MasterCard to stop processing payments on Pornhub, cites unlawful content(reuters.com)
reuters.com
MasterCard to stop processing payments on Pornhub, cites unlawful content
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pornhub-mastercard/mastercard-to-stop-processing-payments-on-pornhub-cites-unlawful-content-idUSKBN28K30C
345 comments
Agree. My hunch is that the US government is using money laundering and “know your customer” laws to force payment processors to play cops.
I’ve long hated money laundering and “know your customer” laws for many reasons. They’re a giant privacy violation. And for what? These laws measurably don’t work to stop big banks from financing terrorism and human trafficking. There are several reasons they don’t work. One is that, the DOJ will come down hard on small American businesses but refuses to actually investigate or prosecute large, offshore companies. They also can’t work because the vast majority of money laundering happens with cash. Even if these laws could meaningfully reduce money laundering, who does that benefit? The vast majority of money laundering is for victimless crimes, including the consensual adult sales of drugs, gambling, porn, and prostitution. These laws simply work to give large incumbents a regulatory advantage over their competitors.
I’ve long hated money laundering and “know your customer” laws for many reasons. They’re a giant privacy violation. And for what? These laws measurably don’t work to stop big banks from financing terrorism and human trafficking. There are several reasons they don’t work. One is that, the DOJ will come down hard on small American businesses but refuses to actually investigate or prosecute large, offshore companies. They also can’t work because the vast majority of money laundering happens with cash. Even if these laws could meaningfully reduce money laundering, who does that benefit? The vast majority of money laundering is for victimless crimes, including the consensual adult sales of drugs, gambling, porn, and prostitution. These laws simply work to give large incumbents a regulatory advantage over their competitors.
Not just a hunch, actual US policy: "Operation Choke Point" was a 2013 inititative by the DoJ to hurt legal but unpopular businesses (e.g. payday lenders, tobacco, firearm dealers, and - yes - pornographers) by making it harder for banks to provide services to them.
I am curious, if such an operation exists, then does it stand to reason that perhaps they have agent provocateurs that post illicit content, then report it to the banks to disrupt the service?
No need in the case of PH. It's already full of illegal content and getting caught would sabotage KYC regulations for years.
> "Operation Choke Point" was a 2013 inititative by the DoJ to hurt legal but unpopular businesses (...) by making it harder for banks to provide services to them.
Honest question: can the US goverent stop anyone from launching their banking/payment services?
Honest question: can the US goverent stop anyone from launching their banking/payment services?
Probably not. I think what would stop you would be the mountain of regulations required to be a payment provider and tie the networks required for ACH and other types of transfers. And then of course, you need the relationships with all the other banks and so you are really back at square one. Now you are in the same position Mastercard is in.
> the vast majority of money laundering happens with cash
Can you explain that? How do I take my illegal gained cash and convert it into enough clean money to buy a house? And why can't anti-money-laundering laws and agencies stop that?
> The vast majority of money laundering is for victimless crimes, including the consensual adult sales of drugs, gambling, porn, and prostitution
There's two things here. There is not believing that these crimes should be crimes- and in that, you and I likely agree. But the other thing is whether criminals should be allowed to make money for doing things that are against the law. And I don't agree.
If you think the laws should be changed, vote for that, fight for that, protest for that. But don't tell me that all criminals should be allowed to clean their money because some laws aren't just.
Can you explain that? How do I take my illegal gained cash and convert it into enough clean money to buy a house? And why can't anti-money-laundering laws and agencies stop that?
> The vast majority of money laundering is for victimless crimes, including the consensual adult sales of drugs, gambling, porn, and prostitution
There's two things here. There is not believing that these crimes should be crimes- and in that, you and I likely agree. But the other thing is whether criminals should be allowed to make money for doing things that are against the law. And I don't agree.
If you think the laws should be changed, vote for that, fight for that, protest for that. But don't tell me that all criminals should be allowed to clean their money because some laws aren't just.
The best explanation of money laundering is this scene from Breaking Bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez6xH-su2xI
Most money that people make illegally (selling drugs, etc.) is cash, because you can’t trace cash transactions. The problem is that it’s hard to use cash, and just depositing vast sums of money in the bank raises the obvious question of where the money came from. At some point, even if they can’t prove that the money came from anything illicit, they can prove that you aren’t paying income taxes on it, which is a federal felony by itself.
So you need to operate a business that also deals largely in cash, slip your illicit cash into the businesses’ revenue, cook the books and make it look like the money came from your legitimate business and not your illegitimate one, and Bob’s your uncle, at least in theory. In practice, legitimate cash businesses are more and more rare as time goes on, and investigators are really good at noticing when some random nail salon or bar has a lot more revenue than they should.
Also, don’t be stupid enough to operate your illegal business out of your legal, money-laundering front. Seattle used to have an extremely sketchy but extremely good cash-only teriyaki joint downtown, but they got busted for fencing stolen iPads after hours. Which explains a lot about why they never accepted credit cards, I guess, but they were a thriving teriyaki joint and I kind of miss them.
Most money that people make illegally (selling drugs, etc.) is cash, because you can’t trace cash transactions. The problem is that it’s hard to use cash, and just depositing vast sums of money in the bank raises the obvious question of where the money came from. At some point, even if they can’t prove that the money came from anything illicit, they can prove that you aren’t paying income taxes on it, which is a federal felony by itself.
So you need to operate a business that also deals largely in cash, slip your illicit cash into the businesses’ revenue, cook the books and make it look like the money came from your legitimate business and not your illegitimate one, and Bob’s your uncle, at least in theory. In practice, legitimate cash businesses are more and more rare as time goes on, and investigators are really good at noticing when some random nail salon or bar has a lot more revenue than they should.
Also, don’t be stupid enough to operate your illegal business out of your legal, money-laundering front. Seattle used to have an extremely sketchy but extremely good cash-only teriyaki joint downtown, but they got busted for fencing stolen iPads after hours. Which explains a lot about why they never accepted credit cards, I guess, but they were a thriving teriyaki joint and I kind of miss them.
> So you need to operate a business that also deals largely in cash, slip your illicit cash into the businesses’ revenue, cook the books and make it look like the money came from your legitimate business and not your illegitimate one, and Bob’s your uncle, at least in theory. In practice, legitimate cash businesses are more and more rare as time goes on, and investigators are really good at noticing when some random nail salon or bar has a lot more revenue than they should.
I actually worked for 8 months as an intern at Fintrac, Canada's financial intel agency. This was 14 years ago now, but back then they were actually pretty good at what they did, for a group with ~300 people. They just had analysts going through vast amounts of data manually, but with plans to improve the tooling, automate more. I can only guess at how far along they've come now.
The reality is, if you're moving more money than you should you'll get it caught eventually. And the more you're moving, the more likely you are to be noticed.
I actually worked for 8 months as an intern at Fintrac, Canada's financial intel agency. This was 14 years ago now, but back then they were actually pretty good at what they did, for a group with ~300 people. They just had analysts going through vast amounts of data manually, but with plans to improve the tooling, automate more. I can only guess at how far along they've come now.
The reality is, if you're moving more money than you should you'll get it caught eventually. And the more you're moving, the more likely you are to be noticed.
Open a bar, pour liquor down the drain then say you sold it at a huge markup and they paid with cash.
(This is not advice.)
(This is not advice.)
Why wouldn't you just sell the liquor like normal? Extra profit on top of your ill-gotten gains.
You need a paper trail of invoices, both of you buying sufficient supplies and having sufficient sales to customers to warrant those supplies.
