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Can someone explain what do payment processors gain by this? Do they gain new clients that were against the banned business? Is it PR related to moral panic? Is

Can someone explain what do payment processors gain by this? Do they gain new clients that were against the banned business? Is it PR related to moral panic? Is it because of chargebacks? What do they risk business wise by not banning them?

29athrowaway 6y ago
Protecting themselves from a legal nightmare.
- gspr 6y ago
  This is probably true, but I for one would like to see some kind of protection for payment processors. Not because I feel sorry for them, but because an ordinary person's day-to-day life can become massively disrupted or nearly impossible without them, and a company might be essentially punished without trial. Perhaps payment processors could be responsible only for banning customers that are on a government-maintained blacklist (where a customer would only be added after having been found guilty of a relevant crime, obviously).
scoutt 6y ago
They do it to avoid both legal and PR consequences.
- dmix 6y ago
  Is there any examples of people legally going after Visa or Mastercard? I have a feeling this is just PR by the many examples I've seen of them doing this recently. The legal stuff just sounds like cover.
  - cft 6y ago
    But this does send shivers to the small business owners who have nothing to do with porn. The fact that they can be de-platformed by Visa on moral or political grounds. What happened to PH push to accept bitcoin?
    - dmix 6y ago
      Oh no doubt. This is becoming a very scary development as services. Demonetization and deplatforming happens over increasingly harmless activity is a serious problem going forward into the future. Like all monsters that get created no one cares because it's used against the 'bad guys' so no one cares. And then it just becomes normal.
  - scoutt 6y ago
    I don't know if there are examples of regular people going after those monsters (I don't think Visa/Mastercard are even afraid of this) for this or other reasons. The thing is that any legal action can be used as political lever. As a business you don't want to be in a position where you have to give excuses or negotiate. Hypothetically, the EU or some crazy US senator can say Visa is endorsing CP (even if it's not 100% true, but is good for the senator or EU parliamentary image), that they will engage in a full investigation and there is a possibility of facing sanctions. Now Visa has to activate a PR and legal campaign that can last years. It's better to just cut off that single website from the customer list.

29athrowaway 6y ago

Protecting themselves from a legal nightmare.

gspr 6y ago
This is probably true, but I for one would like to see some kind of protection for payment processors. Not because I feel sorry for them, but because an ordinary person's day-to-day life can become massively disrupted or nearly impossible without them, and a company might be essentially punished without trial. Perhaps payment processors could be responsible only for banning customers that are on a government-maintained blacklist (where a customer would only be added after having been found guilty of a relevant crime, obviously).

scoutt 6y ago

They do it to avoid both legal and PR consequences.

dmix 6y ago
Is there any examples of people legally going after Visa or Mastercard? I have a feeling this is just PR by the many examples I've seen of them doing this recently. The legal stuff just sounds like cover.
- cft 6y ago
  But this does send shivers to the small business owners who have nothing to do with porn. The fact that they can be de-platformed by Visa on moral or political grounds. What happened to PH push to accept bitcoin?
  - dmix 6y ago
    Oh no doubt. This is becoming a very scary development as services. Demonetization and deplatforming happens over increasingly harmless activity is a serious problem going forward into the future. Like all monsters that get created no one cares because it's used against the 'bad guys' so no one cares. And then it just becomes normal.
- scoutt 6y ago
  I don't know if there are examples of regular people going after those monsters (I don't think Visa/Mastercard are even afraid of this) for this or other reasons. The thing is that any legal action can be used as political lever. As a business you don't want to be in a position where you have to give excuses or negotiate. Hypothetically, the EU or some crazy US senator can say Visa is endorsing CP (even if it's not 100% true, but is good for the senator or EU parliamentary image), that they will engage in a full investigation and there is a possibility of facing sanctions. Now Visa has to activate a PR and legal campaign that can last years. It's better to just cut off that single website from the customer list.