MasterCard, VISA To Stop Processing Payments On Pornhub (reuters.com) 114
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Mastercard Inc said on Thursday it was ending the use of its cards on Pornhub after its investigation confirmed the presence of unlawful content on the sex videos site. 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. The newspaper column had also described some videos on the site as recordings of assaults on unconscious women and girls. Pornhub has denied the allegations. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman asked Visa Inc to follow suit. UPDATE: Following Mastercard's termination, an official Visa account tweeted: "Given the allegations of illegal activity, Visa is suspending Pornhub's acceptance privileges pending the completion of our ongoing investigation. We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network."
"These actions are exceptionally disappointing, as they come just two days after Pornhub instituted the most far-reaching safeguards in user-generated platform history," Pornhub said in a statement. "Unverified users are now banned from uploading content -- a policy no other platform has put in place, including Facebook, which reported 84 million instances of child sexual abuse material over the last three years. In comparison, the Internet Watch Foundation reported 118 incidents on Pornhub over the last three years. This news is crushing for the hundreds of thousands of models who rely on our platform for their livelihoods."
"These actions are exceptionally disappointing, as they come just two days after Pornhub instituted the most far-reaching safeguards in user-generated platform history," Pornhub said in a statement. "Unverified users are now banned from uploading content -- a policy no other platform has put in place, including Facebook, which reported 84 million instances of child sexual abuse material over the last three years. In comparison, the Internet Watch Foundation reported 118 incidents on Pornhub over the last three years. This news is crushing for the hundreds of thousands of models who rely on our platform for their livelihoods."
For research purposes? (Score:2)
"Hey Bob, please turn off the porn filters. You know for research purposes?"
Re:For research purposes? (Score:4, Funny)
"Hey Bob, please turn off the porn filters. You know for research purposes?"
I actually had to do that at a Fortune 500 company. Imagine the layers of approval necessary for that. It was a lot.
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Oh, for fuck's sake!
No doubt.... (Score:1)
Lol (Score:2)
news is crushing for the hundreds of thousands of models who rely on our platform for their livelihoods."
I'm pretty sure anyone who actually wants to make money exposing themselves online can pretty easily move to OnlyFans. Assuming they aren't there already.
Re: Lol (Score:3, Insightful)
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Thing is, the ones that are there are quickly finding out that there is a LOT of competition, the stakes are way higher, people are wanting more product for the price, and due to the sheer volume of users that they aren't making anywhere near the money that they thought they were going to make.
OnlyFans "creators" have now resorted to spamming reddit like crazy, and setting up fake profiles on legit dating sites (like POF, Tinder, Match, Okcupid) to try to lure in followers. It's complete garbage. They're ev
Obvious followup (Score:5, Insightful)
Y'all wonder why Bitcoin is increasing in value, when within years many businesses will be squeezed out of traditional payment markets altogether ....
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So... you're arguing... that Visa and MasterCard are "squeezing [Pornhub] out of traditional payment markets" because they decided to not just take their word for it when they say they've totally stopped selling child pornography? That it's actually bad for a payment processor to decide that it doesn't want to be complicit in child abuse? That Bitcoin is superior because it allows selling child abuse videos?
Re:Obvious followup (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Obvious followup (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Obvious followup (Score:2)
If they say they are reviewing the situation, it is a threat to cut off payment processing. I doubt the money laundering kings at pornhub are so daft.
Curious why you promote access to child porn... (Score:2)
they decided to not just take their word for it when they say they've totally stopped selling child pornography?
They decided to do so before anything was proven in court, and also just after PornHub took further measures to try and prevent such content from getting into their system.
Since even a porn site trying to be legal will not be able to use Visa, what this means of course is that more and more porn sites that actually host child porn will thrive, as more people get used to paying for things using s
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Re:Obvious followup (Score:5, Informative)
Gab.ai lost the ability to process card payments, and then MC and Visa found out the founder's wife also had a business unrelated to Gab but cut her off as well. There's no reason these companies - who are absolutely an oligopoly - should be allowed to decide who gets to process card payments. And, no, Gab doesn't allow anything that isn't allowed on Twitter (at least not with the races reversed).
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At least nothing of value was lost in their case.
Really? According to who? Torba's wife lost her business, so even if you find Gab worthless (and it's not more worthless than Twitter) there's no reason to punish her. We shouldn't have companies that have that kind of power.
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Y'all wonder why Bitcoin is increasing in value
The only thing we wonder is why you think Bitcoin's value is at all remotely tied to an event that occurred after the value spiked. Bitcoin's value has had precisely zero to do with anything Mastercard or Visa has done since it's inception.