The amount of money you can launder in a given period of time is ultimately limited by how much real business you have. So if you need to launder an excessive amount of money eventually you’ll have to start metaphorically or literally pouring alcohol down the drain.
The amount of money you can launder in a given period of time is ultimately limited by how much real business you have. So if you need to launder an excessive amount of money eventually you’ll have to start metaphorically or literally pouring alcohol down the drain.
You would, actually. But you need to somehow account for revenue above and beyond the amount of liquor you’ve actually served. So my hypothesis is that money laundering bars just pour stronger drinks than fully legitimate ones, or tolerate more “shrinkage” in general.
(According to a bar manager I once knew, bars inherently have higher shrinkage than other businesses anyway; in bartending, you don’t get fired for stealing the occasional bottle or giving away free drinks to your friends because every bartender will do one of those, but if you do both you will get fired. I don’t consider this guy a reliable source, but it seems plausible; stevedores were notorious for liquor theft prior to the invention of shipping containers, so why not bartenders?)
(According to a bar manager I once knew, bars inherently have higher shrinkage than other businesses anyway; in bartending, you don’t get fired for stealing the occasional bottle or giving away free drinks to your friends because every bartender will do one of those, but if you do both you will get fired. I don’t consider this guy a reliable source, but it seems plausible; stevedores were notorious for liquor theft prior to the invention of shipping containers, so why not bartenders?)
Say you have a big pile of cash you earned through illegal activity. Set up a brick-and-mortar business, say a cafe, and do the bare minimum to run it as a business. Then you say you took a lot of cash, report your earnings to the IRS, and buy your house. It's not really rocket science.
Right, and why wouldn't financial intel agencies notice that?
Every time you move more than $10,000 into or out of a bank account in a 24 hour period (presuming Canada or the US) your bank will report it to your country's financial intel agency.
They notice when a cafe is pulling in far more money than it ought to. Then they hand what they have over to the IRS/CRA, FBI/RCMP, and let them investigate further.
If you're moving any significant sum of money, you're on their radar. And they aren't stupid.
Every time you move more than $10,000 into or out of a bank account in a 24 hour period (presuming Canada or the US) your bank will report it to your country's financial intel agency.
They notice when a cafe is pulling in far more money than it ought to. Then they hand what they have over to the IRS/CRA, FBI/RCMP, and let them investigate further.
If you're moving any significant sum of money, you're on their radar. And they aren't stupid.
The IRS isn’t stupid. They profile and audit those types of businesses at a higher rate.
The real money in is stuff like real estate, which is pretty shady even when legit and much easier to buy and sell
The real money in is stuff like real estate, which is pretty shady even when legit and much easier to buy and sell
How does that work, though? Wouldn’t someone notice if you bought real estate and paid for it with a briefcase full of cash? Wouldn’t you still end up with a legal record of having purchased real estate with more money than you can explain from your declared, taxable income? There has to be some sort of angle for real estate to work.
Not the person you're replying to, but I'm up the chain and interested in this topic.
It's like this: I buy a house for $500,000. What a great deal. A year later, I sell it for $600,000. Hey cool, I made $100,000 profit. Of course, quietly I've handed the original seller a briefcase with $110,000 cash in it. The extra $10k was to keep his mouth shut, but in return I've converted $110,000 of dirty money into $100,000 of clean money.
But maybe it's not just one house- maybe it's 10 houses. Maybe it's a huge mansion worth $5m (which I negotiated a great deal on at $4m). I'm not cleaning the full value of the asset, I'm cleaning some portion of it's value.
What those other parties do with the dirty money is up to them, but it's easier to deal with smaller amounts of it, spread out, than it is to deal with one big pile of dirty money. Maybe they work construction as a general contractor and buy their supplies for jobs using cash, but get paid in clean money. Many hands make short work when it comes to cleaning money.
All that said, every large purchase - homes, cars, boats, etc - leaves a trace. Financial Intel agencies get a report each time you move $10k or more. And if you move too much, too frequently, they start investigating- how come this guy bought 5 houses in 3 years, each one below market value? Sooner or later, someone under questioning by the police gives you up and then it all unravels.
It's like this: I buy a house for $500,000. What a great deal. A year later, I sell it for $600,000. Hey cool, I made $100,000 profit. Of course, quietly I've handed the original seller a briefcase with $110,000 cash in it. The extra $10k was to keep his mouth shut, but in return I've converted $110,000 of dirty money into $100,000 of clean money.
But maybe it's not just one house- maybe it's 10 houses. Maybe it's a huge mansion worth $5m (which I negotiated a great deal on at $4m). I'm not cleaning the full value of the asset, I'm cleaning some portion of it's value.
What those other parties do with the dirty money is up to them, but it's easier to deal with smaller amounts of it, spread out, than it is to deal with one big pile of dirty money. Maybe they work construction as a general contractor and buy their supplies for jobs using cash, but get paid in clean money. Many hands make short work when it comes to cleaning money.
All that said, every large purchase - homes, cars, boats, etc - leaves a trace. Financial Intel agencies get a report each time you move $10k or more. And if you move too much, too frequently, they start investigating- how come this guy bought 5 houses in 3 years, each one below market value? Sooner or later, someone under questioning by the police gives you up and then it all unravels.
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That comment made my day. Those laws are a pain in the ass for Digital Nomads for example which is a growing population.
> Agree. My hunch is that the US government is using money laundering and “know your customer” laws to force payment processors to play cops.
This isn't a hunch, this is entire purpose of KYC and AML. Even something as simple as making a large deposit at the bank is enough to trigger reports going to places that might cause you concern.
This isn't a hunch, this is entire purpose of KYC and AML. Even something as simple as making a large deposit at the bank is enough to trigger reports going to places that might cause you concern.
Look at former Governor Spitzer as an example.
Absolutely, one of the ways the United States projects its power is through financial regulation. If you want to touch our economy in any way, you expose yourself to regulation.
You have a lot of claims there, do you have sources?
AML regulations do plenty, and they start with banks checking for sketchy transactions and not executing them. You can also look up several cases of very large penalties for breaking these laws. The US crushed a couple of Swiss banks a few years back, the longest operating bank which had been going for hundreds of years was effectively shut down by money laundering judgements.
It seems you want to have small financial businesses not be responsible for people using their services to commit crimes... well too bad, I say. You don't get a free pass to aid and abet crime because you're small. Like many things, the business of facilitating financial transactions isn't just keeping a ledger and presenting a nice interface to it... the real meat of the business is accurately keeping transactions on par with regulation and resolving disputes. The obvious part of the business is the easy part, the hard part is what you get paid for.
You have a lot of claims there, do you have sources?
AML regulations do plenty, and they start with banks checking for sketchy transactions and not executing them. You can also look up several cases of very large penalties for breaking these laws. The US crushed a couple of Swiss banks a few years back, the longest operating bank which had been going for hundreds of years was effectively shut down by money laundering judgements.
It seems you want to have small financial businesses not be responsible for people using their services to commit crimes... well too bad, I say. You don't get a free pass to aid and abet crime because you're small. Like many things, the business of facilitating financial transactions isn't just keeping a ledger and presenting a nice interface to it... the real meat of the business is accurately keeping transactions on par with regulation and resolving disputes. The obvious part of the business is the easy part, the hard part is what you get paid for.
