Another Porn Site Says Banks Forced It To Stop Paying Sex Workers (vice.com) 292
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: AVN Stars, a platform where sex workers can sell porn clips, announced on Wednesday that it will no longer allow creators to monetize their content on the site beginning January 1. In a press release, Adult Video News wrote that discrimination from banks forced the decision. "Unfortunately, AVN and GayVN Stars has not been immune to the banking discrimination that so many of our industry friends have also encountered recently," AVN Media Network CEO Tony Rios said in the press release. "We have had numerous corporate accounts shuttered in the past year alone." Throughout December, models can keep selling content as usual. On January 1, however, all content on the site will be free.
"We lost probably 16 bank accounts this year. It's just exhausting," Rios told me in a phone call. "The adult industry has always had banking problems. I can think back to losing my first bank account in like, 1996. It's just par for the course. But I think that at this point, the stakes are so much higher, when you're talking 10's of 1000's of creators that really rely on this," he said. "You have these people that sit in these offices that are really disconnected from the banking relationships, that are just looking at patterns of transactions. They see, 'oh you sent $50,000 from here to Europe or whatever, what is this about?' And then they start Googling around and then they figure out it's the adult industry. Depending on that one person's judgment call, [platforms have to] start to tighten things down, and ultimately [banks] shut the account down. And then we just get a letter that says, 'We're sorry, we've made the decision to close your account.'" Some creators who use AVN Stars are angry over how the company went about notifying them of these changes. Nikki Kit, a dominatrix who uses AVN Stars, told Motherboard that the platform sent a direct message to creators on the platform, but only some creators received that message before the announcement was public. Kit said that learning about it this way infuriated her.
She said that this is a symptom of a larger problem in the industry. "People outside of the industry don't feel comfortable saying 'hey, what you're doing to these people is wrong,'" she said. "We're hidden away from society because the public is so uncomfortable talking about sex as a whole. Let alone discuss the porn they are viewing, or the health and happiness of the performers they enjoy seeing... I hope that people can get more comfortable discussing sex and sexuality openly, and quickly. Because if people can't even discuss sex or sexuality, how can we discuss the rights of the workers within the sex industry? How many people that watch porn are willing to not only admit that they watch or pay for their porn, but that they believe porn people deserve to be paid for their work?"
"We lost probably 16 bank accounts this year. It's just exhausting," Rios told me in a phone call. "The adult industry has always had banking problems. I can think back to losing my first bank account in like, 1996. It's just par for the course. But I think that at this point, the stakes are so much higher, when you're talking 10's of 1000's of creators that really rely on this," he said. "You have these people that sit in these offices that are really disconnected from the banking relationships, that are just looking at patterns of transactions. They see, 'oh you sent $50,000 from here to Europe or whatever, what is this about?' And then they start Googling around and then they figure out it's the adult industry. Depending on that one person's judgment call, [platforms have to] start to tighten things down, and ultimately [banks] shut the account down. And then we just get a letter that says, 'We're sorry, we've made the decision to close your account.'" Some creators who use AVN Stars are angry over how the company went about notifying them of these changes. Nikki Kit, a dominatrix who uses AVN Stars, told Motherboard that the platform sent a direct message to creators on the platform, but only some creators received that message before the announcement was public. Kit said that learning about it this way infuriated her.
She said that this is a symptom of a larger problem in the industry. "People outside of the industry don't feel comfortable saying 'hey, what you're doing to these people is wrong,'" she said. "We're hidden away from society because the public is so uncomfortable talking about sex as a whole. Let alone discuss the porn they are viewing, or the health and happiness of the performers they enjoy seeing... I hope that people can get more comfortable discussing sex and sexuality openly, and quickly. Because if people can't even discuss sex or sexuality, how can we discuss the rights of the workers within the sex industry? How many people that watch porn are willing to not only admit that they watch or pay for their porn, but that they believe porn people deserve to be paid for their work?"
Reality check... (Score:5, Interesting)
Banks can steal, drive people to ruin with interests, call for "public" money help to "save them", make rich CEOs while filling for bankrupt, etc.
but
Oh the Humanity! if you dares to pay a worker's work...
Note: in some countries, sex work is legal.
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And in even more countries than allow run of the mill prostitution, it becomes legal if you have a video camera and a model release and a locked file cabinet with evidence that the actors are over 18.
