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MasterCard to stop processing payments on Pornhub, cites unlawful content
- chadlavi 6y agoThey of course are free to work with or not work with whatever vendors they choose, but it's really surprising to see a financial services company make a choice that will mean they make less money. Maybe I'm just jaded, but it can't possibly be that they're doing this just because they think it's the right thing to do. Why is this better for their bottom line in the longer run? Do they foresee some sort of huge liability headache if that site gets shut down, so they're just taking their ball and going home before the storm hits?
- toomuchtodo 6y agoImagine you are a Visa or Mastercard executive. Your company has found evidence of illegal, sexually exploitative (including that of the underage variety) materials on a site your company tangentially provides services for. What other option do you have? Congressional testimony, civil suits, reputational risk and damage. These are the pitfalls you are attempting to avoid by deplatforming Mindgeek through their payment processor.
- chadlavi 6y agoI guess it could be the case that they regularly sever relationships with vendors for this, but usually it's not newsworthy. So the angle is basically preventative PR? Business lost based on future outrage outweighs business lost to porn subscribers, sort of thing?
- toomuchtodo 6y ago> So the angle is basically preventative PR? Business lost based on future outrage outweighs business lost to porn subscribers, sort of thing? Yeah. See exileration's comment about the NY Times piece. Pornhub looked the other way on verified users and safety/trust (content moderation and the like) to generate more users/views and they got burned.
- hrktb 6y agoEdit: I wasn’t thinking about financial regulation applied to processors on a whole range of illegal behavior, where regulator will go after the payment processor to force it to police transactions Gist of the original comment: As other commenters point out, your go to option should be to alert authorities and have them investigate.
- criddell 6y ago> your go to option should be to alert authorities and have them investigate And then continue processing payments for what you sincerely believe to be child abuse and rape until the justice system finally gets around to dealing with it?
- hrktb 6y agoI sympathize with the point, because as an individual that’s what I would do. I see it as a less clear situation for an entity that has so much control other everyone’s life. Phrasing it in a “innocent until proven guilty” would be too much, as they are not governing bodies, but there is a line somewhere that should be set in my opinion, and crossing it should be backed by something legal happening on with it (basically PornHub having an injunction to stop doing business until due trial), and not just the processor acting on its principles.
- nostromo 6y ago> They of course are free to work with or not work with whatever vendors they choose Don’t like Standard Oil? Just heat your home and cook your food with someone else’s oil! I’m tired of hearing this argument to defend technology monopolies and duopolies. If you have no legal reason to deny services to someone, don’t. That would mean baking cakes for gay weddings if you’re a baker open to the public and processing credit card payments for pornography if you’re a payment processor.
- gamblor956 6y agoBut in this case, it appears they do have legal reasons for denying services. The company was aware of it's CP problem and didn't do much to stop it. Now they have a very strong incentive to police their site.
- nostromo 6y agoBut why are we looking to MasterCard to police pornography on the internet and not our government?
- FemmeAndroid 6y agoBecause that's a false dichotomy and we are looking to both.
- chadlavi 6y agoI think the more apt analogy might be choosing not to sell flour to that jerk who runs the anti-gay cake store anymore because you don't want to be caught up in the bad PR. I'm pretty sure you can still use MasterCard to fund a PayPal account, which can be used to buy any manner of thing, so it's not purely that Mastercard doesn't want their money being used to buy illegal things. They just don't want to be associated with it.
- freeone3000 6y agoExcept you can't pay for Pornhub with PayPal, as PayPal can't be used to buy pornography. Not even the legal kind. They won't even take the proceeds. Venmo is owned by PayPal and has the same policies. Google Pay also has an explicit ban on pornography. As does Apple Pay. As does Samsung Pay. In fact, I don't think any balance-carrying service available to Americans even theoretically allows paying for porn.
- baby 6y agoMastercard is so big that them choosing to ban some recipients is almost like banning these recipients from existing. I know there’s visa but I can imagine that as a company that’s a huge stab in the guts. Imagine having a product banned by the iOS apps tore!