Actually I want large banks investigated and prosecuted the way small banks are. Which isn't the case. HSBC laundered billions for terrorists and human traffickers with zero DOJ involovment despite whistleblowers tipping them off. But Charlie Shrem didn't report his bitcoin sale and went to prison. If you think these laws make banking fairer I've got a bridge to sell you.
https://www.corp-research.org/HSBC
Here are billions in fines for HSBC. You can say financial regulators aren’t doing enough, but you can’t say they’re doing nothing.
Where did I say anything about fairness?
There is a problem where prosecutors are rated by success and they only take slam dunk cases. That problem really has nothing to do with the laws themselves,
Here are billions in fines for HSBC. You can say financial regulators aren’t doing enough, but you can’t say they’re doing nothing.
Where did I say anything about fairness?
There is a problem where prosecutors are rated by success and they only take slam dunk cases. That problem really has nothing to do with the laws themselves,
"That problem really has nothing to do with the laws themselves"
The fact that vast swaths of victimless, consensual activity is criminalized is exactly the problem. When enough laws exist to make enforcement an impossibility, selective enforcement becomes the law.
The fact that vast swaths of victimless, consensual activity is criminalized is exactly the problem. When enough laws exist to make enforcement an impossibility, selective enforcement becomes the law.
What exactly are the victimless consentual activities that money laundering laws punish?
Production and distribution of illicit drugs.
> I really wish law enforcement would enfoce laws, and payment processors would process payments.
Funding criminal activity can itself be a crime.
So financial processors who process payments indiscriminately can find themselves in court for the sins of their clients.
Most financial institutions are not willing to bear the expense of legal defense for questionable clientele.
Update: This is similar in a lot of ways to the issues Marijuana retailers have with banking: https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/01/22/...
Funding criminal activity can itself be a crime.
So financial processors who process payments indiscriminately can find themselves in court for the sins of their clients.
Most financial institutions are not willing to bear the expense of legal defense for questionable clientele.
Update: This is similar in a lot of ways to the issues Marijuana retailers have with banking: https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/01/22/...
> Funding criminal activity can itself be a crime.
Yes, it can, but the question is who is going to decide it.
Going with this argument any organization large enough would be criminal.
I am pretty sure that Google and Apple and Facebook and Amazon they somewhere fund or support knowingly or unknowingly some kind of criminal activity.
That doesn't seem to be a problem for payment processors, though.
Neither is a problem that some funky stuff shows on Youtube from time to time which is promptly taken down when somebody reports it.
The question is whether PH did this knowingly and whether it is Mastercard's responsibility to act on it and how much of this is realy up to Mastercard to judge.
If PH is taking down any content that is reported and deactivating accounts then that is basically the same thing as Youtube does and we are now in gray territory when PH is being punished for not being to Mastercard's liking for some reason.
Yes, it can, but the question is who is going to decide it.
Going with this argument any organization large enough would be criminal.
I am pretty sure that Google and Apple and Facebook and Amazon they somewhere fund or support knowingly or unknowingly some kind of criminal activity.
That doesn't seem to be a problem for payment processors, though.
Neither is a problem that some funky stuff shows on Youtube from time to time which is promptly taken down when somebody reports it.
The question is whether PH did this knowingly and whether it is Mastercard's responsibility to act on it and how much of this is realy up to Mastercard to judge.
If PH is taking down any content that is reported and deactivating accounts then that is basically the same thing as Youtube does and we are now in gray territory when PH is being punished for not being to Mastercard's liking for some reason.
Yes, it can, but the question is who is going to decide it.
Going with this argument any organization large enough would be criminal.
Normally what will happen is if the assistance in money laundering or funding criminal activity is incidental or the organization didn't know there was a problem and couldn't be reasonably expected to know, then it's not a crime. But if the organization knows or should have known, then it is. MasterCard is now in the knows or should have known state, so continuing to fund illegal activity could reasonably be considered a crime, at least based on the typical patterns of these laws.
Going with this argument any organization large enough would be criminal.
Normally what will happen is if the assistance in money laundering or funding criminal activity is incidental or the organization didn't know there was a problem and couldn't be reasonably expected to know, then it's not a crime. But if the organization knows or should have known, then it is. MasterCard is now in the knows or should have known state, so continuing to fund illegal activity could reasonably be considered a crime, at least based on the typical patterns of these laws.
The question is then who is doing criminal activity? Is PornHub liable because couple users sneaked something that is illegal? Or is there something we are not aware of and PornHub engaged in it? There is no information on that.
If it is the case that only minority of users are responsible then Youtube is likewise liable and Mastercard should stop serving Youtube knowing that at any point in time Youtube has some users that have illegal content.
It is different to stop payments for illegal activity and stopping payments to a large corporation that has huge user base that has some users engaging in illegal activity.
If it is ok to do that then practically no current large company that has large user base could be served by payment organizations.
If it is the case that only minority of users are responsible then Youtube is likewise liable and Mastercard should stop serving Youtube knowing that at any point in time Youtube has some users that have illegal content.
It is different to stop payments for illegal activity and stopping payments to a large corporation that has huge user base that has some users engaging in illegal activity.
If it is ok to do that then practically no current large company that has large user base could be served by payment organizations.
> The question is then who is doing criminal activity? Is PornHub liable because couple users sneaked something that is illegal? Or is there something we are not aware of and PornHub engaged in it? There is no information on that.
You are missing the point here.
MasterCard doesn't care.
They have zero interest in fighting legal battles to retain PornHub's business.
> If it is the case that only minority of users are responsible then Youtube
YouTube spends a ton of money building extensive controls to catch illegal content and remove it from their platform as quickly as possible. So much so a lot of should be legal content gets sucked up and blocked/ removed.
From the sounds of it, PornHub doesn't have similar controls even as they are in a business which neck deep in potential legal/ ethical challenges.
You are missing the point here.
MasterCard doesn't care.
They have zero interest in fighting legal battles to retain PornHub's business.
> If it is the case that only minority of users are responsible then Youtube
YouTube spends a ton of money building extensive controls to catch illegal content and remove it from their platform as quickly as possible. So much so a lot of should be legal content gets sucked up and blocked/ removed.
From the sounds of it, PornHub doesn't have similar controls even as they are in a business which neck deep in potential legal/ ethical challenges.
> If it is ok to do that then practically no current large company that has large user base could be served by payment organizations.
If this rule was enforced equally, it could be a good thing overall. Yes, it would probably destroy for example YT as it is now and I'm ok with that.
If this rule was enforced equally, it could be a good thing overall. Yes, it would probably destroy for example YT as it is now and I'm ok with that.
It just really depends on the specific laws in question. All I can say is it doesn't seem unreasonable for MasterCard to do some CYA under these circumstances.
All I say is that from the article I only learned some people posted some illegal content and PH removed it and blocked accounts when it was reported to them. If that is the case I believe this is the case of MasterCard using double standards for their clients and probably because public will not vehemently defend a porn site.
> Yes, it can, but the question is who is going to decide it.
The real question (for a business) is whether the profit of doing business with a company is worth the potential liability. In this case, PornHub has a rather high profile legal overhang which makes the liability potentially very high.
> I am pretty sure that Google and Apple and Facebook and Amazon they somewhere fund or support knowingly or unknowingly some kind of criminal activity.
Look at how quickly Google pulls content from YouTube based on the first sniff of a DMCA claim. Businesses have zero interest in fighting a legal battle for a third party.
The real question (for a business) is whether the profit of doing business with a company is worth the potential liability. In this case, PornHub has a rather high profile legal overhang which makes the liability potentially very high.