Re:Reality check... (Score:5, Informative)
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Also, video didn't exist much back then. Today these reasons don't make a lot of sense, but 100 years ago they m
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They still make sense even today. STDs are on the rise in the U.S. [cdc.gov], and especially among senior citizens [jonbarron.org]. Wearing a condom only goes so far and since most adult video actors don't wear condoms, there is that issue.
Prostitution is slightly different since the woman or man can make it a requirement. Unless you pay extra.
And that doesn't bring up the issue of forced prost
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They still make sense even today.
So much for that whole my body my choice thing..
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And in even more countries than allow run of the mill prostitution, it becomes legal if you have a video camera and a model release and a locked file cabinet with evidence that the actors are over 18.
Pornography and prostitution are not the same thing. One is paying, usually professional, actors to have sex with each other, where the other is one person paying another for sex. Nether of these actions should be illegal in any way unless forced or underage.
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Pornography and prostitution are not the same thing. One is paying, usually professional, actors to have sex with each other, where the other is one person paying another for sex.
What a load of shit. 1/2 the porn out there is "amateur" where some asshole with a camera films himself banging a hooker. OOOOH.. Porn.... It's somehow different because there is a camera present.
I'd like to see the stats on that "1/2 the porn out there" claim. Recording sex with someone without their knowledge is illegal, and selling/posting it online is even more so. This is covered under the "forced" classification, and unless you have a signed agreement with both parties, you can be held liable if the non-agreeing party sues or calls the police, and may very well go to prison and find yourself a registered sexual predator for the remainder of your life.
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Well, yeah, the banks are officially branded "too big to fail" so they get taxpayer money for their fuckups.
Notice also that the government (actually governments the world over, but in the western world it's very much the US that leads the pack) has made it not merely acceptable, but mandatory, to do "due diligence" and shut out anyone from banking who looks any kind of dodgy at all.
That's discrimination right there, but the government says you have to, so the banks do with gay abandon. This in the name o
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Does that cover this particular abuse? No but giving them special access disrupts the free market by limiting competition. Bitcoin/Monero already solves AVN's problem. Switch to a bitpay account. Problem solved.
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Banks can steal, drive people to ruin with interests, call for "public" money help to "save them", make rich CEOs while filling for bankrupt, etc.
but
Oh the Humanity! if you dares to pay a worker's work...
Note: in some countries, sex work is legal.
So wait, is it good today that banks can choose not to process payments for things they don't like, or bad that they can do that?
The /. zeitgeist seems a bit inconsistent on this point.
Is there some kind of principle involved here?
Re:Reality check... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry I stopped reading after "I believe in freedom!"
Because after seeing the word Freedom, I will often find a long rant justifying a one sided idea where the side you will be on should be free do do what they want, while the other side should just suffer the consequences and find a different path.
Freedom is such a nebulous idea, it has been used to justify slavery which is the opposite of freedom. Every choice you make has tradeoffs, so there is tradeoff of maintaining a face of values, or allow others to show an opposing set of values.
Re:Reality check... (Score:4, Funny)
That's okay I usually stop reading after 'jellomizer'
Re:Reality check... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do you comment as well.
Your retort to my comment was No it isn't. Without any explanation on why I may be wrong.
If Freedom isn't a nebulous concept. Then please provide me a set of guidelines on when when the freedom of one person conflicts with the freedom of the other, what the path for the best freedom.
I have the freedom to worship the way I choose, then for Christmas I may want want the perfect Christmas tree for decoration. My ideal version of the perfect tree is owned by my neighbor. Lets say I offer to buy it from him, but he refuses the offer. My freedom to worship the way I choose is hindered because he is using his freedom to not sell. Now if I were to go and steal the Tree by cutting it down while the neighbor was away, then I am levying my freedom at the expense of my neighbors freedom to own property, and if caught I will be arrested and fined or imprisoned (more freedoms taken away from me). While society will state that I am the person who is in the wrong, because I am trying to force others freedoms for my own. I am also the one who has had the most lost of freedoms because I was the one trying to get more, while the other was just protecting what they have.
Now if we change a condition with this scenario, lets say my Neighbor sells trees, including the one I wanted and it was in general For Sale, and I offered to pay his sale price, but then refuses, because he doesn't like my race, gender, ethnicity... Then in legal terms I am more apt to be in the right, for having an issue of a non-sales, because it is due to different factors, My freedoms exceed his freedoms to act on the hate of who I am.
