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For those confused by the title, here's what's going on ... Mastercard/Visa are required by law to not knowingly allow the purchase of illegal goods/services (

For those confused by the title, here's what's going on ... Mastercard/Visa are required by law to not knowingly allow the purchase of illegal goods/services (they can't facilitate the payment of illegal activites). As such, they require such websites (merchants) to prove that individuals in such videos are of legal age (no minors in the videos, because if so - that's illegal and horrible). This seems totally fair, commendable and hard to disagree with - if you ask me.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pastacacioepepe 4y ago
Identity and age verification is a very important tool against revenge porn and exploitation so I personally welcome it, whoever pushes for it.
- hbn 4y ago
  How would this stop that? This would only stop the sale of known revenge porn. I don't think most of it makes it way on the internet through sale. It gets posted anonymously on porn sites. Revenge porn is already illegal. If someone were to sell it, the problem with that scenario is not that those people were able to exchange currency, and I don't like the idea of setting up more barriers on the ability to give someone money.
  - pastacacioepepe 4y ago
    > I don't think most of it makes it way on the internet through sale. It gets posted anonymously on porn sites. Yes, and as far as I know you can't do that on websites like OF or PH, due to them requiring you to verify the identity of everyone involved in the video. Thus, it's impossible now to upload content without the consent of everyone involved, at least on those 2 (major) websites.
    - hbn 4y ago
      > at least on those 2 (major) websites So... you didn't stop it. You only stopped it on a couple websites by making all content creators to provide identity verification The only way to actually stop it is completely remove anonymity from the internet. Which is a nightmare scenario for many reasons. But it seems to be the current direction we're going.
      - pastacacioepepe 4y ago
        Revenge porn and exploitation are already a nightmare scenario. Only maybe it doesn't involve you, so you don't think it's a problem?
        hbn 4y ago
        I never said it wasn't a problem. But destroying the internet by ending all concepts of privacy and anonymity isn't a solution though. It's what every government wants, and they'll give you whatever sob story is necessary to trick people into thinking it's for their own good. It's not.
LudwigNagasena 4y ago
Uhm, if a company directly engages in illegal activities it should be shut down by the government. The idea that it should be simply cut off from payment networks makes no sense. I don’t see that as fair.
- ehhthing 4y ago
  But that's not the point is it? The point is that Mastercard and Visa are facilitating the transfer of money for illegal transactions. In the same way you can't start a bank to facilitate money laundering, Mastercard and Visa cannot knowingly facilitate the transfer of money for illegal goods.
  - danenania 4y ago
    The problem is they are going beyond what’s illegal and cutting off usage/content they just don’t like for whatever reason—see the vampire porn example in another comment, wikileaks, etc. Do we want unaccountable monopolies making decisions about who can access the financial system and who can’t based on their own subjective values?
    - ehhthing 4y ago
      I mean there are certainly alternatives to Visa and Mastercard. Credit cards aren't the only way to pay for goods and services. PayPal and Crypto being the most common. For personal transfers there's also Wise (which you can do person-to-person instantly), and if you live in some countries there's stuff like Interac E-Transfer for making personal payments. If worse comes to worse there's bank transfers and ACH, which are accessible from virtually any bank. I see Visa and Mastercard like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and they seem to have the right to refuse service to anyone they want to.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Yet they do https://news.bitcoin.com/5-major-banks-exposed-for-moving-trillions-for-mobsters-onecoin-and-drug-cartels/ https://news.bitcoin.com/5-major-banks-exposed-for-moving-tr...
xyst 4y ago
This is fine. But they also use their weight to punish sex workers. There was a case recently that forced PH to delete a shit ton of content. Some of it was not even porn (just random gaming videos). No due process. Just visa/mc threatening to no longer process their transactions
- jdmichal 4y ago
  I'm confused... Where does due process come into play in a contractual relationship between two companies? It's applicable to governmental entities in criminal law. Contract disputes both do not involve the government outside of a request by the parties for litigation, and are civil and not criminal law.
  - skeaker 4y ago
    Because the credit companies are acting under the guise of the law. "I don't want to end business with you, but the law compels me to do this!" If you haven't broken the law, there's no way to appeal this decision they've made as they do not have a route for that. That aside, the ability to pay a service is pretty much fundamental to its existence. Being able to at-will terminate any company you want, even ones that are provably innocent, with no way for them to so much as appeal against your decision is a worrying amount of power for a company to hold. I don't think that even the government can do something like that (at least not legally).
    - jdmichal 4y ago
      The law tells them who they can do business with, and they comply. That's not really a guise, unless me driving the speed limit is also a guise... If there's any challenge here, it's that such law restricts card networks' freedom of association. Which the US only has as an extension to freedom of speech... So I'm not sure that challenge would work, when the entire point is that certain forms of speech are what's being limited.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
vorpalhex 4y ago
Mastercard and Visa are not a court system. There is no due process. There is no appeals process.
- ehhthing 4y ago
  What, exactly is the alternative? The system might not be perfect or even good, but as far as I can see there is no alternative to this kind of issue. Even if there were a million different credit card companies (and god help us if that ever happens), they would still be bound by the same requirements.
  - danenania 4y ago
    The alternative would be that payment processors don’t deny anyone unless a government regulator tells them to, and then it’s the regulator’s responsibility to draw the line. It certainly wouldn’t be perfect either, but at least there would be some measure of legislative/electoral accountability.