> I am pretty sure that Google and Apple and Facebook and Amazon they somewhere fund or support knowingly or unknowingly some kind of criminal activity.
Look at how quickly Google pulls content from YouTube based on the first sniff of a DMCA claim. Businesses have zero interest in fighting a legal battle for a third party.
People and companies must every day decide is this legal or not. Eventually courts have the final say, but then it's too late.
Waiting to get conviction is not good way to live or business to operate.
Waiting to get conviction is not good way to live or business to operate.
> Funding criminal activity can itself be a crime.
Yes, but they don't fund crime. They just allow transactions between customers and sellers.
Especially in this case I think it's more appropriate if:
- the payment provider reports to the police
- the police is properly founded and equipped to handle such cases (hint it isn't in most countries I'm aware of).
- If after a initial short "check" the police believes a deeper investigation is adequate the payment provider might have to suspend service (temporary with time limited and telling the porn company why).
I thing this would be much more appropriate.
Furthermore: Requiring manual review of pron material and reasonable proof of consent/age if it's not obvious from the video.
Yes, but they don't fund crime. They just allow transactions between customers and sellers.
Especially in this case I think it's more appropriate if:
- the payment provider reports to the police
- the police is properly founded and equipped to handle such cases (hint it isn't in most countries I'm aware of).
- If after a initial short "check" the police believes a deeper investigation is adequate the payment provider might have to suspend service (temporary with time limited and telling the porn company why).
I thing this would be much more appropriate.
Furthermore: Requiring manual review of pron material and reasonable proof of consent/age if it's not obvious from the video.
> Yes, but they don't fund crime. They just allow transactions between customers and sellers.
No, they are not funding it, my wording was far from perfect.
This is very very similar to why Marijuana retailers have trouble with banking. There are a lot of laws around banking and criminal activity which make banks very averse to dealing with anything that remotely smells criminal.
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/01/22/...
No, they are not funding it, my wording was far from perfect.
This is very very similar to why Marijuana retailers have trouble with banking. There are a lot of laws around banking and criminal activity which make banks very averse to dealing with anything that remotely smells criminal.
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/01/22/...
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//Funding criminal activity can itself be a crime
Depends on what you mean by funding. If payment processor like Mastercard is considered 'funding', so does the 'treasury' if cash is used. the factory that printed the currency bill too? how far do you really want to go with this?
Depends on what you mean by funding. If payment processor like Mastercard is considered 'funding', so does the 'treasury' if cash is used. the factory that printed the currency bill too? how far do you really want to go with this?
I worded that poorly.
I posted a link above which helps explain it above since a few people had questions about this. Fundamentally, if you perform banking activities for criminal activities you open yourself up to a landslide of legal bullshit. Banks want to be as far from that as possible.
I posted a link above which helps explain it above since a few people had questions about this. Fundamentally, if you perform banking activities for criminal activities you open yourself up to a landslide of legal bullshit. Banks want to be as far from that as possible.
SO policing what clients do should be the job of the payment processor instead of police?
Yes, in the same way it's the job of the bartender to check if there are underaged drinkers in the bar and do their due diligence. Delegation of responsibility is necessary because 1. nobody wants to live in a police state because that's what you need if everything would immediately be escalated to law enforcement, 2. the owner of an establishment has domain knowledge that the police does not have, 3. handing the responsibility over to law enforcement would immediately give law enforcement an excuse to have total access to all private matters, harming everyone else's privacy.
Applying your own bartender analogy, in this case pornhub should be properly policing the content made available on their website. Mastercard doesn't have any useful domain knowledge.
They should (as far as they can), and Mastercard should take responsibility as far as they can. Both should take appropriate levels of responsibility given the capacity and scope that they have. I assume Pornhub already does try to directly address child abuse that is obvious from the content, I assume Mastercard can go further and identify child abuse based on known entities in their payment system, and so on. And if both fail, they should delegate information upwards, but only then.
Porn isn’t business any processor wants to be publicly associated with.
If there’s evidence that the site isn’t policing itself, they are gone.
If there’s evidence that the site isn’t policing itself, they are gone.
MC & Visa do business with thousands (millions?) of adult shops in the US. They have no moral compass or concerns about being involved in financial transactions with porn purveyors.
They do have a tremendous aversion to people involved in criminal activity or at high risk of doing so. Once PH started publicly flirting with that threshold they got dumped.
They do have a tremendous aversion to people involved in criminal activity or at high risk of doing so. Once PH started publicly flirting with that threshold they got dumped.
The morality police are the police.
It's a different scope. Porn shops sell product in one place and local authorities deal with that. A bigger entity with interstate impact is a federal matter and penalties are much more severe.
It's a different scope. Porn shops sell product in one place and local authorities deal with that. A bigger entity with interstate impact is a federal matter and penalties are much more severe.
This bartender analogy is terrible...
But in this case, the drunk in question just crashed his car on the street corner just outside the bar and is stumbling up to the bar to get a drink.
Given recent news, it's pretty clear that PornHub's controls on content were terrible. There is little evidence the measures they put in place are sufficient or even that they've effectively purged all media that features underaged or non-consenting participants.
PornHub needs to show they have implemented effective controls over content. Google did it with YouTube. Facebook deals with it. Even this forum has a mechanism for preventing illegal activity.
MasterCard doesn't need domain expertise when there is a smoking gun in public. It's up to PornHub at this point to prove they have effective controls.
But in this case, the drunk in question just crashed his car on the street corner just outside the bar and is stumbling up to the bar to get a drink.
Given recent news, it's pretty clear that PornHub's controls on content were terrible. There is little evidence the measures they put in place are sufficient or even that they've effectively purged all media that features underaged or non-consenting participants.
PornHub needs to show they have implemented effective controls over content. Google did it with YouTube. Facebook deals with it. Even this forum has a mechanism for preventing illegal activity.
MasterCard doesn't need domain expertise when there is a smoking gun in public. It's up to PornHub at this point to prove they have effective controls.
I am breathlessly awaiting MC and VISA to dump Facebook, Instagram and Reddit.
The amount of sex trafficing content there makes pornhub look like a church going virgin.
The amount of sex trafficing content there makes pornhub look like a church going virgin.
I believe you're contradicting yourself.
In your example, if the underage drinkers pay using MasterCard, then it's MCs job to check, as they're doing to pornhub.
MasterCard should stay out of it, as they do in other situations.
In your example, if the underage drinkers pay using MasterCard, then it's MCs job to check, as they're doing to pornhub.
MasterCard should stay out of it, as they do in other situations.
>, if the underage drinkers pay using MasterCard, then it's MCs job to check
no, a bartender is always obligated to verify the age of people who enter their establishment if in doubt, regardless of how they pay. You won't get off the hook selling booze to minors because they pay digitally.
And that is actually very reasonable for the exact reason I pointed out, if it was MC's responsibility they would have an immediate excuse to snoop into my purchasing history for every minor transaction. (which they already have to a far too large degree).
no, a bartender is always obligated to verify the age of people who enter their establishment if in doubt, regardless of how they pay. You won't get off the hook selling booze to minors because they pay digitally.
And that is actually very reasonable for the exact reason I pointed out, if it was MC's responsibility they would have an immediate excuse to snoop into my purchasing history for every minor transaction. (which they already have to a far too large degree).
Aren't you contradicting yourself? In this case pornhub is the bartender, and MC is MC. Here we have a few underage drinkers tricking or convincing a bartender to pour a drink, and MC is stopping payment processing for the bar and you agree that's the right thing?