- Miner49er 6y agoI actually wonder if credit card companies even make money doing business with PornHub? My understanding is that porn credit card charges are charged back extremely often. Dealing with those has to eat away at the margin. Maybe they just saw this as an opportunity to get out of business with PornHub and not look like they are unfairly denying service?
- cathyreisenwitz 6y agoIt's likely the DOJ is pressuring them. Look up Operation Choke Point.
- ardy42 6y ago> It's likely the DOJ is pressuring them. Look up Operation Choke Point. No, this is driven by public and media pressure. There was a really blunt expose about PornHub a week ago by a prominent NYT columnist.
- seibelj 6y agoPornhub uses the Tether stablecoin (USDT) operating on the Ethereum and Tron blockchains as a valid payment option https://cointelegraph.com/news/pornhub-adds-tether-stablecoin-as-new-crypto-payment-option https://cointelegraph.com/news/pornhub-adds-tether-stablecoi... One of cryptocurrencies' core use cases is uncensorable payments for vendors shut out of the mainstream financial system.
- renewiltord 6y agoDoesn't this just make this a problem of converting USDT to USD at some point? Any guy who offers that feature as scale is likely to fall into the same problem.
- seibelj 6y agoMany ways to do that, including OTC desks that can do a big lump sum conversion at once. Retail can use a multitude of exchanges.
- renewiltord 6y agoRight, I just don't understand how this doesn't just become a problem for the exchanges at that point. Right now they're too small to be on the radar.
- seibelj 6y agoFor how "small" they are, the amount of attention they attract from regulators, and the intense focus on regulating Bitcoin and similar, shows the powers are very aware of the risk to their monopoly.
- cwwc 6y agoElated by this. That said, curious if others have any thoughts about the externalities of this.
- pavel_lishin 6y ago> Elated by this. How come?
- reaperducer 6y agoBecause he's not a fan of enabling kiddie porn, rape videos, and worse? Read the NY Times article that sparked this.
- cwwc 6y agoExactly.
- blackearl 6y agoAre you against the internet? Surely there's no larger enabler than the broad internet
- reaperducer 6y agoIt's not about me, or my views. I'm merely giving a possible reason for his sentiment. Your hyperbole is meaningless.
- blackearl 6y agoNot seeing how it's hyperbole, nor how it would be meaningless.
- MrStonedOne 6y agoThere isn't a video or image sharing service that doesn't have to deal with child porn getting uploaded. Nobody is going to be perfect on stopping that either. From kids uploading explicit content of themselves to tiktok and snapchat to people cross-uploading random videos they found from other porn sites purely for the ego of the view count to actual intentional spreading of childporn. pornhub is not the only user upload powered adult site out there, they just happened to be one of the few that actually has and enforced rules against extreme content like rape, so i don't know why they got targeted other then they are #1.
- exhilaration 6y agoThis is the New York Times editorial (mentioned in the 3rd paragraph) that led to this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra... Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25301913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25301913
- pizza234 6y ago> I came across many videos on Pornhub that were recordings of assaults on unconscious women and girls. The rapists would open the eyelids of the victims and touch their eyeballs to show that they were nonresponsive. Either the writer is one of the few people on earth who believes that porn is real, or he's somebody who lies to push their ideology. Hard to believe that it's the first.
- trollied 6y ago> I came across many videos on Pornhub I bet :)
- newbie789 6y agoOut of curiosity, did you read the linked article? It would appear that you're implying that the women that were directly quoted as being harmed by the site were also lying. If so, I find the stance of "either the author is an idiot or there's a conspiracy" to be an interesting dichotomy that excludes a third possibility.
- anotherman554 6y agoDid you notice the article is in the opinion section? I believe that means it isn't fact checked at all and there's no journalistic expectation it's anything other than fiction.
- newbie789 6y agoSo you are of the opinion that the women were lying. Thanks for clarifying, I was unsure what you were responding to.
- tomwill656 6y agoThis is a huge victory for the religious anti-sex work movement. Some backstory to how this happened: https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war-pornhub https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war... I suspect Mastercard will pull processing on many adult platforms now. I wonder what this means for Twitter and Reddit that allow UGC adult content.