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The Children of Pornhub (Score:3, Informative)
blah blah blah (Score:5, Interesting)
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They're not just the easiest target because of their size, they're the most consequential target. Pornhub is, by far, the largest player in the industry. Making this about them rather than about "the industry" as a diluted whole puts more pressure on them to do something about it, and that would positively affect the largest number of people. Especially considering that they try to come across as being so comparatively wholesome in their brand image, they'd probably be more eager than most to turn this into
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Because they know if they're rich enough or connected enough they'll get away with it.
WIKI: "Mr Justice Butterfield sentenced [Gary] Glitter to four months in prison and placed him on the sex offender register in the UK after he admitted downloading more than 4,000 items of child pornography."
Well Fuck (Score:2)
Thanks a lot, jerks. You just killed PornHub!
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Not really. It's worked for years without anyone paying anything.
That's the beauty of porn; it's plentiful and all free!
I never even knew they had a payment option until this story was posted.
A stunning and brave move (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically this puts MC in the same situation as a lot of other online platforms that try to straddle the:
"we're not responsible for our user's content, until we are; and we take it down" line.
How about granting all platforms (be it payment processors or message forums) complete immunity from whatever their users do, provided they aid law enforcement with investigations (CP, actual violent crime, etc.). However! once they start censoring or de-platforming, they then can be liable (this sounds familiar...)
But what we're low-key creating here is a mechanism by which people with unpopular, or unapproved viewpoints can be locked out of society. It starts with the undesirables of course; and you might cheer for it, but at some point you might just find yourself the victim of the next online purge. Freedom of speech and expression should be more valuable than 'owning' people you disagree with.
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Again, Bitcoin's primary use is to enable illegal activity.
Sometimes that's just, sometimes it isn't.
Using it to pay for content from someone who deliberately avoids filtering out revenge porn and CP isn't just. It's being an enabler.
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Oh look, now people are trying to argue that MasterCard and Visa are "common carriers." Ones that publish nothing, but somehow become liable for what their users receive when sending a payment b
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Bull. Amex, Discover, ACH, Paypal, Bitcoin for God's sake.
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Now justify forcing Visa and Mastercard to take all comers after admitting that there are
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"They're popular so they have to let me use them." No. No they don't.
Actually.... that is pretty
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He says to the multi-state-licensed attrorney.
Monopoly does not equal popular. The term monopoly does not apply
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He says to the multi-state-licensed attrorney.
Being an attorney means nothing, in regards to whether you understand what a de facto monopoly is. That isn't to say you may not be knowledgeable about other things, but you keep missing the meaning here. Please, go look it up.
Monopoly does not equal popular. The term monopoly does not apply when you're talking about a vertical relationship (business provider to business client) with readily available alternatives. But let's play your game. What's Mastercard's market share? What's Visa's? But they both hold a monopoly? Now what about all those others that I mentioned.
First, again, de facto monopoly does mean popular. It just means popular to the point where it's so difficult for other companies to compete they may as well not try. As for market share, that would depend on how you want to measure market share. Visa is around 50% of sales by dollar
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Yes, the antitrust cases taught me nothing.
I'll tell you what, why don't you provide some authority for your claims. Prove your case, don't expect me to research things that don't exist to do so.
Citation needed.
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So, good day to you.
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At this point I understand you exactly, and understand that you're suffering from a severe case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Prove your case with links to authorities or slink away.
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You don't become "essential" simply because others independently adopt the same policy.
Bingo. But rather than work on the exploitation problem, some are demanding that payment processor
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Good luck winning it given the reasons why they're doing it and conservatives' stances towards sex work in general.
The partisan angle would be easy enough to spin, there are plenty of skinheads and such who have also been banned by payment providers. Lots of sympathetic figureheads.
So your criticisms are that the ability to accept money isn't "essential," and there have been some other laws related to sex work which you imply are related to exploitation. Let me address the second thing first: nuh-uh. The legislation that they're talking about is most likely SESTA-FOSTA, which manipulated public confusion over the ter
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"we're not responsible for our user's content, until we are; and we take it down" line.
This is no different than a company pulling its ads from the Fox tabloid when one of the talking heads goes on a rant how women are the evil of the world and that rape isn't a big deal. Once the misogynist is fired, they'll put their ads back. They just don't want to be seen supporting the misogynist.
Freedom of speech and expression should be more valuable than 'owning' people you disagree with.
Stop with this crap. No
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Why are MC/VISA used to purchase election recounts when there's small print stating 50-75% is going for a completely different purpose?
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There's a big difference between taking someone's content down and deciding to not being the conduit to profit from it. Financial institutions decide not to, or are legally compelled to not do business with specific individuals, businesses, or industries all the time, and they have since like forever.