Its a bad analogy.
If an online liquor store was systematically ignoring ABC laws and shipping booze to underage customers across state lines, MC would probably act in a similar way.
If an online liquor store was systematically ignoring ABC laws and shipping booze to underage customers across state lines, MC would probably act in a similar way.
No, I'm not contradicting myself, I'm saying the level of authority should be appropriate to the issue at hand. Child abuse apparently widespread enough to go beyond Pornhub's already existing moderation implies some responsibility for the payment processors, and also at the end of the day responsibility of the law enforcement. What I'm saying is there is no division of labour in the sense of outsourcing everything to law enforcement, or everything to Pornhub.
Exactly.
MasterCard has nothing to do with verifying the legality of the transaction - pornhub, or whoever, should do their due diligence to validate everything is legal.
MasterCard has nothing to do with verifying the legality of the transaction - pornhub, or whoever, should do their due diligence to validate everything is legal.
Facebook
Reddit
Instagram
Vimeo
Snapchat
CashApp
Venmo
Every single one of these companies has trafficking minors problem. All of them dwarf pornhub's.
Vimeo
Snapchat
CashApp
Venmo
Every single one of these companies has trafficking minors problem. All of them dwarf pornhub's.
You are mistaking the intent of my comment.
I was explaining why banks stay well clear of anything which might be criminal. Whether that is how things should be from an ethical or societal standpoint is a separate question.
Pornhub itself could use a similar defense to what you suggest. Is it their job to police the content instead of the police? If they were hosting content with minors and rape (and it seems highly likely they were), they were profiting from illegal activities.
I'm on the fence. At some point the law should hold people who profit from hurting people liable. While Master Card (or PornHub) were not necessarily active participants here, they both profited from criminal activity.
Where you draw the line is tough.
I was explaining why banks stay well clear of anything which might be criminal. Whether that is how things should be from an ethical or societal standpoint is a separate question.
Pornhub itself could use a similar defense to what you suggest. Is it their job to police the content instead of the police? If they were hosting content with minors and rape (and it seems highly likely they were), they were profiting from illegal activities.
I'm on the fence. At some point the law should hold people who profit from hurting people liable. While Master Card (or PornHub) were not necessarily active participants here, they both profited from criminal activity.
Where you draw the line is tough.
If one is unaware of a customer performing illegal activities it's one thing. That may even be a legal defense that works.
But, if you are aware of a customer using your service to perform illegal activities you can't claim plausible deniability.
But, if you are aware of a customer using your service to perform illegal activities you can't claim plausible deniability.
Not instead of, in addition to. This is no different than expecting employees of a daycare to report criminal activity involving children to the police, or expecting startup employees to report cases of fraud (like in the case of Theranos).
It's not reasonable to expect police to be watching everyone all the time.
It's not reasonable to expect police to be watching everyone all the time.
No, that's not the same at all. MasterCard could report PornHub to the police and still keep them as a customer. The police (well, FBI, probably) could decide what to do from there. They might investigate and find that PH isn't violating any laws. Or maybe they are, and get fined or some of their employees prosecuted. Either way, "this company is doing crimes" should have nothing to do with whether or not they can be MasterCard's customer.
(Ignoring, for a second, KYC-type laws that can make MC criminally liable for not policing their own platform... laws I think are mostly garbage.)
Your analogy doesn't fit, because the current scenario (MC kicking PH off their platform) would be like if a daycare discovered criminal activity involving one of the kids they watch and then refused to watch the kid anymore. (Which would be a bad thing that might make the kid less safe!)
(Ignoring, for a second, KYC-type laws that can make MC criminally liable for not policing their own platform... laws I think are mostly garbage.)
Your analogy doesn't fit, because the current scenario (MC kicking PH off their platform) would be like if a daycare discovered criminal activity involving one of the kids they watch and then refused to watch the kid anymore. (Which would be a bad thing that might make the kid less safe!)
Doesn't a business have the right to decide who they get to do business with? If a business sees a customer doing something they're not comfortable with, don't they have a right to refuse service?
They do, but once you are a certain size, decision you make, create much bigger waves. At that point, 'derisking'(as the banks call it ), can easily alter the economy in unpredictable ways. This is one of the reasons, you typically do not want monopoly/oligopoly in place. MC and VISA already have amazing amount of market power. If they say they won't process your payment, you only have few options left ( wikileaks donations debacle comes to mind ).
We need to distinguish between institutions so big that they are defacto system and institutions that are mere cogs of the system.
Your argument is a good one, but it ignores attributes of the parties.
We need to distinguish between institutions so big that they are defacto system and institutions that are mere cogs of the system.
Your argument is a good one, but it ignores attributes of the parties.
Another example. If you tell anyone at a school (public or private) or a psychiatric professional that you have intent to harm yourself or others they are also required to report it.
They're required to report it, not expel you from school.
MasterCard could similarly report these alleged (alleged!) crimes, while still processing their payments, and avoid damaging someone's business without due process.
MasterCard could similarly report these alleged (alleged!) crimes, while still processing their payments, and avoid damaging someone's business without due process.
False equivalence.
Regulating what happens on your own private platform to ensure compliance with applicable laws is, and always has been, the job of the platform owner. It is not realistic to expect law enforcement to check every platform for compliance under every law.
Even if MC would ultimately win in court, litigation is not cheap and the brand damage alone would be massive.
MC is a massive, trusted financial household name. They would be very publicly fighting for their right to knowingly process payments for a company that is serving illegal sex videos on the largest porn website in the world.
I do not envy the PR agency that would be tasked to spin that one.
Regulating what happens on your own private platform to ensure compliance with applicable laws is, and always has been, the job of the platform owner. It is not realistic to expect law enforcement to check every platform for compliance under every law.
Even if MC would ultimately win in court, litigation is not cheap and the brand damage alone would be massive.
MC is a massive, trusted financial household name. They would be very publicly fighting for their right to knowingly process payments for a company that is serving illegal sex videos on the largest porn website in the world.
I do not envy the PR agency that would be tasked to spin that one.
No. The payment processor just needs to not commit crimes. It's also a crime for an individual to aid and abet the commission of a crime. That obviously doesn't mean "it's my job to police the behavior of every person I come into contact with."
Maybe it shouldn’t be but the laws currently on the books makes some enforcement the payment processors job.
A company should comply with laws. Shutting off payments processing to possibly-illegal clients is a way to prevent potential litigation, which may result in high penalties. This is the corporate legal framework at work.
If you want a company to not have this option, you need to 1) absolve them of the responsibility to know their clients 2) prevent them from arbitrarily cutting off access. If you don't absolve them, it doesn't make sense to prevent them from cutting off access - how else can they comply with their legal responsibilities?
If you want a company to not have this option, you need to 1) absolve them of the responsibility to know their clients 2) prevent them from arbitrarily cutting off access. If you don't absolve them, it doesn't make sense to prevent them from cutting off access - how else can they comply with their legal responsibilities?
How would you know that the activity was criminal before it has been judged in a court?
> How would you know that the activity was criminal before it has been judged in a court?
You don't!
That's where it all gets weird.
There is beyond a doubt a massive amount of illegal activity that flows through MasterCard transactions, but MasterCard can't reasonably detect all of it. But when there is a case like this where your dirty laundry is big public news, suddenly MC can't hide behind plausible deniability.
You don't!
That's where it all gets weird.
There is beyond a doubt a massive amount of illegal activity that flows through MasterCard transactions, but MasterCard can't reasonably detect all of it. But when there is a case like this where your dirty laundry is big public news, suddenly MC can't hide behind plausible deniability.
