301–310 of 457 posts
I'm sorry, but blaming all this on a NYT opinion piece is idiotic.
The payment processors banned MindGeek soon after that NYT article. Do you think that was a coincidence? MasterCard's new rules appear to be a direct response to the concerns the article raised. Is that coincidental?
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A generic argument: prostitution allows woman without any skills to earn plenty of money which might convince women do go this way even if they don't really enjoy it. The same argument could be made about IT. Prostitutes sell their private parts, programmers sell their brains.
One aspect I find frightening about interpreting prositution as a "real job" is that women could be denied unemployment benifits if they reject a job that would involve them selling their body and their consent. > The same argument could be made about IT. Prostitutes sell their private parts, programmers sell their brains. I don't think this works, because a brain is a "tool" used to "produce" a service, while a pros…
Imagine vegan denying butcher work. It's not wildly different, I guess? I think that laws should allow some flexibility in choosing work, when it comes to unemployment benefits. And questionable jobs should not even be offered.
Looking forward to when (aptly-named) MasterCard will ban those other networks that put young girls often less than 13 in a behavioral treadmill of entertaining other users with their photos for pithy "likes" that don't even translate to monetary rewards. Should I hold my breath?
Being r-ped is as normal and consequential as posing for an advertisement or dancing in a TikTok, is what you're saying?
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All it took was one useful billionaire... https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1s9f698vwhczr...
> Mickelwait, however, says there was a “fatal flaw in that they put a download button on every video.” Under current law, any site that transfers pornographic content is responsible for verifying the age of the people in it. > “Because they had a download button that actually transfers from their servers onto the devices of millions — I think it was up to 130 million a day in 2020 — of visitors to the site, they hav…
I'm not sure if this has been tested in courts, but there seems to be a legal theory that a streaming function corresponds to broadcasting (only creating transient copies, if any, by default) while a download function corresponds to publication (creating a permanent copy by default). I'm not sure which definitions apply to 2257, but US copyright law says that copies are "material objects [...] in which a work is fixed". So if your system is only designed to transfer into volatile/transient storage, you can apparently argue that you're not responsible for creating copies. I suspect a similar distinction is being made here.
> Edit: This article is also interesting in that it characterizes Mickelwait as a "human rights activist" without mentioning Mickelwait basically being the COO of Exodus Cry, which is an anti-gay/abortion/LGBTQ group among other things.
This kind of laundering is common in opinionated outlets, and ostensibly neutral ones aren't immune either. Keep an eye out for sources being described with phrases like "concerned parent" or "concerned resident", for example.
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If a girl goes from Instagram to OnlyFans willingly and is getting paid...why should anyone judge her or care? How is that any different from her making videos about video games or revising books and making money?
You are asking the difference if my 18 year old daughter posts pics of her butthole that will be on the internet for life, versus making videos about video games? I think she is more likely to potentially regret the butthole pics vs the video game videos being out there on the web for life.
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There's a difference between asking uncomfortable questions and asking loaded questions that misrepresent reality. The description of the CSAM & revenge porn issue in mainstream media painted the picture that this was a substantial portion of the site's content. In reality few would ever encounter such content, and PornHub did everything feasible to try and remove and report it. No joke, outlets highlighted the fact…
> ...and PornHub did everything feasible to try and remove and report it. That's demonstrably not true, since PornHub did do more in response to the mainstream media coverage (e.g. finally require some kind of age verification for uploaders and purge unverified content). The only way they could be contextualized to have done "everything feasible" is within a fundamentally flawed model that they created, but it's prec…
To be even more pedantic, they still haven't done everything they can do: they could shut down their whole site and eliminate 100% of illegal material with 100% confidence. Which, I suspect, is the goal of those propping up the narrative that PornHub was some sort of wild west where child pornography was welcome.
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Maybe we should get a law passed making it illegal to fund any non-profit church with a credit card...
In the churches of which I've been a member, most tithes and donations come in cash. More orthodox Christians won't even have credit cards because the consumerist nature is contrary to scripture.
It was informative and then it started stuff like this: > Almost the entire anti-trafficking movement is an Evangelical project to get liberal supporters to sign off on a laundry list of Christian anti-sex policies. It’s been one of their most successful propaganda projects. It’s also likely gotten a lot of sex workers killed. I'm libertarian, do what you want with your body or money but know the risks. That said, so…
It's also source-free. Love the flourish at the end with the typical third-wave male feminist line of "this has [probably] gotten sex workers killed" when what really kills sex workers is violent men and poverty/drugs.
That said, OP's claims on the concealed religious motivation and the negative effects of current sex work policies on consenting workers are essentially true.[1]
The president of the Adult Performance Artist Guild has written about the negative consequences of MasterCard's restrictive policies for performers ("I have received numerous reports of workers being removed and having no way to pay the bills because their income was taken away").[2]
Unfortunately sex work research shows that closing sites like Backpage does reduce the capabilities of sex workers: "the financial situation of the vast majority of research participants has deteriorated, as has their ability to access community and screen clients".[3]
Groups seeking to eliminate sex work often present misleading information and advocate policies that make sex work harder but not safer. There are policies that can improve safety and consent without harming consenting sex workers, but those policies need to be created with context and measurable consequences in mind, not sensationalism.
[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war...
[2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/porn-world-we-are-sick-of-mast...
[3] https://antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/atrjournal/artic...
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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"
> it's what [credit] card has the best interest/rewards/whatever ...and doesn't have a reputation in the toilet. Would you get a SatanCard(tm)? Generous 10% cash back rewards but we make our money by extorting the elderly, killing kids, addicting adolescents to hard drugs, profiteering on pollution in your hometown, kicking puppies on video, and if you die we come after your family for the money, regardless of local…
Postcultrev says the rules about proving consent etc make it a lot harder for small indie producers. But is it really that hard for them to prove consent and identity for a small number of performers? I suspect that’s a lot harder for a bigger platform, right?
"Think of the suffering, destitute indie producers!" is sex-positive activsts' way of turning liberals, usually sympathetic to the exploited, into pro-capitalist libertarians on the topic of porn/prostitution specifically
That propaganda tactic is probably more effective in that area than any other, but it's not exclusive to it. It's basically an attempt to hide a large system of exploitation in the shadow behind a very narrow sympathetic story, and that's standard operating procedure for people who create those exploitative systems (see also: gig work, child labor, etc.).