Or what about my neighbor isn't a person, but public land? Does the fact my Taxes to pay for that land give me rights to take the tree...
The reason why America the land of the free has such a complex legal system, because Freedom is nebulous and is really based on the circumstances on what is happening, and the outcome of your act of Freedom.
Re:Reality check... (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually think as far as the States go here, there is been a lot of really warped discussion about democracy and its role in our system. Really going back as far as the Great War but truly gone off the rails in recent decades. The founders of this country and its early immigrants most certainly did not come here because they wanted to vote on things. They came here for individual liberties and economic freedom. Democracy became important to them quite a lot later and even at that point they were pretty circumspect about how far they handed out that franchise and their the principle idea of how to exercise it was using it to resist authoritarian attacks on their personal liberties and threats to their economic opportunity. Tyranny of the majority is no less tyranny than that of the a single tyrant. Individual liberty was the unique characteristic of the American Experiment, not republican democracy, which had existed before in multiple places. If Democracy fails to protect individual liberty than its former not the latter that should take a back seat.
If you've never understood why DarkOx appears to believe that you need authoritarianism to protect personal freedoms, well here you go. He believes in freedom for him and fuck everyone else. He does not understand that democracy is the only protection against tyranny, and believes for some weird ass reason that others' freedoms are tyranny over himself, which is why other people literally don't matter to him. This is why it's so easy for him to be convinced that people who are literally arguing for more freedom, like the right to vote, are his enemy, because those people who vote might not vote the way he wants and thus he'd be "living under their tyranny" - he's actually arguing here that democracy is equivalent to tyranny. What the ever-living fuck. This guy would fit right in with the South leading up to the Civil War.
Re:Reality check... (Score:5, Insightful)
DarkOx:
Also DarkOx:
Do you not see the contradiction? You just said that Jack Phillips should have to facilitate an activity they find unconscionable.
Lastly, DarkOx:
Except, you are clearly not acting consistently, even within the span of a single post.
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you might be doing it wrong
usually with porn, one is releasing a completely different type of body fluid
This sounds like a real "unholy alliance" (Score:3, Interesting)
It looks like bank CEOs and religious fundamentalists have found something they can enthusiastically agree on. I wonder how long it will be before organizations supporting a woman's right to choose will find themselves treated in a similar fashion.
Re: This sounds like a real "unholy alliance" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: This sounds like a real "unholy alliance" (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. The lack of respect for the separation of church and state by the church vastly predates gun control. Imposing religious views in every way possible is what is going on here, along with a healthy dose of projection by you.
One thing that can always be counted on from "conservatives" is the blaming of ever vile thing they do on "liberals".
Re: This sounds like a real "unholy alliance" (Score:2)
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Was this small minority successful? You know they weren't. Religious conservatives, however, have succeeded. Your spurious comparison shows that you're essentially a fuckwit.
Re: This sounds like a real "unholy alliance" (Score:3)
Re: This sounds like a real "unholy alliance" (Score:3)
Re: This sounds like a real "unholy alliance" (Score:2)
Feminists, too. (Score:5, Informative)
From what I have read, many feminists believe that porn sexually objectifies women, reinforces harmful stereotypes, and that the best way to protect women from this is to suppress porn wherever possible. Not all feminists think this way; there is a rival group that thinks that the best way to protect women is to protect their freedom and business opportunities, and hence the ability for women to produce porn for a profit is a good thing.
So, while there IS disagreement, apparently there is still a large group of feminists who are actively campaigning to shut down porn, and they will pressure banks to do this just as much as religious or other motivated groups will.
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What you have read is not quite accurate, and overly simplistic.
There are many different ideas within feminism about porn. The majority of younger feminists agree that porn can be made in a way that isn't exploitative and which doesn't objectify the participants. In fact such porn has become fairly popular in the mainstream now.
That said, a lot of porn is quite bad, and not just for its portrayal of women but for things like racism. There is a whole genera of black guys "violating" white women, although iro
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The majority of younger feminists agree that porn can be made in a way that isn't exploitative and which doesn't objectify the participants. In fact such porn has become fairly popular in the mainstream now.
I find this amazing. Yet comic books depictions of women are objectification.
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Why is it amazing? Some porn is objectifying, some comics are objectifying. Some isn't.
An example of objectifying porn is where the woman is there just to serve the the man. Non objectifying porn is where the couple consider each others desires and pleasure, and there is some rapport between them.