- sebmellen 6y agoPornhub is full of child porn and does very little about it. This is a good choice. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra....
- rhizome 6y agoFacebook is full of sedition and does nothing about it.
- mfer 6y agoSexual assault of children is illegal. Sedition is only illegal in rare circumstances. In the US anyway.
- rhizome 6y agoDo you think any of those circumstances are happening on FB? Does the supposed rarity make them harder or easier to find?
- mfer 6y agoIf FB is unaware of the illegal sedition they have plausible deniability. In this case, MasterCard no longer has plausible deniability. This increases their liability. Imagine someone at a liquor store sells beer to someone. Then, they learn the ID is fake and the person is lying about their age. Once they know someone is doing something illegal they can be held liable if they continue to sell the person beer. Note, I'm not getting into right an wrong here. I'm getting into legal liabilities. Large companies like MasterCard are conservative (legally speaking) in how they handle this stuff.
- damm 6y agoSounds like a bad move. I doubt it'll hurt Pornhub at all either as there's other ways to accept payment than MC.
- 14 6y agoI don’t think MC much cares if it hurts or helps Pornhub they are getting out of a bad partnership that could put them at risk of being called part of a child rape ring.
- mfer 6y ago> Pornhub said on Tuesday it had banned video downloads and was allowing only certain partner accounts to upload content after a New York Times column reported that many videos posted on the adult website depicted sexual assault of children. I understand the different angles people will take on this. Yet, it looks like the issue at hand in this case is illegal activity surrounding children. If MasterCard is aware of this illegal activity and is complacent with it... what does that mean ethically and legally? Some people have to deal with that.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- alacombe 6y ago> Pornhub said on Tuesday it had banned video downloads youtube-dl still work great..
- elric 6y agoI really wish law enforcement would enfoce laws, and payment processors would process payments. If the latter notice unlawful activity, they can simply report it to the former. There's a whole machinery set up for dealing with law breakers and with punishing them. Including a forum for the alleged lawbreakers to defend themselves. They are certainly free to do business with whomever they please, but with MC/Visa being a more-or-less global duopoly, these seemingly arbitrary decisions can be extremely impactful.
- chasing 6y agoAlternately, maybe there shouldn't be a payment processor duopoly and businesses should be allowed to act ethically (within the bounds of the law)?
- jraph 6y ago> maybe there shouldn't be a payment processor duopoly I agree, but this is another problem even if there is a link, and both are not mutually exclusive > businesses should be allowed to act ethically (within the bounds of the law) I don't get your point there. Who forces PornHub to act like they do?
- cathyreisenwitz 6y agoBoth can be true
- fastball 6y agoThis is why so many people are so gungho about crypto.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoMake no mistake, crypto or not, the law still applies and you aren't going to "win" against a nation state that has a monopoly on force and legal enforcement. Your actions on the ledger are mostly permanent, and one opsec mistake and you're screwed.
- trollied 6y agoPrevious discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25301913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25301913 I guess this story explains why Pornhub decided to change their policies a few days ago & banned uploads by unverified users. See this Vice story: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7m7k8/pornhub-banned-uploads-policy-change https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7m7k8/pornhub-banned-upload... Too little, too late.
- travisoneill1 6y agoIf pornhub is breaking the law, then it should be prosecuted. The ability of companies and individuals to send and receive payments should not be at the whim of public opinion anymore than their access to the electric grid. Payment processing is at the point where it needs to be regulated as a utility.
- Oblouk 6y agoThis is one of the few benefits I can see to cryptocurrency.
- macspoofing 6y agoAnd even that is tenuous. In cases where you run afoul of AML regulations, cryptocurrency will not save you. In cases such as this where you break no laws, but your payment processor refuses to process payments ... well, at some point you'll have to convert your crypto cash into real cash - so all you did was kick the ball downstream and fixed nothing. If MasterCard refuses to process your payments, they can also refuse to process payments for the crypto exchange if they do business with you.
