Opinion - NYT and any credible newspaper should run a conflict-of-interest statement on every "opinion" piece they accept. It should be 1 paragraph giving the name of the person who chose to run the story, a 2-sentence justification, and a formal statement that they had no financial, personal, or self-interest motive or connection to this piece/author/topic.
A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong
181–190 of 457 posts
Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong
#182Net... uhm.. payment-processors-neutrality! I have no idea why payment processors get to choose and pick what they want to process and what they don't.
Never gonna happen. Controlling the money flow is basically how power has always worked. Unless you have nukes, you can't enforce it
...and then they wonder why cryptocurrencies are getting more and more popular.
Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong
#183Feels like switching to crypto payments would be far more likely to keep the site alive than whatever it is they are planning on doing.
Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong
#184Seen this thread going around, but it seems like it skips over the important bit. > So why the rule changes? Because last December the New York Times published an opinion piece by Nick Kristof caller “The Children of Pornhub” that accused the site and its parent company of profiting off revenge porn, child porn and sex trafficking. How do you get from 'opinion piece in a newspaper' to 'gigantic transnational financia…
It's the same crap as the ad-pocalypse. Journalists with an agenda use a disingenuous tactic, if they have a problem with a person or entity, they'll call up their sponsors, business partners, vendors, etc, and say "we're writing an article on X's platform which has been found to have (controversial material framed in a negative context), are we to believe that you're supportive and would your company care to comment…
Before you wrote this manifesto, did you read the entire article by Kristof? I didn't think it came off as anti-sex, and I disagree with some of the points made by the OP.
I think that the MC and Visa duopoly that effectively governs what kinds of goods and services are permitted in society is immoral and concerning. I think the Kristof article and the Visa/MC issues need to be talked about separately.
Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong
#185I've never heard a good argument against prostitution. The arguments that I hear are against trafficking, rape, child molestation; which are all non-sequiturs: true and valid statements that do not support the argument itself. Can anyone here argue against prostitution per se? I'll listen.
The usual argument relies on:
"On average, countries with legalized prostitution report a greater incidence of human trafficking inflows."[1]
The increased demand for sex work in the wake of legalization results in more people forced into involuntary sex work, despite the presence of legally-protected sex workers.
[1] https://papers.ssrn.co/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1986065
Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
> businesses like PornHub and MasterCard are terrified of brand association with child porn and sex trafficking With PornHub that makes sense because the type of content they provide is the crux of their businesss. But does anyone care or know what MasterCard is associated with? I would not even think to blame PG&E for providing electricity, even if the recipient turned out to be doing some super illegal things with…
> But does anyone care or know what MasterCard is associated with? The average layperson would care if MasterCard got hit with a headline like: "MasterCard processed payments for Very Bad People for months/years!". Layperson: Guess I'm calling my congressman and switching to Visa! I assume MasterCard would (a) retain some very good PR firms to assist with keeping their image clean and (b) distance themselves from any…
Would they though? I very rarely consider which credit card processor I'm using - it's what card has the best interest/rewards/whatever, or what logo does my personal bank use on their debit cards. It's not like I can go to my bank and say "I'm done with the mastercard debit card, give me your visa debit card please"
Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, in this particular case huge companies did make changes on the basis of this newspaper column. It's not common, but it's what happened here. It was an incredibly visible and influential accusation that seemingly came out of nowhere from arguably the most prestigious newspaper in the country, and legitimate businesses like PornHub and MasterCard are terrified of brand association with child porn and sex traf…
> businesses like PornHub and MasterCard are terrified of brand association with child porn and sex trafficking With PornHub that makes sense because the type of content they provide is the crux of their businesss. But does anyone care or know what MasterCard is associated with? I would not even think to blame PG&E for providing electricity, even if the recipient turned out to be doing some super illegal things with…
I feel like the better comparison is what happened with Craigslist and Backpage. Their elevator pitch business model sounded legit but anyone that sniffed around knew what the site was predominantly focused on. CL was more diversified in terms of site usage, revenue, etc and could easily just ban adult services when the heat turned up. Backpage was just a front for sex work. There was no material classifieds business beyond adult services. A small percentage which could potentially be of the trafficked variety that brought on the heat. They made some dumb choices that contributed to their demise but only because of the bullseye that was put on them by the trafficking rhetoric. It feels to me like OF has either been told an investigation is occurring/likely to occur and is trying to soften any future blows -or- they are just being proactive knowing that this risk is present and would kill their company if it came down to it.
Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more complex than that. For one thing the current porn industry does have some ethical issues. Even people not opposed to pornography per se have issues. But beyond that, the zealously anti-porn crowd isn't just Christians. It's something of an unholy alliance -- you have more than a few ultra-woke, a smattering of the Q crowd type, and of course the good ol' fashioned core of Catholic and Baptist types. Plus no…
I love that every time Christianity is brought up on HN someone throws out the Q crowd. I have chatted with a number of Q people and they were not Christians and non of them were for restricting porn, that is out of their 'scope'. Q on your side is the antifa of the other side, just a name for an nondescript group you disagree with.
I did not think they were. I do think the Q types are a moral-religious movement, or moral reference framework, of some kind in many ways. Perhaps sucked up by the void caused by the decline of mainstream Christianity in America. Just as the far-left progressive equality crowd (antifa, if you will) can be at times. That's why I made the comparisons.
Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the same crap as the ad-pocalypse. Journalists with an agenda use a disingenuous tactic, if they have a problem with a person or entity, they'll call up their sponsors, business partners, vendors, etc, and say "we're writing an article on X's platform which has been found to have (controversial material framed in a negative context), are we to believe that you're supportive and would your company care to comment…
No. If a journalist asking uncomfortable questions about your business endangers your business, then the problem is not the journalist, the problem is your business. If a journalist blows a story out of proportion, then usually nothing happens and the story is forgotten after a few months. But in the porn hub story, the uncomfortable truth is that there was a lot of involuntary porn on the platform. The NYT story jus…
"If a journalist blows a story out of proportion, then usually nothing happens and the story is forgotten after a few months."
This heavily depends on the audience. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics) or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus
Re: A lot of people are getting the OnlyFans story wrong
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the same crap as the ad-pocalypse. Journalists with an agenda use a disingenuous tactic, if they have a problem with a person or entity, they'll call up their sponsors, business partners, vendors, etc, and say "we're writing an article on X's platform which has been found to have (controversial material framed in a negative context), are we to believe that you're supportive and would your company care to comment…
Defending CP and revenge porn is such an odd hill to die on. Please tell me what was wrong about the NYT's opinion piece? That it painted a visceral picture of a literal child whose exploitations continued to be put on PornHub to profit off of? You give a lot of generic accusations without anything substantial. Are you upset that companies now have to answer for their actions? Why is that a bad thing? A private compa…
To play the devil's advocate. Let's say a columnist in the WSJ wrote a piece with a bunch of first hand stories of people who were murdered by ex-cons who had been released early. And as a result the decarceration movement was stalled. Would you be okay with that? Anecdote focused reporting is very manipulative. Aggregate statistics matter. Context matters. Knock on effects matter.