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There is a whole genera of black guys "violating" white women, although ironically the guys often come over as being quite nice and respectful in the actual movies.
I didn't know this genre existed. From your short description my first impression would be this is porn made for female consumption more than for male consumption as, on the surface at least, it seems similar to a subgenre of romance novels targeted at women -- the so called "dark romance/erotica" -- in which the plot revolves around the protagonist being raped (but not in a really bad way, as it's fantasy after all, so no permanent life-long trauma etc.) and then, via the power of love/forgiveness/whatever
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A lot of the racist stuff is cuckold porn, where the white husband is humiliated because his wife is having sex with a black man. Some of it is just more straightforward racism where the sexual act is considered more taboo or more slutty because the man is black. It often incorporates language like "thug", or tropes like gangs and rap music.
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Universal Income that is pegged to an acceptable standard/representative "shopping basket" of goods/services that people need over the period of a given month would provide women with a lot more freedom to choose, and that can be achieved with a single bill by any government, assuming politicians can be persuaded to vote for it. That's the bit that will take time, especially as gerrymandering has created absolute safety for the more corrupt politicians.
The other thing that would help enormously is for all s
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Demonizing the sex industry predates feminism. While what you say may be true, it is not significant nor is it in any way relevant. This is an imposing of religious views issue, not a women's rights issue.
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There's a hell of a lot more religious fundamentalists dedicated to this than feminists.
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Of course, we now understand C.S. Lewis was 100% wrong about robber barons. They cannot be satiated.
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Thank you for that.
Re: This sounds like a real "unholy alliance" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: This sounds like a real "unholy alliance" (Score:3, Insightful)
Tough to have an open discussion (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope that people can get more comfortable discussing sex and sexuality openly, and quickly. Because if people can't even discuss sex or sexuality, how can we discuss the rights of the workers within the sex industry?
It's difficult to have those kinds of open discussions because doing so means talking about how the porn industry and its products are often harmful to women. And as soon as you do that, on Slashdot st least, you get modded down into the Earth's crust.
I know from experience that people don't like hearing facts that aren't beneficial to their own narratives where pornography is concerned, and for every person who's convinced that porn is a sin from which no possible good can emerge, at least as many are convinced that porn is always completely good and healthy and couldn't possibly harm us ... if not for those pesky sociologists and other zealots who keep on showing us how it can...
Re:Tough to have an open discussion (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Tough to have an open discussion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tough to have an open discussion (Score:5, Insightful)
The best way to reduce harm in porn, and in most industries, is for it to be legal and for workers to have strong rights. Regulation helps but empowering workers to address the massive imbalance between them and their employers is the most important thing.
In the case of porn the rise of things like Only Fans where individuals can be self employed has shifted the balance of power considerably. It's also a great way to deal with piracy, because even if the photos and videos can be copied easily the interaction can't be.
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"Harm reduction" is just code for 'harm acceptance."
Its entirely intellectually dishonest. Tolerance of harmful activity just enables more of the activity and its spread, and by extension ultimately more harm to occur. The arguments for allowing these things really have to be rooted in liberty.
If I said for example nobody should enforce vaccine mandates because depriving the recalcitrant anti-vaxxers of income and opportunity increases you harm to them. I doubt very much you'd agree. You'd probably feed m
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Zero tolerance never works though, so we can only ever try to minimize harm.
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I haven't seen anyone arguing porn absolutely never hurts anyone in any way and is always good. That's just a false narrative you've concocted to validate being at the opposite extreme.
Your limited experience of the world doesn't invalidate my argument or change the facts.
I've been on /. for a good while now, and there are definite patterns of thought that one sees here, and which I've also seen in other forums and kinds of discourse:
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"Oh. Well, good thing then that one side didn't create the whole de-platforming thing, because then it might get misused to .... oh wait."
Classic argument in bad faith. "one side" did not "create the whole de-platforming thing" nor does one side exclusively employ it, nor is it remotely relevant to anything discussed, but it does serve to demonize the opposition.
It's a shame there are so many assholes who post this swill.
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It's difficult to have those kinds of open discussions because doing so means talking about how the porn industry and its products are often harmful to women.
There is no evidence that its products are, on balance, harmful to women. There is evidence that women inside of it are harmed in many cases, but in many cases that is also clearly due to the quasi-legal nature of the business. Making it more legal is the first step to making it less harmful.