- tamrix 6y agoDon't think that this problem lies solely with porn websites. The same illegal content is uploaded and distributed to Twitter, tictok and other social media but they're protected by the same article 240 pornhub is. However, in the eyes of the leftist cesspool twitter is, if you say you want to remove article 240 to hold twitter accountable for distributing illegal content via tweets, then suddenly you're a Trump supporting alt right conspiracy theorist.
- jackson1442 6y agoAre you suggesting that platforms should be held responsible for all content posted on their respective sites? I personally feel that is an absurd burden and simply won't work. In May of 2019, 500 hours of content were uploaded to YouTube every minute. How could a platform possibly be held accountable for that sheer volume of content? YouTube already tries to do this, but AI is only so good and hiring that many humans to both watch the content and report on it is a massive undertaking. It would make sense to pursue Twitter if they are in fact acting in _bad faith_, but not being able to read all 9255 tweets posted _every second_ doesn't seem like a reason to punish Twitter.
- Context_free 6y agoReading the New York Times article mentioning women and trafficking reminded me of this old American classic from over a century ago, about the yellow journalists of the day spinning the same stories, sans the modern streaming element https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-the-white-slave-traffic https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-the-whi...
- admiralspoo 6y agoThis is good news for cryptocurrencies. Mastercard/VISA offer no value in 2020 and are an anachronism to an era that no longer exists.
- BitwiseFool 6y agoThe same pearl clutching about making payments to site hosting "unlawful content" will apply to cryptocurrencies as well. Sadly, there are already efforts to track crypto payments and regulate the crypto ecosystem.
- crispyporkbites 6y agoHow do you block/censor a Bitcoin transaction to a porn site? Perhaps if the sending address has been linked to an IRL identity you could prosecute. But then you could just use Monero or other anonymous currencies instead.
- BitwiseFool 6y agoMy understanding is that the US government cannot realistically regulate the Bitcoin protocol, but it can regulate it's own citizens use of it. It wouldn't be materially difficult to pass a law stating that all bitcoin transactions made by citizens and businesses subject to US jurisdiction must be registered. While they would not be able to block the transaction, they can go after anyone who made the transaction.
- smt88 6y agoWhen I buy things with my Visa and accidentally break them, Visa buys me a new one. When a business screws me over, Visa takes my payment back. You can argue that the core activity of processing payments is a commodity (and it isn't, because building a merchant network as big as Visa's is incredibly difficult), but you can't argue that they don't add any value on top of that.
- spinach 6y agoThe content that exists of women and girls being raped online is absolutely horrible and terrifying. People are monsters. Why was Mastercard even allowing PH to process payments at all?
- kleer001 6y agoBecause to do so would be an extrajudicial act. They're bad, real bad. States have a monopoly on violence for a reason.
- lawn 6y agoAnd this is another use-case for cryptocurrencies; that nobody can arbitrarily block payments to your legal business.
- smt88 6y ago1) Great reason for a business to accept crypto, but make me want to use crypto as a consumer 2) The whole point is that Pornhub isn't operating a completely legal business
- caiob 6y agoIs Mastercard going to stop processing payments on Netflix for "Cuties" as well?
- cambalache 6y agoI understand the repulsion against child pornography and unauthorized porn, I should not have to clarify that, but this the Internet. Let me tell you a story, some months ago I came across a NGO that is heavily against pornhub (You can see their campaign in many social media sites) They were a little bit over the top so that got me suspicious, so I started to research them a little, being an NGO and all. To summarize, they have been basically running a scam for years! Those people must be racking mid-high six figures a year from donations and when you check their numbers they have not done anything of what they promised (Like helping sexual workers and stuff) 95% of their budget goes to A)A hefty salary for the founder. B) The budget for a "documentary" years in the making. Ironically, those guys have a profitable cottage industry from outrage on the Internet. If you are a sociopath that is a highly motivating example. I thought about tipping a journo, but knowing current media I thought better and just let them be.