    - jandrese 4y ago
      This of course runs into the problem that the government doesn't have a regulator for the Internet. The FCC could maybe be pressed into the role, but it's not entirely clear what mandate they could have over what is effectively a giant privately held network. The government doesn't run the root nodes nor any of the nodes between you and the porn. They do run large networks, but those are merely attached to the internet, not integral to it. There is the other issue that people are rightfully concerned about the creation of morality police, as they have a long and sordid history of suppressing minority communities for reasons that aren't in the public good. Everyone agrees that child porn videos should be banned/prosecuted, but after that it gets down to where to draw the line and that's an endless source of conflict. Some people will claim that homosexual content is just as damaging as child exploitation while others will say that banning homosexual content is damaging to the community. They will not find a working compromise.
      - 4y ago
SilverBirch 4y ago
It's also worth pointing out that it was only after a peice in the NYT that Visa/Mastercard really actually paid attention to the fact that Pornhub really was only paying lipservice to these laws. It's not like Visa have been going around on some moral crusade, they were brought to this through bad press after close to a decade of not really doing their job.
CaliforniaKarl 4y ago
> As such, they require such websites (merchants) to prove that individuals in such videos are of legal age (no minors in the videos, because if so - that's illegal and horrible). > > This seems totally fair, commendable and hard to disagree with - if you ask me. Indeed! Though it's important to note that it's more than just that (as important as age verification of performers is!). Mastercard and Visa are also acting as de facto controllers of what is acceptable content. In other words, not just who is participating, but what is being done. For example, "… blood is banned, even blood obviously made of ketchup. This is a disaster for vampire porn, which is akin to a forbidden good on the internet." That's not my thing, but I also don't think Mastercard and Visa should be the ones who regulate that.
- duskwuff 4y ago
  Yep. The problem is that the credit card issuers' regulations go way beyond determining that the content being purchased is legal, and well into judging the morality of that content. Credit card processors go even further; many of them forbid sales of adult products and services entirely.
  - quest88 4y ago
    I don't believe that. These companies want to make money and would love to make more. They also don't want to lose money, so they find ways to decrease risk. Their lawyers probably tell them what's risky and draw the line there. If you don't want them making these judgements then voters should tell their regulator exactly what is and isn't ok.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      > then voters should tell their regulator exactly what is and isn't ok. like what, a list of allowed porn Ganres? thats not making any sence.
      - quest88 4y ago
        And neither does regulation preventing purchasing porn either. But be explicit about what’s ok and what’s not if you’re going to regulate it. Otherwise companies decide for themselves and we end up here.
jshen 4y ago
this is not fair because they don't do this consistently in other industries.
polote 4y ago
Visa and mastercard can do anything they want as long as they want to do it. They just don't want to deal with porn by choice
- quest88 4y ago
  Really? You think a company that likes money says "You know what, we don't need to make any more.". Given that they like money, they're probably afraid of losing money from lawsuits due to breaking regulation.
  - NineStarPoint 4y ago
    Plenty of other reasons they might decide not to deal with it besides regulation, such as the large chargeback issue the industry has or pressure from fundamentalist groups that hate pornography on principle. It also isn’t actually that uncommon for companies to make decisions for moral reasons, for all that we talk of corporations as money-hungry husks they are ultimately made up of people and have their own internal culture. Traditionally they’d eventually be outcompeted by a company who doesn’t have an issue with the action, but given the stranglehold Visa/MasterCard have on the industry that seems unlikely in this case.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    a comoany doesn't have a brain, people do. And people have personal agendas.
Barrin92 4y ago
that is literally not what's going on given the content of the article. As the article points out the self imposed regulations do not only concern minors or illegal content, but an entire plethora of sexual content. From furries, to 'vampire porn', to depiction of aliens, any mention of blood (a livecammer giving the example of not even being able to mention the word 'period') and so on. The topic is not mastercard/visa indirectly enforcing the law, it's a private institution pushing their own sexual morality on others, by virtue of controlling the payments industry.
jdasdf 4y ago
It's not their business.
M2Ys4U 4y ago
When payment processors are literally dictating what colour of sex toy a merchant is allowed to sell, don't you think that crosses the line?
CivBase 4y ago
> Mastercard/Visa are required by law to not knowingly allow the purchase of illegal goods/services (they can't facilitate the payment of illegal activites). > This seems totally fair, commendable and hard to disagree with - if you ask me. This goes a few steps further than that, which is what makes it scary. Pornhub's customers pay subscriptions which enable access to exclusive content. The illegal content in question was user-posted and made available for free without a subscription. So Mastercard and Visa were not "knowingly allowing the purchase of illegal goods/services." Instead, they took action against one of their customers because that customer was unintentionally guilty of unrelated illegal activty. That sets a pretty scary precedent IMO and demonstrates the frightening power of modern payment processors.
pnt12 4y ago
That's not what the article says. The article criticizes that they block things even when they're legal. What's even the point of this? If I take money from someone, should I do a background check on them, in case the money was stolen? No, if it was stolen, the victim should report it and the authorities should handle it. Then, if a porn website is reported to have some illegal content, shouldn't it also be the authorities dealing with it?
Mindwipe 4y ago
> For those confused by the title, here's what's going on ... Didn't read the article huh? That's very much not what it outlines.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pastacacioepepe 4y ago

