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Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos

arstechnica.com

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Re: Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos

#41

Post by mschuster91 »

A sad move in the end, a situation that is neither as black nor as white as the participants involved try to frame it.

Yes: Pornhub had a massive problem, not with child depictions, but with "revenge porn" and similar materials. They definitely needed a slap on the wrist for that one.

But... this is not about children, not about "revenge porn". This is part of an organized, fundamentalist-Evangelical-Christian anti-sex-work campaign that goes back many years (https://theconversation.com/evangelical-women-are-shaping-pu...), whose biggest successes to date were FOSTA/SESTA, and (in countries where prostitution is legal) who uses the current Coronavirus crisis to further calls for banning brothels and other sex work indefinitely.

Make no mistake: the ones suffering at the moment are not the people behind Pornhub/Mindgeek. The ones suffering are the countless content creators that already had their lives screwed when Coronavirus restrictions made face-to-face sex work impossible, and now the biggest platform got hit with a payment cutoff. And this is intentional.

Re: Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos

#43

Post by dmix »

scoutt wrote: post #39
jobigoud wrote: post #28

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

They do it to avoid both legal and PR consequences.

Is there any examples of people legally going after Visa or Mastercard?

I have a feeling this is just PR by the many examples I've seen of them doing this recently. The legal stuff just sounds like cover.

Re: Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos

#44

Post by dmix »

franga2000 wrote: post #29
tehbeard wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incase you're being genuinely sincere in your query.. > globally-readable transaction ledger Having which skin flicks i dropped a dime on publicly searchable doesn't seem a good move privacy wise.

There are plenty of cryptocurrencies that are designed to be anonymous. Bitcoin isn't the only thing out there

And there's still plenty of Bitcoin ATMs throughout many cities that accept cash and put it onto a wallet. Or other ways to disconnect identity.

But really who the hell is going to go through the very hard work to figure out which porn sites you signed up for (with a random user name not connected to your real identity naturally, which is the first disconnect). No one cares. Especially for a site like pornhub.

Re: Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos

#45

Post by cft »

dmix wrote: post #43
scoutt wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do it to avoid both legal and PR consequences.

Is there any examples of people legally going after Visa or Mastercard? I have a feeling this is just PR by the many examples I've seen of them doing this recently. The legal stuff just sounds like cover.

But this does send shivers to the small business owners who have nothing to do with porn. The fact that they can be de-platformed by Visa on moral or political grounds.

What happened to PH push to accept bitcoin?

Re: Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos

#46

Post by dredmorbius »

vincentmarle wrote: post #36
dredmorbius wrote: post #7

Nicholas Kristof's NYT article and HN discusion, from 6 days ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25301913

Kristof’s follow-up article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/opinion/pornhub-news-chil... He accomplished a lot in a week!

The article certainly has a kick, yes.

Re: Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos

#47

Post by dmix »

cft wrote: post #45
dmix wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any examples of people legally going after Visa or Mastercard? I have a feeling this is just PR by the many examples I've seen of them doing this recently. The legal stuff just sounds like cover.

But this does send shivers to the small business owners who have nothing to do with porn. The fact that they can be de-platformed by Visa on moral or political grounds. What happened to PH push to accept bitcoin?

Oh no doubt. This is becoming a very scary development as services. Demonetization and deplatforming happens over increasingly harmless activity is a serious problem going forward into the future.

Like all monsters that get created no one cares because it's used against the 'bad guys' so no one cares. And then it just becomes normal.

Re: Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos

#48

Post by scoutt »

dmix wrote: post #43
scoutt wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do it to avoid both legal and PR consequences.

Is there any examples of people legally going after Visa or Mastercard? I have a feeling this is just PR by the many examples I've seen of them doing this recently. The legal stuff just sounds like cover.

I don't know if there are examples of regular people going after those monsters (I don't think Visa/Mastercard are even afraid of this) for this or other reasons.

The thing is that any legal action can be used as political lever. As a business you don't want to be in a position where you have to give excuses or negotiate. Hypothetically, the EU or some crazy US senator can say Visa is endorsing CP (even if it's not 100% true, but is good for the senator or EU parliamentary image), that they will engage in a full investigation and there is a possibility of facing sanctions. Now Visa has to activate a PR and legal campaign that can last years.

It's better to just cut off that single website from the customer list.

Re: Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos

#49

Post by billo-ollib »

SCUSKU wrote: post #40
billo-ollib wrote: post #8

Will this lead to the rise of crypto as a proper currency as opposed to a gold-like investment vehicle?

It is possible! We have seen the porn industry adopt many video standards early and push them mainstream. Perhaps this will help propel crypto to the mainstream.

They have been at the forefront for other technologies as well (I think that I saw this first in the sitcom Silicon Valley). A few examples include : VCR, secure online payments, affiliate marketing, streaming services, video conferencing, social media (?) etc. Even today, they are working on virtual reality, sex robots, etc. Ethics aside, it's fascinating to note that porn has had such a disproportionate impact on tech.

Re: Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos

#50

Post by suifbwish »

totony wrote: post #17
mtnGoat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Made their own stripe? You mean cut out the middleman? Lots of companies with large processing volume do this. Pretty normal, it saves a lot of money, any gateways or ipsp dealing in high risk take hefty fees.

You're right, but I think since gateways are so hard on non-mainstream content like porn it was made out of necessity rather than cost savings.

Non mainstream? Porn hub has more monthly users than Amazon prime, netflix, Hulu and Disney+ Combined
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