- throwawaysea 6y agoNeither Visa, nor MasterCard, nor PayPal, nor Stripe should have the power to pick whose payments get processed. I don't care that these are private organizations. Payment processing is a fundamental utility service for society today. The fact that we've outsourced it to oligopolies that enjoy the lack of real competition from network effects is an indication that these companies must be broken up or heavily regulated. Payment processors should not get to deny clients except where the law is explicitly broken, and even then, only at the behest of the justice system.
- trollied 6y agoNonsense. There’s an inherent risk in payment processing which needs to be evaluated before taking on a customer. You’d end up with loads of chargeback fraud if you took everyone on. It’s fair enough saying that clients should only be denied once they’ve broken the law, but often the payment processor is the enabler & it’d be too late waiting for illegalities to be detected and prosecuted accordingly. Best to stop it before!
- pluc 6y agoIs it on PornHub alone or is it on everything that Mindgeek controls? Because that would be most of the porn on the internet. If it isn't.. why not?
- cm2187 6y agoBully which made a business of distributing videos of small studios which weren't large enough to enforce their copyright, gets bullied by an even bigger bully. Hard to have strong feelings about it.
- mrkeen 6y agoWhile you're at it, why not shut down MasterCard too. They've been facilitating payments to sites with unlawful content.
- monoclechris 6y agoI didn't see HN complaining when SubscribeStar got screwed by payment processors. Payment processors should process payments.
- 0x_rs 6y agoSeems MasterCard just did not want to continue business with that customer, and I suppose others in the same "entertainment" sector, be it a corporate decision or through external pressures to so. Should alleged "unlawful content" be cited there should be throughout proofs (through formal jurisdictional procedure), otherwise I do not see how this is not defamation. These !accusations are quite a growing phenomenon with service providers I believe.
- AngryData 6y agoCredit card companies already discriminate against hypnosis videos because they believe it removes consent, obviously too dumb to spend 5 minutes figuring out that hypnosis requires someone to want to be hypnotized and be willing throughout the entirety for it to have any effect.
- paloaltokid 6y agoI am not a fan of PornHub because I feel that many of their practices are unethical. That said, as with so many other controversial topics, keeping things legal is ultimately better as it provides opportunities for oversight and regulation. Things being legal don't make them okay though, I am in favor of legalizing prostitution but I also believe it should not exist in the first place. Kristof's piece is a classic "moral panic" article. It could have been written basically at any time in the last 100 years (at least). What is different this time is that the focus is on a modern delivery medium, the internet. But scandalized reporting about the wide distribution and availability of child pornography is nothing new. I remember being a kid and seeing headlines in the newspaper about "internet pedophile porn web rings" being taken in by the police, that was in the 1990s. As for the motivations behind the people pushing the narrative, they're diverse. Some are religious, some are political, some have nefarious motives. Ultimately these things always distract from the thing no-one ever wants to do: hear from the victims and find real ways to prevent the abuse.
- mybrid 6y agoThe crux of the problem is that for much of the US population any porn is unethical and immoral. Since the advent of the Internet the % of population declaring no religious affiliation has jumped by 25%. Once the US hits near 50% non-religious population then the fights are really going to begin about social norms. The struggle is much larger than just porn norms, but all norms.
- Acrobatic_Road 6y agoyou don't have to be religious to oppose porn
- D-Coder 6y agobut it helps
- msoad 6y agoLet's be real, allowing anonymous users upload pornographic content that can potentially be a felony is insane! You must verify those users. Child pornography has to stop and this is one issue IDGAF about your internet privacy rights
- ilaksh 6y agoBriefly started reading some of the NY Times article. Seems to me they may be exaggerating slightly and also possibly slightly misinterpreting how the Pornhub search engine works. But it seems like AI may be able to help. Also it might really be necessary for uploaders to identify themselves because who really doubts that a small percentage of it is actually quite heinous? Also if we really are concerned about the age of people in respect to laws then we probably need better ID systems and a way to tie that into AI and databases.
