LONDON/HELSINKI — The creators of Freyja want to do more than provide a “sustainable” platform for performers to monetize their content. They want to lead a movement.
“It’s a movement fighting sexual harassment and violence in the industry and wider society,” the company said in announcing their official launch this week. “Together with charities, therapists, and psychologists, we have developed extensive educational and support resources that make up for inadequate sex-education and a lack of high quality information.
“Together, we can make sex and intimacy better and safer for everyone.”
Billed as “the world’s first safe, sustainable and educational adult private content platform,” the creators say Freyja was built “with and by” industry veterans such as London native Samantha Bentley, who is the Head of Talent Recruitiment and Industry Navigation. Bentley also wrote several of the blog entries in Freyja's robust "Lifestyle & Education" section.
Freyja offers what it says is "a lower commission fee than most sites, fair and transparent guidelines, and an accessible management team." Since the platform was developed specifically for adult, they say there is no risk of being kicked off the platform without warning.
They work closely with a performer board that is directly involved in the operations of the company. The board currently consists of Kiki Minaj, Misha Cross, Kloe Kane, Danielle Maye and Bentley. And the company is looking forward to developing more relationships with an even wider range of performers.
Its fresh approach to the subscription-based platform entails providing numerous support resources, mentoring programs, workshops and insider tips for performers.
Freyja CEO Maria Allgaier, who is based in Finland, told AVN they will have a sign-up for performers “where we will organize talks/meetings with our ambassadors and performer board members to give guidance on their profile and content.”
“We are also currently working with an external company to bring mental health services, life coaching and financial management assistance to performers, which will be running in about a month's time, so more information to come soon!” Allgaier said.
“We are also aware of some of the problems that performers face in getting bank accounts and so in response, we've made sure that we can assist performers in setting up bank accounts. This can be done by contacting [email protected]."
Allgaier continued, “One thing that we make sure we do is have a very accessible founding team, our team has profiles on Freyja and are always reachable to assist any Freyja performer.
“All services are online-based, due to how global the industry and our performer base is. These are separate services from the education site and are only offered to Freyja performers. However, on our education site performers can access some written resources, and on the Freyja content platform, if you follow the Freyja site all of our advice is done in the form of reels.”
Indeed with its pleasant user interface, the creators say Freyja is as easy as using any other social media. Freyja performers can earn money by selling content to consumers who aren’t subscribed to their profiles; they also can sell sex advice and what they call “Sprints,” which are swipe-able collections of short video clips.
There is also “search and discovery” functionality for users, designed so that any performer can increase their fanbase further.
Freyja provides reliability and security because it’s backed by a “sophisticated” moderation system, ensuring that all content is moderated before publication.
“This makes Freyja’s platform future proof and ensures that banks or governments won’t just cut it off,” the company said. “This also allows performers to post all their content without them having to worry that it might be taken down later. This also allows us to prevent child pornography and revenge porn and therefore makes the whole industry safer.”
Allgaier said Freyja has a helpful suggestions page where users can filter performers based on “free content, medium and high subscription.”
“It is totally up to the performer how to run their subscription,” she added. “They can opt for a free subscription and have more locked content, or they can have a low subscription with a mixture of free and locked content.”
The Freyja CEO said their content moderation system will not discriminate.
“Too often people assume that if porn looks ‘pretty’ and has more foreplay and cinematography that it is somehow more ethical than, for example, a BDSM video,” Allgaier explained. “We are very aware that the way the porn looks is not a good indicator as to whether or not it is 'ethical'. In terms of our moderation, we aren't censoring the ‘hardcore,’ what we do is we check it's the right performer, that no one is in the video who hasn't been tagged and that it meets our guidelines.
“Therefore, we do allow hardcore content, as long as it is consensual, and the performer is fully verified. Our community guidelines are made with performers, and we are always happy to have discussions with performers on the guidelines in order to make the platform safer and fair.
“We also encourage performers to write consent statements in their settings, which attaches to their videos, so that users can think a bit more about consent, particularly in relation to more ‘hardcore content.’”
Freyja also allows “selected” studios on the platform. If interested in opening a studio account, email [email protected] for more information.
Allgaier told AVN that Freyja is the name of a Norse goddess of sex and fertility.
“I wanted to pick a name that was a bit more subtle, and as I used to study history at university and loved Latin and ancient Greek, I wanted to pick something mythical,” she said.
Visit freyja-xo.com to sign up.
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