You can’t always know. That’s why places like PayPal are very heavy handed and over the top with fraud detection. It’s being proactive (whether for good or not).
>> Most financial institutions are not willing to bear the expense of legal defense for questionable clientele.
Which is why banks won't do businesses with legal cannabis dispensaries since on a federal level, its still illegal.
Legalizing cannabis at the federal level would give a large number of dispensaries some relief from this federal oversight of the banking laws.
Which is why banks won't do businesses with legal cannabis dispensaries since on a federal level, its still illegal.
Legalizing cannabis at the federal level would give a large number of dispensaries some relief from this federal oversight of the banking laws.
> Funding criminal activity can itself be a crime.
Is processing payments between two entities equivalent to funding them?
For example, is the post office funding someone if he sends them a letter with cash or a check?
Is processing payments between two entities equivalent to funding them?
For example, is the post office funding someone if he sends them a letter with cash or a check?
Alternately, maybe there shouldn't be a payment processor duopoly and businesses should be allowed to act ethically (within the bounds of the law)?
> maybe there shouldn't be a payment processor duopoly
I agree, but this is another problem even if there is a link, and both are not mutually exclusive
> businesses should be allowed to act ethically (within the bounds of the law)
I don't get your point there. Who forces PornHub to act like they do?
I agree, but this is another problem even if there is a link, and both are not mutually exclusive
> businesses should be allowed to act ethically (within the bounds of the law)
I don't get your point there. Who forces PornHub to act like they do?
Both can be true
> They are certainly free to do business with whomever they please
But should they really? Because I am completely with you in that this is increasingly problematic in a world where certain services are so core to our lives, taking part is increasingly unavoidable and being shut out is actullay a disturbance to ones social or economic life. Considering how lopsided the power balance is, I do not think it is okay for companies to be allowed to in essence randomly terminate accounts and services that are vital for other businesses or private people to function, no matter what is stated in the ToS.
But should they really? Because I am completely with you in that this is increasingly problematic in a world where certain services are so core to our lives, taking part is increasingly unavoidable and being shut out is actullay a disturbance to ones social or economic life. Considering how lopsided the power balance is, I do not think it is okay for companies to be allowed to in essence randomly terminate accounts and services that are vital for other businesses or private people to function, no matter what is stated in the ToS.
Honest question. If you found out your client was making money from child porn would you continue to do business with them?
A quick Google reveals it to be a real problem on Facebook, their properties and their messenger services. 12 million images removed last year: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mnunez/2019/11/13/facebook-inst... - but it hasn't stopped people advertising on FB.
Surely here it's a case of people rolling the two into one - "people who look at/work with porn must be sleazy" - rather than objectively seeing PH as a business that doesn't want illegal content on its platform anymore than FB does?
Surely here it's a case of people rolling the two into one - "people who look at/work with porn must be sleazy" - rather than objectively seeing PH as a business that doesn't want illegal content on its platform anymore than FB does?
If they had been diligently trying to remove them from the website, I don’t see anything wrong with it.
> If they had been diligently trying to remove them from the website, I don’t see anything wrong with it.
But what if their diligent efforts failed or proved to be inadequate, and they still kept their site up?
If there's a fundamental flaw in their model that allowed horrible things to persist despite their efforts, they can't just throw up their hands and continue with the excuse that "they tried." That's a situation where the right thing to do is shut the whole thing down.
But what if their diligent efforts failed or proved to be inadequate, and they still kept their site up?
If there's a fundamental flaw in their model that allowed horrible things to persist despite their efforts, they can't just throw up their hands and continue with the excuse that "they tried." That's a situation where the right thing to do is shut the whole thing down.
Cash also has the fundamental “flaw” of allowing criminal activity to be funded. Should the government stop printing cash?
Encryption has the fundamental “flaw” of allowing terrorists to communicate freely. Should a back door be installed everywhere?
PH doesn’t seem to be throw their hands up, either. They deploy algorithms similar to other social media / video websites to detect illegal content.
I’m not saying PH is definitely doing enough; I can’t possibly know that. But whether their effort is enough should be judged in the court. If they aren’t doing what the law requires them to do, they should be prosecuted.
Encryption has the fundamental “flaw” of allowing terrorists to communicate freely. Should a back door be installed everywhere?
PH doesn’t seem to be throw their hands up, either. They deploy algorithms similar to other social media / video websites to detect illegal content.
I’m not saying PH is definitely doing enough; I can’t possibly know that. But whether their effort is enough should be judged in the court. If they aren’t doing what the law requires them to do, they should be prosecuted.
>> If there's a fundamental flaw in their model that allowed horrible things to persist despite their efforts, they can't just throw up their hands and continue with the excuse that "they tried." That's a situation where the right thing to do is shut the whole thing down.
> Cash also has the fundamental “flaw” of allowing criminal activity to be funded. Should the government stop printing cash?
Your comparisons are apples and oranges to this PornHub situation. It's not a rebuttal to mechanically list other things that might have some associated negative tradeoffs. You have weigh both the severity of the problem, the benefits, and the alternatives.
> PH doesn’t seem to be throw their hands up, either. They deploy algorithms similar to other social media / video websites to detect illegal content.
PornHub has taken a "laissez faire with cleanup" model for their porn uploads, which frankly invites abuse that's difficult to clean up (as the Kristof outlined). That might work for a site like Facebook, which bans porn outright, so it doesn't have to worry so much about the distinction between underage and of-age porn, since it's all forbidden. PornHub's a porn site, however, so their moderation already starts at a disadvantage. A preclearance model (with identity verification), while more expensive, doesn't have the abuse potential of laissez faire; and given the severity of abuse here, is for more appropriate.
> Cash also has the fundamental “flaw” of allowing criminal activity to be funded. Should the government stop printing cash?
Your comparisons are apples and oranges to this PornHub situation. It's not a rebuttal to mechanically list other things that might have some associated negative tradeoffs. You have weigh both the severity of the problem, the benefits, and the alternatives.
> PH doesn’t seem to be throw their hands up, either. They deploy algorithms similar to other social media / video websites to detect illegal content.
PornHub has taken a "laissez faire with cleanup" model for their porn uploads, which frankly invites abuse that's difficult to clean up (as the Kristof outlined). That might work for a site like Facebook, which bans porn outright, so it doesn't have to worry so much about the distinction between underage and of-age porn, since it's all forbidden. PornHub's a porn site, however, so their moderation already starts at a disadvantage. A preclearance model (with identity verification), while more expensive, doesn't have the abuse potential of laissez faire; and given the severity of abuse here, is for more appropriate.
I was not comparing PH to cash. It was not a metaphor.
The parent of my comment has the following reasoning:
1) If a model has a fundamental flaw that allows horrible things to persist despite their effort, the whole thing should be shut down.
2) PH has a model that allows horrible things to persist despite their effort
3) Therefore, PH should shut themselves down
My cash example was a counter-example to 1). I was not saying that PH should definitely not be shutdown, but that the manner the parent came to such a conclusion was flawed.
Specifically for PH, we don't know exactly what's happening on their servers. How many illegal videos have been taken down? How many fell through the cracks? How many accounts have been banned?
That's why I suggested that PH should be challenged in court, where evidence can be presented and an informed conclusion can be made. Otherwise, you are not weighing severity against benefits; you are just weighing your intuitions.