Not quite... (Score:2)
Making it more legal is the first step to making it less harmful.
There's no "more legal". It is illegal or it isn't.
There is more regulated and representative of worker's interests though - which practically guarantees making it less harmful.
What I'm saying is that there is a need for sex worker unions. Or sex unions if you will.
That one kinda just rolls off the tongue, making it easier to swallow.
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And the porn industry is also often beneficial to women - it provides jobs which can be very well paid. So long as it is consensual, why deny someone who wants to work as a porn star and earn a decent living doing so?
The porn industry also involves male actors, there may be more demand for female content but it's not exclusive. Just like there is generally more demand for male sports content.
All industries are beneficial to one group and harmful in some ways to others.
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I think the truth is that the way sex and sexuality are viewed in the west, ESPECIALLY the US, makes the porn industry the dangerous and sometimes harmful industry it is. If we stop acting like sexuality is a shameful sin in all forms and start treating it as the essential and enjoyable part of life it is instead, we could start opening ourselves up to the possibility of having a healthy discussion about it. But god forbid anyone dare mention that maybe our puritanical religious roots are causing us more
Re:Tough to have an open discussion (Score:5, Insightful)
People in general like simple thinking. So something - porn, Microsoft, Russia, Trump, white people, Emacs, whatever it is you take - must be either good or bad, period. That makes life easy and less complex. It's complicated enough already.
That's why you don't have deep conversations with someone unless you both have time and leisure and no pressing emergencies. That is why stress leads to radicalization. Why the lower class (who is busy just surviving) seems to think more simple despite many of them not actually being stupid - you don't have the luxury of complexity.
Porn can be good, liberating, free choice of the people making it.
Porn can be exploitative, harmful to the actors who are forced (actually or by financial pressure) to participate.
And both of these statements can be true at the same time, for different porn flicks.
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"aren't beneficial to their own narratives where its products are often harmful to women..." ...and yet their narrative also includes prohibition of male sex workers. Interesting.
Note that the article does not discuss gender and even includes "GayVN". It is not a "harmful to women" issue, that's an excuse.
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"...and for every person who's convinced that porn is a sin from which no possible good can emerge, at least as many are convinced that porn is always completely good and healthy and couldn't possibly harm us..."
Complete BS. There are MANY that believe the first, there are none that believe the second.
"...if not for those pesky sociologists and other zealots who keep on showing us how it can..."
Disproves the position of absolutely no one. Handy for your personal narrative apparently.
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And how it's different from any other industry?
(Also, why "women" instead of "people"? I don't see the harms of the porn industry to be really gender-specific.)
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why "women" instead of "people"? I don't see the harms of the porn industry to be really gender-specific.
There are many more claims of harm to women working in the porn industry than men. Whether or not these claims have been well investigated is something I don't know, but it would be surprising if women weren't more commonly abused in the porn industry than men given that they tend to be more commonly abused in other industries.
Not just porn... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm told gambling is all but impossible to run through a bank too. It turns out that you really can't start a gambling site in the UK (where gambling is legal, but regulated) unless you're very rich - all the banks are too shit scared of the Americans who have some leverage against them.
If you're rich, well, then it's okay - you just grease the right palms with a large opening balance and everyone's happy. You can then let people gamble to their hearts content (or until the content of their wallet is gone). Try doing it small, and well, sorry, no bank account for you.
Convergence of ultra left and ultra right radicals (Score:5, Insightful)
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The further left you go the more supportive of sex you it tends to be.
Also remember that what is far left by US standards is centrist by European ones.
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This is one of the issue where ultra left radicals, that see sex work as exploitative of women, and far right radicals, that see sex work as immoral converge. This also shows you that both left and right at the extreme converge to the same anti-liberty views.
(mock innocence) - Liberty? I thought banks were private companies and could choose to suppress whatever they want by choosing not to process their payments.
Has the Slashverse changed on that?
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(mock innocence) - Liberty? I thought banks were private companies and could choose to suppress whatever they want by choosing not to process their payments.
In theory I'm OK with this, very much the same way I'm OK with "Big Tech" choosing what they will host. (but not, for the most part, with ISPs choosing what they will carry, and rather think they ought to be handled like public utilities at this point.)
I don't know to what degree the USA regulates banks and makes policy regarding who they may/must do business with, whether they are at liberty under law to choose their clientele to the same degree as say a bakery.
