8 ms·

Not sure what point EFF are trying to make here. They seem to be suggesting that Visa and Mastercard should provide payment services to anyone who wants them, r

by spzb 6y ago

Not sure what point EFF are trying to make here. They seem to be suggesting that Visa and Mastercard should provide payment services to anyone who wants them, regardless of whether their activities are legal or not. The card processors didn't withdraw their services because of some puritanical dislike of porn but in response to credible accusations that Pornhub was distributing child and non-consensual porn.

redis_mlc 6y ago
But ... Every online service that lets you upload a file or send an email can be used with any kind of content. Most illegal content in the US is college students communicating with their friends. We don't censure phone makers, where most of those images are made, do we?
vfclists 6y ago
There is a lot more porn on Youtube and Facebook, but we never heard of Visa and Mastercard cutting of their credit card services to those 2 giants. Pornhub is an easy target especially for those leftist activists and extortionists who make lots of noises in the "respected" media outlets.
- spzb 6y ago
  > There is a lot more porn on Youtube and Facebook Seems unlikely. I presume you have a source for that assertion. And anyway, as I said, Visa and Mastercard acted in response to allegations of illegal content not just the fact that there was porn > leftist activists and extortionists who make lots of noises in the "respected" media outlets I think that might just be in your head.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    Facebook's own internal reviews identified more items of child abuse content that made their way onto Facebook in the last 3 years than PornHub had total items at its peak, by about 5 times. PornHub isn't under attack because of child porn, or non-consensual porn, it's under attack by people who think porn is inherently bad, and who have found that they don't need to convince people to agree with them as long as they can make it seem like their targets are particular venues for content that is uncontroversially bad, which inevitably involves distortion and ignoring mainstream venues that are much more significant channels for the problem they want to pretend to be fighting.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Youtube and Facebook get away with it because they're not primarily porn sites; they're social networking and the vast majority of users use it for normal non-porn purposes. Moreover, while they had vast quantities of porn, they're also huge sites and most of their users don't use the site for porn. PornHub is just porn. And they've been on notice for years that CP and non-consensual videos are being uploaded to their system yet don't very little to stop it. They claim that they have filters and other systems in place to stop illegal uploads, but those systems are so useless that PH claimed they had 0 illegal porn on their website, when that was demonstrably false prior to them removing all unverified user-uploaded content.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    Personally, I think it's a problem that a social networking or video sharing site that isn't a porn site has vastly more child and other non-consensual porn than slips by at the world’s largest dedicated porn network of sites. The only reason I can see for not be concerned more about the former than the latter is that the concern about CP/non-consent is feigned and the real concern is about legitimate porn, with the CP/non-consent as merely convenient pretext. Which is also consistent with those concerns becoming more shrill when the porn site takes drastic action to deal with the problem which removes the pretext.
  - buisi 6y ago
    Where did they say they have absolutely zero illegal porn?
shaftway 6y ago
I think their point is that Visa and Mastercard are acting as judge, jury, and executioner. If Pornhub is doing something illegal, there's a process for dealing with that, full of judges, juries, and.... well... executioners. Until PornHub is found guilty by that system, then Visa and Mastercard withdrew their services because of a dislike of the service provided.
- spzb 6y ago
  That’s a fair point. I presume though that there are some legal risks to Visa and MC if they were subsequently found to have been enabling illegal activity.
- wang_li 6y ago
  Card networks have the same rights to choose who they associate with as YouTube and Twitter do. The fact that both companies have chosen to not do business with a company profiting from human trafficking and pedophilia seems a lot less objectionable than YouTube demonetizing and banning people because of their political views.
- ProjectArcturis 6y ago
  If Visa and MC waited until PornHub was actually found guilty, they'd be right there next to them in the docket. Facilitating payment for illegal activities is itself a crime, and our laws require that payment processors exercise judgement in who they will work with.
  - scottisbrave84 6y ago
    No. Be careful who you are threatening as well.
  - diebeforei485 6y ago
    A reasonable course of action could have been to temporarily suspend payment processing until PornHub took appropriate corrective action (which they now have), and restoring payments afterward.
  - 6y ago
anm89 6y ago