- saul_goodman 6y agoDon't forget, the Vatican just joined the Inclusive Capitalism club. Mastercard is one of many prominent members. I never expected them to actually mean what they said, but this could be the start of something... interesting. https://www.inclusivecapitalism.com/organization/mastercard/ https://www.inclusivecapitalism.com/organization/mastercard/
- tubularhells 6y agoThis is how they stuck down wikileaks too. Stop the easy flow of money and they will go away. I'd imagine some government friendly investor is already spinning up his own porn video site, or investing into competition.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago15-20 years ago most video porn on line cost money. Now it's almost all "free" clips on these sites. I'm not an expert on the industry, but from the outside it looks to me like the pornhubs, xhamsters, xvideos, etc. of the world have been making money off content without charging for it by allowing arbitrary upload of mostly copyrighted content. Beyond the very dubious stuff that gets uploaded, there's bound to be boatloads of copyright violations as well. What's that saying? When the product is free you are the product? Something like that applies here.
- dismantlethesun 6y agoPornhub actually charges a subscription fee, pays actors/actresses, and owns a half dozen production companies. Sure they got to this position by allowing the free upload of copyrighted content, but they don't do it now because they're now part of the establishment that others try to disrupt.
- tubularhells 6y agoYou type a lot but say little to none. I don't know what to make of it, so I'll pass on.
- admiralspoo 6y ago2020 is a brave new world and Karens run it.
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoSounds like Pornhub's changes weren't satisfactory or were too late. This is an absolute inditement of the "let anyone upload anything and police it later" model that YouTube and Pornhub depend on. I think it's long overdue.
- cmrdporcupine 6y agoI don't even understand it since most of these sites just have the same videos (mostly clips from commercial porn) uploaded over and over again with different titles. The actual amount of novel content is much less than the total number of videos. Clamping down on arbitrary uploads would be doing their users a favour.
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoAllowing arbitrary/anonymous upload is a way for a company to host pirated content without being sued, because they can hide behind (or traditionally have hid behind) Section 230. It's absolutely true that the death of anonymous upload on Pornhub will be a massive boon to commercial and professional adult performers, who will find piracy of their content evaporate overnight. This may actually bring on a renaissance for the adult industry, given how much harm Pornhub has had to the revenues of many studios. Users are going to have a harder time finding that content outside of torrents or the like, so I'm not sure I'd call it a straight upside for them.
- cmrdporcupine 6y agoI dunno, beyond Pornhub there seem to be a dozen other similar sites. Unless they all ban uploading, it will just continue there.
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoSure, but Pornhub is the largest and probably the most technically superior. And it's likely after this, it'll be easier to bring the smaller sites down as well.
- ausbah 6y agountil PornHub does something about the absolute oceans of child porn, rape content, and content from sex traffickers - this is good
- dathinab 6y agoTwo thinks: 1. Yes, pornhub has frequently unlaful content. Under german law it literally contains child pornography (hentai containing children) to just name one example. 2. I'm supper annoyed how payment providers discriminate (and by law often have to discriminate) against pornographic content platforms. IMHO this will just push/benefit platforms which operate on a less legal basis and in turn have much less motivation to hinder problematic content (like child pornography, revenge porn uploads, etc.)
- mafuy 6y agoTo clarify: According to German law, any sexualized content in any media (including text) containing persons who can reasonably be thought of as below the age of 18 are illegal. Here, 'thought of' is quite literal and is allowed to contradict facts. There is no need for real or even just virtual children to be involved. So if you draw a hentai image of someone who is 18, or 20, or 25, but could also be seen as younger, that's illegal. If you've seen hentai, you'll know that virtually all of it belongs in this category. Two 17yo vampires having consensual sex would be legal in Germany, but writing a fanfiction about them would be child porn. If you think that's batshit crazy, you are right.
- kevincox 6y ago> 2. I'm supper annoyed how payment providers discriminate (and by law often have to discriminate) against pornographic content platforms. IIUC there is a fraud component to this as well. As a generalization these businesses have an above average fraud rate. This does make it more expensive to support these and it is within they payment processor's rights to avoid doing business for that reason alone. I think the bigger issue is that these payment processors have a sort of monopoly. Most businesses can't afford to not accept MasterCard or Visa since many North American customers (IDK about globally) will only have these cards, and possibly only one of them.