So if the banks are legally free to choose w
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Always have, always will.
At the end, the underlying assumption is that they know what's right and have an obligation to educate the rest of the world, by force if needed.
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You're not wrong that the far left and far right are really just opposite sides of the same coin, but this recent assault on porn seems to have come almost entirely from the right.
It's a result of a concerted barrage by Christian fundamentalists, largely Catholics, in lobbying banking organisations using underhanded arguments such as lying that such sites routinely host child porn and such causing payment processors and banks to run a mile.
Which would be ironic if it weren't for the fact said financial services companies could save more kids from sexual abuse if they instead cut off financial services to Christian organisations instead given Christian churches of all creeds have been complicit in the rape of far more kids than any porn sites ever have.
I agree but you may be underestimating the prudishness of the far left who have a real problem with the simple mechanics of sex which embody a lot of, in their eyes, power structures that they are uncomfortable with. This is where Orwell was coming from with the "Anti-sex league" in 1984, I think.
Well if you think this is bad... (Score:5, Informative)
Gab has not only been blacklisted by Visa [gab.com], the CEO's entire immediate family has been individually blacklisted [gab.com].
Yes, Andrew Torba's wife was also blacklisted. That means if she starts a business and she uses a processor that includes Visa, Visa has a policy of telling the processor "cut all ties with her (even for MC, Discover, Amex, etc.) or lose access to Visa.
I am against porn being legal, but agree with these porn producers that this is unethical. The way the system is set up, it's extremely difficult to nearly impossible to set up competing fintech platforms for payments if the established players don't want to play ball with you. Next up: blocking ACH transfers because screw you, that's why.
This is also why the newer breed of crypto scares the Hell out of companies like these payment processors. Solana can match Visa pound for pound in transactions per second. The tax code is literally the only thing keeping many people from telling all of these companies to go die in a fire and switching to modern crypto. FFS, even the network fees for DOT, ADA and SOL are stupidly cheap compared to using CCs.
Re:Well if you think this is bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Saying that Gab proves you can't start your own site is just admitting that you want to build a site full of anti-Semitic and racist conspiracy bullshit. It's saying that your content is so extreme it joins the ranks of 8chan and the Daily Stormer, among sites that had trouble staying up due to nobody wanting to host them or advertise on them.
Plenty of far right sites manage to stay up and pay for themselves, despite consuming massive amounts of bandwidth, e.g. banned.video. Gab is of course still up as wel
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Gab is no worse than Twitter. Geeze, this line of argument is so stupid. You can find racist shit all over twitter trivially, just search "fuck white people". It's frightening that a company can cut off payment processing for another company - and the entire family of that company's owner. They survive because people mail checks and cash to them. Sorry, that's just bullshit.
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Not moderate every post, just have some minimal standards and act in reports. And I really do mean minimal.
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Is this not the free market at work?
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To be fair to Visa, a common tactic of people who have had services denied is to get their family members to sign up. Visa has known this for decades, and looks for things like shared addresses to detect it happening. Like it or not, being married to an asshat means their credit worthiness, or lack of it, affects you too.
He will probably find that most banks take the same attitude. Amazon does, if one person at an address gets blacklisted then everyone at the address does, and often anyone who has the same
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Sadly, the centralized shitcoins you mention have companies and CEO's behind them that may act similarly to VISA and are vulnerable to activist pressure.
Bitcoin is the only real solution to this problem. The lightning network laughs at VISA's 'transactions per second'.
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Gab has not only been blacklisted by Visa [gab.com], the CEO's entire immediate family has been individually blacklisted [gab.com].
Oh my god, they should be blacklisted for that horrible 90's site design
Yes, Andrew Torba's wife was also blacklisted. That means if she starts a business and she uses a processor that includes Visa, Visa has a policy of telling the processor "cut all ties with her (even for MC, Discover, Amex, etc.) or lose access to Visa.
Except that's not what your link says, it says his home address has been blacklisted. His wife was not. When you lie about things that are refutable from the very links you post, don't expect anybody to take you seriously.
I am against porn being legal
Yep, seems like my decision to not take you seriously was well founded.
No, it's not bad (Score:3)
These people complaining about beings shut down for hate speech have spent decades shutting down porn sites by petitioning payment processors to not do business with them. That's why OnlyFans almost lost their ability to run their business.