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It really is a slippery slope (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone who thinks that allowing Visa and MC to effectively privatize the question of who gets to engage in lawful but awful commerce should read about how far Visa has gone after Gab and its founder [gab.com]. They have:
1. Blacklisted Gab so that no one who processes money through Visa can do business with them; ostensibly this means even PayPal couldn't change their mind and reinstate them.
2. Blacklisted Andrew Torba and even his wife by virtue of her living at his home address!
3. They allegedly have an employee who
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How is PornHub to know if any complaint is a legitimate complaint if it is not legal? Why should all women get the right to send frivolous DMCA style take-down notices and not RIAA/MPAA?
PornHub receives thousands of hours worth of videos on its website. It must be receiving thousands of mails daily from random people claiming they should take down some video because they don't like it. They can't watch all the videos and waiting for a legal notice is the right thing. What is this obsession of providing extr
It's not that hard (Score:3)
They have reporting tools on their site. A human reviews it and makes a judgment call. They have had numerous cases of women reporting that a video of them showed rape, they were underage, etc. This is how the system is legally supposed to work now and actually works with these sites right now.
Because there is a legal obligati
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If it is against the US law then I would prefer hearing about it from actual police not woke police.
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Also from that Gab post:
The Communist revolutionaries taking over the United States are coming for us all.
Andrew Torba is a bat fuck insane piece of human garbage who built and runs a platform designed to facilitate hate speech. He should be thankful that getting blacklisted by Visa is the worst thing that's happened in his privileged piece of shit life. Fuck him, fuck his wife, fuck Gab and every one of its mouth-breathing denizens, and fuck you for having the gall to use his whiny entitled bullshit as an argument about corporate power.
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NO one trusts the legal system to be tough enough. No one, no matter their politics, thinks any case they wanted tried will be dealt with harshly enough for their liking.
And it is probably not even illegal. FB probably has 10 times the cp uploaded onto their platform, for good or ill section 203 exempts everyone with money from worrying about publisher liability.
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So you are saying that if I create a company called "Hit Men For Hire" that takes money in exchange of murdering people, then Mastercard should be REQUIRED to provide my company with financial service, that Amazon should be REQUIRED to sell a gun to my employees, and that private investigators should be REQUIRED to locate the people that my company has been contracted to murder, that George Clooney should be REQUIRED to perform in the ad that ESPN will be REQUIRED to air.
And if one of these companies refuse
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Isnt that what Bitdcoin is for? It's precisely what happened to the Silk Road exchange, whose founder was hiring hit men to kill staff. who threatened to reveal criminal activity.
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And you may not want to HAVE to go to trial to explain to a jury that your company had lots of doubts but no actual proof, so technically "your company did not know".
And that might not even save you. A lot of laws state, something to the effect of 'or reasonably could/should have known.'
"Look I did not know he was trafficking here when I let the use our bus service".
Prosecutor: "This is a video that shows the victim could not stand on her own, was covered in bruises and barely conscience, likely drugged."
"I totally thought she was an amateur boxer, you know how into day drinking those types are.."
Jury: "We find the defendant guilty!
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a balanced thoughtful post on slashdot? clutch my pearls. I'd argue you shouldn't need to go to such lengths to express an opinion.
I agree pornhub is an unsavory client, with a whole raft of baggage. It just irks me to see companies enjoying the fruits of a network effect lock-in flexing that muscle. There's VISA, mastercard, discover, paypal and a few others i'm likely missing --regardless it is a very small club of companies who get to decide commerce on the web.
It should be worrisome the sheer amount
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If a company wants monopoly/oligopoly like power, it should respect a degree of neutrality in their dealings with all viewpoints;
This is not about morality, this is about legality. If you knowingly enable illegal commerce, you're a party to it. This is not like web comments which are covered by S.230 of the CDA. This is actual money changing hands, and that has actual consequences, and that's why there are actual laws covering it.
In this thread people have talked stupid shit about "common carrier" when that has nothing to do with payment processors. That phrase has a specific legal meaning which does not apply here. In fact, they hav
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I'm not familiar with the nuances of freedom of speech in the USA, so can you explain why uploading illegal content is an "unpopular or unapproved viewpoint"? It seems to be an action to me. And how does not being able to upload such content constitute being "locked out of society"?
Does freedom of speech include the right to harm people, and distribute documentary evidence of the harm for fun or profit?
Your argument of a slippery slope is a reductio ad absurdum; should I be worried about not being able to
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I guess you could use Facebook?
Nirvarna fallacy (Score:2)
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If you want to use Visa and MC to purchase porn, there are tens of thousands of other places you can go to do that. This has nothing to do with Visa and MC avoiding porn and everything to do with them not being associated with child rape.