- MaximumYComb 6y agoThe reasons behind this are a big part of why I will only look at porn that features older women by porn standards, i.e. 30 years old, or verified amatuers in their 20's. It's not a fetish, I just don't want to view porn of women who could very well be girls still. On top of that, exploitation of younger women is much more common. Tags like barely legal, teen, just18, etc all likely have illegal content. It's not about the legal status, I just don't want to see young girls exploited. Even 18-20 year olds are too young and are often naive and exploited. Look at Mia Khalifa as an example. Young and impressionable, she did a few porn shoots at a young age over some months and now it's the defining point of her life and something she'd love to leave behind.
- spoopyskelly 6y ago> Look at Mia Khalifa as an example Totally sounds like she's not still milking that story with her onlyfans account.
- rootsudo 6y agoI'm really happy that credit card back end processors now decide what is lawful and unlawful. I fully support corporations deciding now what is right and wrong to their risk mitigation strategies and this signals the need of why cryptocurrency or peer to peer transactions are bad.
- ExcavateGrandMa 6y agoLemme draw the picture... reality is that owner from these sites knows the law... "Porn is allowed to a certain lvl..." and it's not about humiliation/pedobear and stuff like this... in short... Those who hates porn... and have no sex :D are sabotaging these platform simply by pushing illegal content... Ez...
- mybrid 6y agoThe law of unintended consequences applies. By not not processing porn payments the credit card companies force porn companies to generate revenue via advertising that works best if they give the content away for free. My surprise here is that Pornhub was able to process payments via Mastercard and Visa as I was under the impression that all porn was rejected by them already. https://www.vice.com/en/article/kb7ak9/the-secret-censorship-of-online-porn https://www.vice.com/en/article/kb7ak9/the-secret-censorship...
- madars 6y agoProbably worth updating the link to https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/business/visa-mastercard-block-pornhub.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/business/visa-mastercard-... or similar as Visa joins the suit: “We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network,” pending the completion of its investigation, Visa said in a separate statement. (source: https://twitter.com/VisaNews/status/1337133093031841792 https://twitter.com/VisaNews/status/1337133093031841792)
- freeone3000 6y agoOne thing that seems to be overlooked is that this only applies to PornhubPremium. Illegal videos are uploaded anonymously, which doesn't allow you to put a "premium" flag on it - no Premium money was going to supporting anonymous content. Anonymous content is solely ad-supported... And you're still allowed to buy ads on PornHub with a MasterCard.
- RedComet 6y agoVery good. Hopefully the wicked people that run the website are arrested next.
- RedComet 6y agoDownvoters: "NOOOOOO you can't just arrest the mega-millionaires getting richer spreading child-porn!!!!"
- kipchak 6y agoI would wonder how much of a role chargeback issues played as well. Other similar sites like OnlyFans or online gambling fall under the "high risk" category for payment processors, so PornHub might have been borderline. It's also worth noting that MindGeek, Pornhub's parent companys other holdings are, consisting of the majority of other free sites (redtube, youporn, xtube gaytube etc)[1,2] and even production studios (Brazzers, Reality Kings) the Playboy site, but don't seem to be affected. [1] https://twitter.com/rosekalemba/status/1274593099445153795 https://twitter.com/rosekalemba/status/1274593099445153795 [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek
- cathyreisenwitz 6y agoAccording to victims rights lawyer Carrie A. Goldberg, for every one case involving a rape tape on Pornhub, she has 50 involving rape and CSAM being disseminated on Instagram and Facebook. Mainstream big tech is far worse than Pornhub for rape porn and have a built-in mechanism for harassing victims directly. I agree that Pornhub should have to follow the same rules as American porn companies as far as ID requirements and copyright rules. But let's not pretend that any other part of this is about protecting children. Tech companies sent the DOJ more than 45 million instances of CSAM in 2019 alone, most of which they never investigated. This is about the DOJ pressuring Pornhub into allowing the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a DOJ subsidiary, to censor their content. Which they agreed to.
- chaz6 6y agoIf more and more business are cut off by the payment gatekeepers perhaps it will spur the adoption of alternative currencies.