The parent of my comment has the following reasoning:
1) If a model has a fundamental flaw that allows horrible things to persist despite their effort, the whole thing should be shut down.
2) PH has a model that allows horrible things to persist despite their effort
3) Therefore, PH should shut themselves down
My cash example was a counter-example to 1). I was not saying that PH should definitely not be shutdown, but that the manner the parent came to such a conclusion was flawed.
Specifically for PH, we don't know exactly what's happening on their servers. How many illegal videos have been taken down? How many fell through the cracks? How many accounts have been banned?
That's why I suggested that PH should be challenged in court, where evidence can be presented and an informed conclusion can be made. Otherwise, you are not weighing severity against benefits; you are just weighing your intuitions.
Should we take this approach, there would be nothing left, including the internet on which we conversate here. There were these exact arguments present against it.
It's unfortunate but the reality is that every advancement in society can and will be used for illegal and immoral activity. It is a matter of the greater good.
It's unfortunate but the reality is that every advancement in society can and will be used for illegal and immoral activity. It is a matter of the greater good.
That seems excessive. By the same logic we should shut down the Postal Service because they have less than 100% success stopping people from sending child porn through the mail.
It's horrible and unfortunate, but there are a lot of people who actively try and engage in these behaviors and will spend effort to work around and within these systems/moderation efforts. Shutting it down would only cause something else to spring up
I doubt PH is making money from CP. It's probably hard to break down the revenue generated by individual videos, but I'm assuming that what little CP there is on PH is in the unverified user generated pool. Users can't pay for that on PH, and I suspect that if PH makes money in other ways (advertising and whatnot), that the audience watching these videos is not big enough to make them any money.
Straw man. We're talking about copyright infringement, not child porn. Invoking "think of the children" is a cheap way to inflame emotions about a topic to get the knee-jerk reaction you want.
Regardless... it depends. Are they making a good-faith effort to remove that content from their platform, but sometimes come up short? That's to be expected, but I'd want some commitment that they're working to improve. Did they email me and say "hey, we like child porn and making money off of it"? Ok, yeah, then I'd cut them off.
If I suspected something fishy was going on but wasn't sure? I'd report what I knew to the police and let them do a proper investigation. I wouldn't want to destroy someone's business based only on my suspicions. It's not ok for the legal system to do that, so why would it be ok for me to do that? The burden of proof should still be "beyond a reasonable doubt", and the best place to determine that is still the courts, as imperfect as they can be at times.
Regardless... it depends. Are they making a good-faith effort to remove that content from their platform, but sometimes come up short? That's to be expected, but I'd want some commitment that they're working to improve. Did they email me and say "hey, we like child porn and making money off of it"? Ok, yeah, then I'd cut them off.
If I suspected something fishy was going on but wasn't sure? I'd report what I knew to the police and let them do a proper investigation. I wouldn't want to destroy someone's business based only on my suspicions. It's not ok for the legal system to do that, so why would it be ok for me to do that? The burden of proof should still be "beyond a reasonable doubt", and the best place to determine that is still the courts, as imperfect as they can be at times.
"Mastercard Inc and Visa Inc on Thursday stopped processing payments on Pornhub after a New York Times article said many videos posted on the adult website depicted sexual assault of children" Child Porn is explicitly the reason they did this.
Not sure what your point is, here. I was responding to a question about what I would do if I found out that a hypothetical client of mine was making money off child porn.
And regardless, my questions still stand: was PornHub removing those videos promptly when made aware of them, and making a good-faith effort to ensure they didn't get re-uploaded? Article doesn't dive into those details. If they were, I think a private entity taking an action that could cripple their business would be akin to law enforcement shutting them down without due process or the ability to appeal.
Again, it seems "child porn" is just being used as the "can't argue with our actions because think of the children" conversation-ender it's usually used as.
Edit: Re-reading my response, I'm not sure where I got the bit about how we're talking about copyright infringement. Possible I was reading HN a lot that day and got my wires crossed between articles. But I think the rest of my comment stands on its own.
And regardless, my questions still stand: was PornHub removing those videos promptly when made aware of them, and making a good-faith effort to ensure they didn't get re-uploaded? Article doesn't dive into those details. If they were, I think a private entity taking an action that could cripple their business would be akin to law enforcement shutting them down without due process or the ability to appeal.
Again, it seems "child porn" is just being used as the "can't argue with our actions because think of the children" conversation-ender it's usually used as.
Edit: Re-reading my response, I'm not sure where I got the bit about how we're talking about copyright infringement. Possible I was reading HN a lot that day and got my wires crossed between articles. But I think the rest of my comment stands on its own.
We live in a society and basically any enterprise has an obligation to not help another person or enterprise engage in crime - a gun store is obligated to not sell someone a gun if they express an intent to use it to engage in crime.
That said, the issue here is a "fishing expedition". I'm sure Pornhub makes some effort to screen content for illegality but the problem is some still gets through 'cause of scale and costs. I don't know if Pornhub has safe harbor protections or not but I suspect the main target is effectively porn in general.
That said, the issue here is a "fishing expedition". I'm sure Pornhub makes some effort to screen content for illegality but the problem is some still gets through 'cause of scale and costs. I don't know if Pornhub has safe harbor protections or not but I suspect the main target is effectively porn in general.
I think we also have the obligation to not act as judge, jury, and executioner. If we suspect a customer has committed a crime, we should report that, with any evidence we have, to the proper authorities, and let them decide whether there's actually a crime there, or if we're mistaken.
Access to a reliable payments network (of which there are very few in the world, and even fewer in the western world) is required for doing any kind of online business. Whether or not to destroy a business based on their -- alleged! -- illegal activity should be decided by a court, not a corporate legal department.
Unfortunately, there are garbage laws around financial transactions that make MC liable if they don't do their own policing. IMO those laws need to go.
Access to a reliable payments network (of which there are very few in the world, and even fewer in the western world) is required for doing any kind of online business. Whether or not to destroy a business based on their -- alleged! -- illegal activity should be decided by a court, not a corporate legal department.
Unfortunately, there are garbage laws around financial transactions that make MC liable if they don't do their own policing. IMO those laws need to go.
> any enterprise has an obligation to not help another person or enterprise engage in crime
This is true. But the standards applied to financial transactions are way more stringent than other businesses. KYC/AML laws basically create an affirmative obligation for financial institutions to proactively determine whether each and every customer is engaged in illegal activity.
Unlike in other businesses, it's not enough to just say that you weren't aware of your customers intentions. Unless you've taken efforts to affirm that all their activity is legal, you can be criminally liable.
If some guy walks into a bakers and asks, "What's the best cannoli to bring alone to a mob hit", then the baker is obligated not to do business with him. But the equivalent of KYC/AML would require the baker to verify and document that none of the pastries are being used for illegal activity.
This is true. But the standards applied to financial transactions are way more stringent than other businesses. KYC/AML laws basically create an affirmative obligation for financial institutions to proactively determine whether each and every customer is engaged in illegal activity.
Unlike in other businesses, it's not enough to just say that you weren't aware of your customers intentions. Unless you've taken efforts to affirm that all their activity is legal, you can be criminally liable.
If some guy walks into a bakers and asks, "What's the best cannoli to bring alone to a mob hit", then the baker is obligated not to do business with him. But the equivalent of KYC/AML would require the baker to verify and document that none of the pastries are being used for illegal activity.
just like with sesta, that's exactly the target. the uncomfortable reality about sex crimes is they are fundamentally pretty mundane and simple in nature. the abuse is not an international mossad/hollywood pedo cabal stuffing children into armoires or elite cyber diddlers infiltrating your nephew's roblox server. sexual abuse comes from people around you in positions of trust crossing an unforgivable line. in that sense it is utterly unremarkable, it just happens and you either deal with it or you kill yourself, at no point does mastercard have any presence in the interaction.