Identity and age verification is a very important tool against revenge porn and exploitation so I personally welcome it, whoever pushes for it.

hbn 4y ago
How would this stop that? This would only stop the sale of known revenge porn. I don't think most of it makes it way on the internet through sale. It gets posted anonymously on porn sites. Revenge porn is already illegal. If someone were to sell it, the problem with that scenario is not that those people were able to exchange currency, and I don't like the idea of setting up more barriers on the ability to give someone money.
- pastacacioepepe 4y ago
  > I don't think most of it makes it way on the internet through sale. It gets posted anonymously on porn sites. Yes, and as far as I know you can't do that on websites like OF or PH, due to them requiring you to verify the identity of everyone involved in the video. Thus, it's impossible now to upload content without the consent of everyone involved, at least on those 2 (major) websites.
  - hbn 4y ago
    > at least on those 2 (major) websites So... you didn't stop it. You only stopped it on a couple websites by making all content creators to provide identity verification The only way to actually stop it is completely remove anonymity from the internet. Which is a nightmare scenario for many reasons. But it seems to be the current direction we're going.
    - pastacacioepepe 4y ago
      Revenge porn and exploitation are already a nightmare scenario. Only maybe it doesn't involve you, so you don't think it's a problem?
      - hbn 4y ago
        I never said it wasn't a problem. But destroying the internet by ending all concepts of privacy and anonymity isn't a solution though. It's what every government wants, and they'll give you whatever sob story is necessary to trick people into thinking it's for their own good. It's not.