Cancel Culture is coming for the Moral Majority
You don't say (Score:3, Funny)
Oh ... so censorship tools can be turned against things that you like? That was so unpredictable. If only someone had warned you about that (eye roll).
If Alex Jones can be canceled, then so can "Alexandra Gets Jonesed". Maybe we shouldn't have been so quick to form a deplatforming industrial complex?
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Republicans are no strangers to cancelling people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Woke liberal ally here... (Score:2)
pot shops also have an hardtime with banks as well (Score:2)
pot shops also have an hardtime with banks as well
Marijuana (Score:2)
The same thing happens in the legal and medical Marijuana industry. It’s illegal at the federal level so banks and credit card companies are reluctant to do business. Some of the places take cards but its not a direct transaction. They involve a third party for an extra fee.
With a Name Like AVN (Score:3)
Time to invest in Buttcoin (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why CBDC (or Diem) (Score:2)
There needs to be banking of last resort for groups not lucky enough to be protected class engaged in lawful business.
The state forces a lot of risk and costs on banks, it's not like they are indemnified if some porn has a 17 year old. It's just not worth the risk.
Isn't this exactly what cryptocurrency is for? (Score:3)
This is the perfect example of an industry where decentralized finance is actually a silver bullet.
In fact this used to be one of the example use cases trotted out next to WikiLeaks and Silk Road. It seems like crypto is much more mature now, why can't it handle this?
Re: Isn't this exactly what cryptocurrency is for? (Score:2)
Unusable for normies. Diem is the only chance crypto has for normie usability, or rather Novi.
Re: (Score:2)
In what way? Using crypto isn't really any different than using a bank these days.
Re: Isn't this exactly what cryptocurrency is for (Score:3)
Having a single trusted source for software with a good UI for instance. The only trustworthy software is from the exchanges and the UIs are fucking atrocious.
Then there's indemnification against exploitation outside of your control. Crypto has none. One zero day zero click later and you're fucked. My bank refunded skimming losses when they we're still a thing and would almost certainly do the same for a zero click exploit owning my banking app, Novi will supposedly also refund unauthorised transfers.
Simple solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Pr0n industry needs to start its own credit union.
Re: (Score:3)
The evil of this situation cannot be understated - it is not that VISA simply refusing to do business with a specific individual, it is that they actually force other companies to do the same.
This is why Bitcoin (Score:2)
It is especially disgusting because the banks derive their profits by more or less being handed the value the money in our pockets reduces due to inflation and then loaning that money back to us at an additional premium.
A law please (Score:3)
Proposed law: If you make a market in money transfers (banks, CC companies) you may not refuse any legal transaction.
Perhaps people missed the bit about "all debts, public and private". Shifting to electronic transactions, which is just fancy check writing, which is just autborization for transfer of funds from one's account to the recipient, shouldn't allow companies (and, let's face it, social busibodies) to leverage their making of transfer markets into control of otherwise legal behavior.
Comment should be modded up, not down (Score:5, Insightful)
On the surface, the parent AC comment sounds like a troll, but I think it's insightful. Our [American-Judeo-Christian] culture is extremely tolerant of violence, but extremely intolerant of sex, and the above comment satires that truth incredibly well.
Yet think about it...our population exists because of a) food, b) water, and c) sex. Those are the three essential elements for the continuation of our species. And yet, we can have MMA on TV every evening with someone "getting the living shit beat out of him", to quote the AC, or we can have criminals shooting at each other, or at police officers, or we can have MTV claymation showing peoples guts being ripped out, etc., but we can't show two consenting adults having sex. Why?
I'm not saying that we need to have porn on PBS 24/7. What I am saying is that there's an imbalance that needs to be corrected. It's unhealthy how we shame sex as much as we do, and it's dangerous to shame the sex workers as much as we do. These people should not have to be disconnected from society for publishing something that every mommy and daddy have done and will continue to do, as long as it involves consenting adults who are not harmed during the development of the content. And as long as it is done legally*, banks should be able to offer their full support. -Especially- when statistics clearly point out how much porn is being consumed, -especially- by hypocrites who claim vehemently how harmful it is to society.
* I think the biggest legal hurdle of all involves states rights. [Note: I am generally an advocate for states rights.] There will always be the subset of states that say, "Porn is wrong, and we will never change our minds about it." That will always impede progress in the business, no matter how much is made.