This just isn't true. Pornhub has not been convicted of any crime. There is no legal mandate for the credit card companies to stop servicing them. They are doing this to avoid the appearance off having something to do with child porn, not due to legal liability
- spzb 6y ago
  Equally there’s no legal mandate forcing them to do business with Pornhub.
  - ulucs 6y ago
    Well, there should be
- ojnabieoot 6y ago
  > having something to do with child porn, not due to legal liability I am sorry but how are you not understanding that this is one and the same????? If it were proven in a court of law that - your associate’s business knowingly trafficked in child pornography - you had reason to believe they were complicit in child pornography - you continued working with that business anyway then that exposes you to severe criminal liability, the kind that sends you to jail even if you’re a Vice President at VISA. And it should! Child pornography is a heinous crime that goes unpunished far too often. “Gee officer, I’m just a humble MasterCard corporate lawyer, how was I supposed to know?” is a ridiculous excuse.
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    If the water/power company thinks that you are committing a heinous crime are they obligated to shut off your power and water? The same question regarding phone providers, ISPs, grocery stores etc. Payment processors are pretty near a utility at this point. Without access to them it's very hard to do a lot of things in the modern world. They certainly seem more essential than phone and internet service.
  - anm89 6y ago
    Key word knowing. I don't think they knowingly did that. It's not like 1 video gets uploaded an hour and they sit around an watch it. That's like saying we should boycott the telephone company because a child molester made a phone call. If there is evidence that they were aware of child pornography on their platform and did nothing about it that would be different .
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
solarkraft 6y ago
> regardless of whether their activities are legal or not In a way yes. Should the utility stop providing electricity because to someone they think I'd using it to manufacture illegal drugs? I don't think so. The punishment is for a court to decide, not some of their service providers.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  The incumbent payment processors are not utilities. Now, arguably, there should be a fallback payment system with utility-like requirements for universal service that can be cutoff only with due process (certainly, that's needed on the consumer side of banking to deal with the problem of the unbanked, but there's arguably good cause of it on the merchant side of financial exchange as well.) For one thing, an explicit guarantee would make it harder for government officers from using informal pressure on private payment processors as a means to punish targets while evading due process, which it has historically done quite often, with the deniability that it is a free decision.
- bootlooped 6y ago
  If you spot your neighbor through the window manufacturing methamphetamine, and you have been selling them the precursor chemicals, would you stop selling those to them, or say to yourself "punishment is for a court to decide". If a person or firm has a reasonable belief that a business partner is committing crimes or even just behaving unethically, I would say they have an obligation to curb the activity or end the business relationship. This idea that only the courts should limit or punish crimes pops up here once in a while and I've always found it bizarre. If child porn was not a crime would you be ok with Visa and MasterCard doing something then? Is it in your view that should they only not do something because it's a crime?
  - bawolff 6y ago
    > This idea that only the courts should limit or punish crimes pops up here once in a while and I've always found it bizarre. Isn't that the entire point of a court? to have a monopoly on punishing crimes so that people aren't unfairly punished on the basis of gossip or false allegation and so that society doesn't sink into a cycle of vengence where one group punishes the other group for their punishment, and so forth. That said, punishing a crime is different from refusing to do business with someone because you don't like them. I think the objection is that payment processors are an oligopoly which gives them too much power to behave arbitrarily. If you live in a city and one grocery store doesn't do business with you, that's fine go somewhere else. If there is only one grocery store, then that's akin to starving someone and it should require the evidentiary standard of wrong doing a court would have.
diebeforei485 6y ago
Their stated reasons for withdrawing payment processing services don't exist anymore (due to changes made by PornHub), so why aren't they reinstating service?
herbst 6y ago
Its not only about legal. I have like 3 nearly done projects that are waiting for a change in this sector because right now i can't charge anything. For example anything related to prositituion. Perfectly legal here and any neighboor countries. Yet the only payment processors available basically refuse to work with startups (i.e. companies that not already charge 100000+ via credit card) I may be missing something, but right now these few grandfathered sites that exist have the full monopoloy just because nobody else can realistically charge for the service.