LudwigNagasena 4y ago

Uhm, if a company directly engages in illegal activities it should be shut down by the government. The idea that it should be simply cut off from payment networks makes no sense. I don’t see that as fair.

ehhthing 4y ago
But that's not the point is it? The point is that Mastercard and Visa are facilitating the transfer of money for illegal transactions. In the same way you can't start a bank to facilitate money laundering, Mastercard and Visa cannot knowingly facilitate the transfer of money for illegal goods.
- danenania 4y ago
  The problem is they are going beyond what’s illegal and cutting off usage/content they just don’t like for whatever reason—see the vampire porn example in another comment, wikileaks, etc. Do we want unaccountable monopolies making decisions about who can access the financial system and who can’t based on their own subjective values?
  - ehhthing 4y ago
    I mean there are certainly alternatives to Visa and Mastercard. Credit cards aren't the only way to pay for goods and services. PayPal and Crypto being the most common. For personal transfers there's also Wise (which you can do person-to-person instantly), and if you live in some countries there's stuff like Interac E-Transfer for making personal payments. If worse comes to worse there's bank transfers and ACH, which are accessible from virtually any bank. I see Visa and Mastercard like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and they seem to have the right to refuse service to anyone they want to.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Yet they do https://news.bitcoin.com/5-major-banks-exposed-for-moving-trillions-for-mobsters-onecoin-and-drug-cartels/ https://news.bitcoin.com/5-major-banks-exposed-for-moving-tr...

xyst 4y ago

This is fine. But they also use their weight to punish sex workers. There was a case recently that forced PH to delete a shit ton of content. Some of it was not even porn (just random gaming videos). No due process. Just visa/mc threatening to no longer process their transactions

jdmichal 4y ago
I'm confused... Where does due process come into play in a contractual relationship between two companies? It's applicable to governmental entities in criminal law. Contract disputes both do not involve the government outside of a request by the parties for litigation, and are civil and not criminal law.
- skeaker 4y ago
  Because the credit companies are acting under the guise of the law. "I don't want to end business with you, but the law compels me to do this!" If you haven't broken the law, there's no way to appeal this decision they've made as they do not have a route for that. That aside, the ability to pay a service is pretty much fundamental to its existence. Being able to at-will terminate any company you want, even ones that are provably innocent, with no way for them to so much as appeal against your decision is a worrying amount of power for a company to hold. I don't think that even the government can do something like that (at least not legally).
  - jdmichal 4y ago
    The law tells them who they can do business with, and they comply. That's not really a guise, unless me driving the speed limit is also a guise... If there's any challenge here, it's that such law restricts card networks' freedom of association. Which the US only has as an extension to freedom of speech... So I'm not sure that challenge would work, when the entire point is that certain forms of speech are what's being limited.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago

vorpalhex 4y ago

Mastercard and Visa are not a court system. There is no due process. There is no appeals process.

ehhthing 4y ago
What, exactly is the alternative? The system might not be perfect or even good, but as far as I can see there is no alternative to this kind of issue. Even if there were a million different credit card companies (and god help us if that ever happens), they would still be bound by the same requirements.
- danenania 4y ago
  The alternative would be that payment processors don’t deny anyone unless a government regulator tells them to, and then it’s the regulator’s responsibility to draw the line. It certainly wouldn’t be perfect either, but at least there would be some measure of legislative/electoral accountability.
  - jandrese 4y ago
    This of course runs into the problem that the government doesn't have a regulator for the Internet. The FCC could maybe be pressed into the role, but it's not entirely clear what mandate they could have over what is effectively a giant privately held network. The government doesn't run the root nodes nor any of the nodes between you and the porn. They do run large networks, but those are merely attached to the internet, not integral to it. There is the other issue that people are rightfully concerned about the creation of morality police, as they have a long and sordid history of suppressing minority communities for reasons that aren't in the public good. Everyone agrees that child porn videos should be banned/prosecuted, but after that it gets down to where to draw the line and that's an endless source of conflict. Some people will claim that homosexual content is just as damaging as child exploitation while others will say that banning homosexual content is damaging to the community. They will not find a working compromise.
    - 4y ago

SilverBirch 4y ago

It's also worth pointing out that it was only after a peice in the NYT that Visa/Mastercard really actually paid attention to the fact that Pornhub really was only paying lipservice to these laws. It's not like Visa have been going around on some moral crusade, they were brought to this through bad press after close to a decade of not really doing their job.

