAI pretends everything is valid and authenticated as long as it gets used everywhere.
In India you have to cheat just to get things done at all due to how nonsensically strict things are, which leads to increased scrutiny due to cheating, which leads to more need for non-cheaters to cheat just to get things done, which leads to increased scrutiny due to cheating…
As for the low IQ thing no one wants to acknowledge it but check the charts and see that it’s true. Centuries of caste based inbreeding and colonial clerk education will do that to a population. The added toxins in the turmeric will finish the job.
For anyone reading this the following context would be helpful:
1. Home schooling does not necessarily (and in most cases) does not mean a kid learning at home with parents. It only means parents have arranged for adequen learning through alternative means.
2. In many cases, multiple parents and their kids come together and take responsibility of their kids education. They may rent spaces, they may hire teachers and so on.
3. In many cases you have to satisfy government penpushers that you are doing a good job of this.
Thats a dumb metric. It is like saying conditioned on a doctor saw you, how many people were saved. You gotta count folks who died because they did not see the doctor too.
Some of the unicorns could be simply rent seekers making money by colluding with government people. Investors saw them sure shot and hence invested. That model is neither scalable not healthy.