Re: (Score:2)
Religious conservatives in the US are not "intolerant of sex". They are opposed to sex outside of marriage / promiscuous sex. Sex within their marriage is great.
Re: (Score:2)
we can have MMA on TV every evening with someone "getting the living shit beat out of him", to quote the AC, or we can have criminals shooting at each other, or at police officers, or we can have MTV claymation showing peoples guts being ripped out, etc., but we can't show two consenting adults having sex.
There is a pretty big difference in how people respond (or maybe at least how I respond.) When I watch porn, I want to have sex. When I watch a murder, I don't want to go out and kill someone.
Re: (Score:2)
Technically, sex is not *really* essential for continued operation of our species. What is actually essential here for continued existence is a method of procreation, and in a technologically advanced society, that does not necessarily have to be sex.
There is an irrefutable recreational aspect to sex, and as a recreational activity it is not by any means directly essential for the continuation of our species. The only thing that might be said
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm curious why you say you find porn "highly addictive."
I think it is much more nuanced then that. I'd argue that in the majority of cases, porn is one of the last truly "safe" ways to have an intimate experience.
To some people, anything can be addictive, in the sense, that it consumes them. I think it can look addictive from the outside many times without understanding the underlying circumstances.
Here are just a few examples.
1. Married couples that won't/can't split, but are super unhappy sexually, mig
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Comment should be modded up, not down (Score:4)
I believe pornography is a highly addictive.
I reject your premise, especially with the "there is plenty of evidence to support the claim" fallacy when no subsequent evidence is provided, which I believe invalidates your argument. Nevertheless, dive deeper, for sake of argument.
1) Our brains (with a few exceptions) are hard-wired to get horny, once we reach an age of maturity. But our brains are also hard-wired to look for food when we're hungry. We're also hard-wired to look for water when we're thirsty. Basic survival instincts, after all. So, do we say that water is addictive? Do we say that food is addictive? No? Then why should we say the same about sex?
2) Some pornography today is -engineered- to be addictive in the same way that sugar or heroin is engineered to be addictive. It's a business centered around a human vice, so to maximize sales, the active ingredients are concentrated in a way to make consumers want more. Further regulation (like in Japan) could be put in place to reduce this aspect of the business.
3) Any vice can and likely will beget addiction, but this does not necessitate the purge of the vice. Lots of things can go wrong with that plan, and one needs to look no further than the quintessential example that is the Eighteenth Amendment. Saying that we need to get rid of all porn just because of the potential of abuse is akin to saying we need to napalm Napa Valley for the same reasons.
4) Finally, there are ample countries [wikiwand.com] with less theocratic culture who accept the consumption of regulated pornography on a regular basis. If it was indeed as harmful as claimed, all nations would put a stop to it completely. (Case in point: every one of the nations that allows the production & sale of porn makes child porn illegal.)
Therefore, I reject your argument.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem with cigarettes is not that they're highly addictive. If they were simply highly addictive, we wouldn't have needed the decades of anti-smoking campaigns. The problem is that smoking gives people a slow and painful early death. Pornography does not. Pornography is addictive to some, but it's like a gaming addiction or at the very worst maybe you could argue it's like gambling -- things that do not kill, and therefore do not need to be eliminated simply because they can be addictive.
Would say your "arguments" are made of straw? (Score:3)
I would.
Incidentally, while SOME people MAY be addicted to porn, consequences of such addiction are nowhere near as serious, numerous or as harmful as in the "examples" you falsely equivalate there.
Individually OR population-wise.
I.e. No one died from cancer, overdose or immunodeficiency due to watching porn.
You might as well use that same set of "arguments" to argue against video games, too much TV, rock music, comic books, reading under a blanket...
Fuck it... you may use that against owning cats. You do k
Re: (Score:3)
You do know that cats are satanic companions of witches, right?
/me glances over at girlfriend's cats.
No fucking doubt in my mind, friend.
Re: (Score:3)
As far as portrayed, it was just two people who loved each other, having sex once a week and getting some extra money from doing so.
1) "As far as portrayed" that is what it looks like, and maybe in their particular case that is what it was/is but how would you the consumer know? If you just happen across a website that 'says' that is what this is what is to say one or more of the 'performers' isn't actually an unwilling victim under some kind of duress?
2) People do all sorts of things they don't think will be harmful or seem good at the time. Like 'enjoying a cigarette' that often lead to negative outcomes. What's to say this happy cou