CaliforniaKarl 4y ago

> As such, they require such websites (merchants) to prove that individuals in such videos are of legal age (no minors in the videos, because if so - that's illegal and horrible). > > This seems totally fair, commendable and hard to disagree with - if you ask me. Indeed! Though it's important to note that it's more than just that (as important as age verification of performers is!). Mastercard and Visa are also acting as de facto controllers of what is acceptable content. In other words, not just who is participating, but what is being done. For example, "… blood is banned, even blood obviously made of ketchup. This is a disaster for vampire porn, which is akin to a forbidden good on the internet." That's not my thing, but I also don't think Mastercard and Visa should be the ones who regulate that.

duskwuff 4y ago
Yep. The problem is that the credit card issuers' regulations go way beyond determining that the content being purchased is legal, and well into judging the morality of that content. Credit card processors go even further; many of them forbid sales of adult products and services entirely.
- quest88 4y ago
  I don't believe that. These companies want to make money and would love to make more. They also don't want to lose money, so they find ways to decrease risk. Their lawyers probably tell them what's risky and draw the line there. If you don't want them making these judgements then voters should tell their regulator exactly what is and isn't ok.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > then voters should tell their regulator exactly what is and isn't ok. like what, a list of allowed porn Ganres? thats not making any sence.
    - quest88 4y ago
      And neither does regulation preventing purchasing porn either. But be explicit about what’s ok and what’s not if you’re going to regulate it. Otherwise companies decide for themselves and we end up here.

jshen 4y ago

this is not fair because they don't do this consistently in other industries.

polote 4y ago

Visa and mastercard can do anything they want as long as they want to do it. They just don't want to deal with porn by choice

quest88 4y ago
Really? You think a company that likes money says "You know what, we don't need to make any more.". Given that they like money, they're probably afraid of losing money from lawsuits due to breaking regulation.
- NineStarPoint 4y ago
  Plenty of other reasons they might decide not to deal with it besides regulation, such as the large chargeback issue the industry has or pressure from fundamentalist groups that hate pornography on principle. It also isn’t actually that uncommon for companies to make decisions for moral reasons, for all that we talk of corporations as money-hungry husks they are ultimately made up of people and have their own internal culture. Traditionally they’d eventually be outcompeted by a company who doesn’t have an issue with the action, but given the stranglehold Visa/MasterCard have on the industry that seems unlikely in this case.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  a comoany doesn't have a brain, people do. And people have personal agendas.

Barrin92 4y ago

that is literally not what's going on given the content of the article. As the article points out the self imposed regulations do not only concern minors or illegal content, but an entire plethora of sexual content. From furries, to 'vampire porn', to depiction of aliens, any mention of blood (a livecammer giving the example of not even being able to mention the word 'period') and so on. The topic is not mastercard/visa indirectly enforcing the law, it's a private institution pushing their own sexual morality on others, by virtue of controlling the payments industry.

jdasdf 4y ago

It's not their business.

M2Ys4U 4y ago

When payment processors are literally dictating what colour of sex toy a merchant is allowed to sell, don't you think that crosses the line?

CivBase 4y ago

> Mastercard/Visa are required by law to not knowingly allow the purchase of illegal goods/services (they can't facilitate the payment of illegal activites). > This seems totally fair, commendable and hard to disagree with - if you ask me. This goes a few steps further than that, which is what makes it scary. Pornhub's customers pay subscriptions which enable access to exclusive content. The illegal content in question was user-posted and made available for free without a subscription. So Mastercard and Visa were not "knowingly allowing the purchase of illegal goods/services." Instead, they took action against one of their customers because that customer was unintentionally guilty of unrelated illegal activty. That sets a pretty scary precedent IMO and demonstrates the frightening power of modern payment processors.

pnt12 4y ago

That's not what the article says. The article criticizes that they block things even when they're legal. What's even the point of this? If I take money from someone, should I do a background check on them, in case the money was stolen? No, if it was stolen, the victim should report it and the authorities should handle it. Then, if a porn website is reported to have some illegal content, shouldn't it also be the authorities dealing with it?

Mindwipe 4y ago

> For those confused by the title, here's what's going on ... Didn't read the article huh? That's very much not what it outlines.