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If payment processors don't want to process porn payments, all they have to do is put in their T&C that they don't do that, and then not do it. But that's not the case at all. They want the money. What they don't want is negative publicity. They also don't want to be punished for facilitating illegal activity, and the way they avoid that is to take seriously any credible and voluble claims that they are doing so. Since there is substantial evidence that pornhub is in fact a haven for criminal activity,
Re:A stunning and brave move (Score:4, Insightful)
How about granting all platforms (be it payment processors or message forums) complete immunity
Immunity from what? How do you promise immunity from moral outrage? I mean it's not like Pornhub is in trouble with a government here, or has any criminal or even civil claims against them.
Discover and Amex, RISE UP! (Score:3)
Pun intended.
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There is plenty of evidence, that can be found online with actual sources referenced, that show that the MindGeek network is primarily a money laundering scheme
Then maybe file criminal claims against them with your evidence rather than relying on mob rule, like some tyrannical dictator. I frankly don't care if Pornhub is eating babies live on cam, that is NOT something for Visa or Mastercard to judge on.
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NO one trusts the legal system to be tough enough. No one, no matter their politics, thinks any case they wanted tried will be dealt with harshly enough for their liking.
And it is probably not even illegal. FB probably has 10 times the cp uploaded onto their platform, for good or ill section 203 exempts everyone with money from worrying about publisher liability. And they caught capone on tax evasion. Do you think in this global electronic world that someone with half his brains would stand a chance of gett
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NO one trusts the legal system to be tough enough.
To use that as a justification for bypassing a legal system is colossally fucking moronic. I'm not going to be cute about it. That you think mob justice is in any way justified makes you a fucking moron. If you want tribalism or tyranny move to a society where that kind of bullshit is acceptable.
And it is probably not even illegal.
Wow, yep you're supporting the vilification of someone who is doing nothing illegal. Go move to some Amazonian tribe, or go become a warlord in some "shithole" nation. You may find your ideas more fitting in with th
Somewhere out there (Score:2)
"You can do that??"
Finally! (Score:3)
Looking forward to my carpal tunnel problems going away..
PSA It's the same antiporn crusaders as usual behi (Score:1, Informative)
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They're going after Pornhub/mindgeek using the newfound interest in "stop sex trafficking/save the children" because their main goal is to get Section 230 revoked.
That's their goal. This is just a convenient scapegoat.
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Just because a few moral majority leaders and the NYT arrive at vilifying pornography (via very different routes of thought mind you, which actually ought to give you some pause to consider they might be right), does not mean its some conspiracy.
I bet if you polled people involved with MIM/COSE etc as to their opinions on the NYT, you would not find much affection.
Frankly, this is more dangerous than some federal task force ever could be. Personally I don't think ready access to pornographic material is go
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All you have posted is a quote. I have pointed out that MILLIONS are effected by this.
It isn't like they threw the first guy in jail without a trial. Show me that story from a reputable source. Someone just stopped a fundraising campaign that didn't want on their platform. Read the ToS.
The suicide guy should've gone to the doctor if he was feeling that depressed.
History will say it began with 8chan... (Score:3)
It's all perfectly natural, it is only big private business taking control of essentially all internet content.
They just want to get rid of 'bad' people and stuff, and make sure that you see only things that you should see. There is nothing to worry about.
And worrying is pointless anyway, because there's nothing you can do to stop it. You aren't anybody.
And if you start complaining about it online, those posts might be removed, and your internet access might be disabled for a while. Because that's not good for online business.
If you persist, then your internet access might be removed permanently. Big business has lots of experts on this, and they are certain that it's really the best outcome.
They invested a great deal of money to provide the ideal environment for you. If you don't like it, then you are perfectly free to go build your own internet.
MasterCard and Visa too powerful (Score:3)
Basically pulling the plug (Score:1)
Shrug. Let 1000 offshore pornhubs bloom. (Score:3)
Making internet-anything illegal in the USA is just political posturing with no real effect.
Next?
Gov payment system (Score:2)
If Visa and MasterCard are cancelling services because of alleged issues, they aren't doing anything but harming the folks that are using the site legally.
Also, what is next for Visa and MasterCard. Are they going to stop taking payments from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook. All the same kinds of shady shit happens on their platforms as well.
Now if MindGeek/PornHub is in the wrong
Traci Lords (Score:2)
Now, someone who has some under-age Lords videos who either doesn't know or care decides to keep his copies.
30+ years later, he uploads them to the internet. Tags it as teen vintage - or something. Even Traci Lords.
Then, some poor slob - thinking it's an 18 or 19 (or older) girl watc
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