by spzb 6y ago

redis_mlc 6y ago

But ... Every online service that lets you upload a file or send an email can be used with any kind of content. Most illegal content in the US is college students communicating with their friends. We don't censure phone makers, where most of those images are made, do we?

vfclists 6y ago

There is a lot more porn on Youtube and Facebook, but we never heard of Visa and Mastercard cutting of their credit card services to those 2 giants. Pornhub is an easy target especially for those leftist activists and extortionists who make lots of noises in the "respected" media outlets.

spzb 6y ago
> There is a lot more porn on Youtube and Facebook Seems unlikely. I presume you have a source for that assertion. And anyway, as I said, Visa and Mastercard acted in response to allegations of illegal content not just the fact that there was porn > leftist activists and extortionists who make lots of noises in the "respected" media outlets I think that might just be in your head.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Facebook's own internal reviews identified more items of child abuse content that made their way onto Facebook in the last 3 years than PornHub had total items at its peak, by about 5 times. PornHub isn't under attack because of child porn, or non-consensual porn, it's under attack by people who think porn is inherently bad, and who have found that they don't need to convince people to agree with them as long as they can make it seem like their targets are particular venues for content that is uncontroversially bad, which inevitably involves distortion and ignoring mainstream venues that are much more significant channels for the problem they want to pretend to be fighting.
gamblor956 6y ago
Youtube and Facebook get away with it because they're not primarily porn sites; they're social networking and the vast majority of users use it for normal non-porn purposes. Moreover, while they had vast quantities of porn, they're also huge sites and most of their users don't use the site for porn. PornHub is just porn. And they've been on notice for years that CP and non-consensual videos are being uploaded to their system yet don't very little to stop it. They claim that they have filters and other systems in place to stop illegal uploads, but those systems are so useless that PH claimed they had 0 illegal porn on their website, when that was demonstrably false prior to them removing all unverified user-uploaded content.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Personally, I think it's a problem that a social networking or video sharing site that isn't a porn site has vastly more child and other non-consensual porn than slips by at the world’s largest dedicated porn network of sites. The only reason I can see for not be concerned more about the former than the latter is that the concern about CP/non-consent is feigned and the real concern is about legitimate porn, with the CP/non-consent as merely convenient pretext. Which is also consistent with those concerns becoming more shrill when the porn site takes drastic action to deal with the problem which removes the pretext.
- buisi 6y ago
  Where did they say they have absolutely zero illegal porn?

shaftway 6y ago

I think their point is that Visa and Mastercard are acting as judge, jury, and executioner. If Pornhub is doing something illegal, there's a process for dealing with that, full of judges, juries, and.... well... executioners. Until PornHub is found guilty by that system, then Visa and Mastercard withdrew their services because of a dislike of the service provided.

spzb 6y ago
That’s a fair point. I presume though that there are some legal risks to Visa and MC if they were subsequently found to have been enabling illegal activity.
wang_li 6y ago
Card networks have the same rights to choose who they associate with as YouTube and Twitter do. The fact that both companies have chosen to not do business with a company profiting from human trafficking and pedophilia seems a lot less objectionable than YouTube demonetizing and banning people because of their political views.
ProjectArcturis 6y ago
If Visa and MC waited until PornHub was actually found guilty, they'd be right there next to them in the docket. Facilitating payment for illegal activities is itself a crime, and our laws require that payment processors exercise judgement in who they will work with.
- scottisbrave84 6y ago
  No. Be careful who you are threatening as well.
- diebeforei485 6y ago
  A reasonable course of action could have been to temporarily suspend payment processing until PornHub took appropriate corrective action (which they now have), and restoring payments afterward.
- 6y ago

anm89 6y ago

This just isn't true. Pornhub has not been convicted of any crime. There is no legal mandate for the credit card companies to stop servicing them. They are doing this to avoid the appearance off having something to do with child porn, not due to legal liability

spzb 6y ago
Equally there’s no legal mandate forcing them to do business with Pornhub.
- ulucs 6y ago
  Well, there should be
ojnabieoot 6y ago
> having something to do with child porn, not due to legal liability I am sorry but how are you not understanding that this is one and the same????? If it were proven in a court of law that - your associate’s business knowingly trafficked in child pornography - you had reason to believe they were complicit in child pornography - you continued working with that business anyway then that exposes you to severe criminal liability, the kind that sends you to jail even if you’re a Vice President at VISA. And it should! Child pornography is a heinous crime that goes unpunished far too often. “Gee officer, I’m just a humble MasterCard corporate lawyer, how was I supposed to know?” is a ridiculous excuse.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  If the water/power company thinks that you are committing a heinous crime are they obligated to shut off your power and water? The same question regarding phone providers, ISPs, grocery stores etc. Payment processors are pretty near a utility at this point. Without access to them it's very hard to do a lot of things in the modern world. They certainly seem more essential than phone and internet service.
- anm89 6y ago
  Key word knowing. I don't think they knowingly did that. It's not like 1 video gets uploaded an hour and they sit around an watch it. That's like saying we should boycott the telephone company because a child molester made a phone call. If there is evidence that they were aware of child pornography on their platform and did nothing about it that would be different .

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

solarkraft 6y ago

> regardless of whether their activities are legal or not In a way yes. Should the utility stop providing electricity because to someone they think I'd using it to manufacture illegal drugs? I don't think so. The punishment is for a court to decide, not some of their service providers.

dragonwriter 6y ago
The incumbent payment processors are not utilities. Now, arguably, there should be a fallback payment system with utility-like requirements for universal service that can be cutoff only with due process (certainly, that's needed on the consumer side of banking to deal with the problem of the unbanked, but there's arguably good cause of it on the merchant side of financial exchange as well.) For one thing, an explicit guarantee would make it harder for government officers from using informal pressure on private payment processors as a means to punish targets while evading due process, which it has historically done quite often, with the deniability that it is a free decision.
bootlooped 6y ago
If you spot your neighbor through the window manufacturing methamphetamine, and you have been selling them the precursor chemicals, would you stop selling those to them, or say to yourself "punishment is for a court to decide". If a person or firm has a reasonable belief that a business partner is committing crimes or even just behaving unethically, I would say they have an obligation to curb the activity or end the business relationship. This idea that only the courts should limit or punish crimes pops up here once in a while and I've always found it bizarre. If child porn was not a crime would you be ok with Visa and MasterCard doing something then? Is it in your view that should they only not do something because it's a crime?
- bawolff 6y ago
  > This idea that only the courts should limit or punish crimes pops up here once in a while and I've always found it bizarre. Isn't that the entire point of a court? to have a monopoly on punishing crimes so that people aren't unfairly punished on the basis of gossip or false allegation and so that society doesn't sink into a cycle of vengence where one group punishes the other group for their punishment, and so forth. That said, punishing a crime is different from refusing to do business with someone because you don't like them. I think the objection is that payment processors are an oligopoly which gives them too much power to behave arbitrarily. If you live in a city and one grocery store doesn't do business with you, that's fine go somewhere else. If there is only one grocery store, then that's akin to starving someone and it should require the evidentiary standard of wrong doing a court would have.

diebeforei485 6y ago

Their stated reasons for withdrawing payment processing services don't exist anymore (due to changes made by PornHub), so why aren't they reinstating service?

herbst 6y ago

Its not only about legal. I have like 3 nearly done projects that are waiting for a change in this sector because right now i can't charge anything. For example anything related to prositituion. Perfectly legal here and any neighboor countries. Yet the only payment processors available basically refuse to work with startups (i.e. companies that not already charge 100000+ via credit card) I may be missing something, but right now these few grandfathered sites that exist have the full monopoloy just because nobody else can realistically charge for the service.