I’m sure MC would prefer to keep collecting the processing fees with a client of this size — the problem is that there has now been a very public report of illegal practices taking place on the site and MC’s lawyers must think that continuing to process payments on the site could make them vulnerable to criminal or civil penalties.
Would you risk your massive global business for one client? I wouldn’t. I agree that it would be nice to see due process happen first, but I don’t blame companies like MasterCard from proverbially yeeting this stuff away.
Would you risk your massive global business for one client? I wouldn’t. I agree that it would be nice to see due process happen first, but I don’t blame companies like MasterCard from proverbially yeeting this stuff away.
This is more or less how much of the world works already - if you’re in the USA and you’ve heard of FinCEN, that’s what that’s for.
Money moves quickly, often between non-co-operative jurisdictions, often irretrievably. Money laundering activities exploit the points in the payments system where enforcement and traceability are slower and more difficult. Filing suspicious activity reports is all well and good, but enforcement is always a tradeoff between the expense of the prosecution and the prospect of obtaining a conviction.
Meanwhile more than a trillion dollars leaks into the global money laundry annually under the status quo[0]. That’s _with_ the threat of prosecution - and thousands of people working in AML/CTF prevention worldwide.
MC and Visa (JCB, UnionPay...) have to walk an awkward line between consumers’ and businesses’ demands for instantaneous global payments and countervailing demands that consumers be protected from deception, bad business practices and other forms of abuse. The policy is almost always to opt for the ounce of prevention, because most individuals can’t afford a pound of lawsuit.
[0] https://www.un.org/en/desa/tax-abuse-money-laundering-and-co...
Money moves quickly, often between non-co-operative jurisdictions, often irretrievably. Money laundering activities exploit the points in the payments system where enforcement and traceability are slower and more difficult. Filing suspicious activity reports is all well and good, but enforcement is always a tradeoff between the expense of the prosecution and the prospect of obtaining a conviction.
Meanwhile more than a trillion dollars leaks into the global money laundry annually under the status quo[0]. That’s _with_ the threat of prosecution - and thousands of people working in AML/CTF prevention worldwide.
MC and Visa (JCB, UnionPay...) have to walk an awkward line between consumers’ and businesses’ demands for instantaneous global payments and countervailing demands that consumers be protected from deception, bad business practices and other forms of abuse. The policy is almost always to opt for the ounce of prevention, because most individuals can’t afford a pound of lawsuit.
[0] https://www.un.org/en/desa/tax-abuse-money-laundering-and-co...
Since users are essentially allowed to upload their own videos, and Section 230 prevents online distributors from being held liable for the content produced on their site, they aren't doing anything illegal by hosting these videos depicting underage women or sexual assault.
Sometimes the only way to force a company to change is to use the market to force them to change. Attack their advertisers or payment processors and force them to do something.
Sometimes the only way to force a company to change is to use the market to force them to change. Attack their advertisers or payment processors and force them to do something.
This is just plain wrong. Section 230(e)(1) [0]:
> Nothing in this section shall be construed to impair the enforcement of section 223 or 231 of this title, chapter 71 (relating to obscenity) or 110 (relating to sexual exploitation of children) of title 18, or any other Federal criminal statute.
[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
> Nothing in this section shall be construed to impair the enforcement of section 223 or 231 of this title, chapter 71 (relating to obscenity) or 110 (relating to sexual exploitation of children) of title 18, or any other Federal criminal statute.
[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
Websites have been shut down for users uploading copyrighted materials. People have been hunted to the end of the earth (well, New Zealand) for it. And you're saying that law enforcement can't take legal action against child pornography or rape? That's ... bleak, troubling, and hopefully wrong.
> I really wish law enforcement would enfoce laws, and payment processors would process payments.
I'm usually on the same page. But it is really hard to feel sorry for Pornhub, they're not Good Guys. The whole normalisation of porn is not a net win for our civilisation. OnlyFans is a relationship simulator for lonely men and as such exploitative. Using the gray corporate term "sex work" mis-characterises the soul-sucking debasedness of it all. It turns everyone into a consumer along its path, and the effects it has on gender relations and family formation are devastating. But I'm fully aware this is a minority opinion on HN.
I'm usually on the same page. But it is really hard to feel sorry for Pornhub, they're not Good Guys. The whole normalisation of porn is not a net win for our civilisation. OnlyFans is a relationship simulator for lonely men and as such exploitative. Using the gray corporate term "sex work" mis-characterises the soul-sucking debasedness of it all. It turns everyone into a consumer along its path, and the effects it has on gender relations and family formation are devastating. But I'm fully aware this is a minority opinion on HN.
Paying for porn is a good thing. Platforms where money goes directly to content creators are the best way of going about that. But even PH is pretty good at paying artists who use their platform.
What PH is really bad at is content moderation. Should they improve that? Absolutely. Is this grounds for legal action? Maybe it is. Is this a good reason to boycott them as an individual? Go for it! But is this a reason for a payment processor to get involved? I think it's not. But you're free to disagree.
As for "soul-sucking debasedness", please stop imposing your sense of morality onto others. Yes, there are some people who are forced into porn for various reasons, and we as a society should try to prevent that -- just like we should try to prevent all kinds of abuses. But there are many people who enjoy working as porn stars. Don't judge them.
What PH is really bad at is content moderation. Should they improve that? Absolutely. Is this grounds for legal action? Maybe it is. Is this a good reason to boycott them as an individual? Go for it! But is this a reason for a payment processor to get involved? I think it's not. But you're free to disagree.
As for "soul-sucking debasedness", please stop imposing your sense of morality onto others. Yes, there are some people who are forced into porn for various reasons, and we as a society should try to prevent that -- just like we should try to prevent all kinds of abuses. But there are many people who enjoy working as porn stars. Don't judge them.
> But there are many people who enjoy working as porn stars. Don't judge them.
If tolerance is the highest value, you have arrived at the end of values itself, because everything must be acceptable. I do not subscribe to that point of view. I do not applaud that which I find to be destructive for a world worth living in.
If tolerance is the highest value, you have arrived at the end of values itself, because everything must be acceptable. I do not subscribe to that point of view. I do not applaud that which I find to be destructive for a world worth living in.
Yes, sex work can be "exploitative", "debasing", "soul-sucking" etc. So can all work.
And more importantly, it doesn't have to be any of those negative things. Sex work and pornography can be enjoyable for people on all sides of the equation. The fact that it often isn't is a problem to fix, not a reason to brutally narrow our perspective on what's acceptable in the realm of sex and sexuality.
And more importantly, it doesn't have to be any of those negative things. Sex work and pornography can be enjoyable for people on all sides of the equation. The fact that it often isn't is a problem to fix, not a reason to brutally narrow our perspective on what's acceptable in the realm of sex and sexuality.
> Sex work and pornography can be enjoyable for people on all sides of the equation.
Yes. This is not the limit of my criticism, far from it. There is a world of difference between sleeping with 15 truckers a night, ie physical prostitution, and a middle-class student selling nudes on OnlyFans. The problems with the middle-class version of prostitution are the second order effects. I briefly touched on those in another reply in this thread.
Yes. This is not the limit of my criticism, far from it. There is a world of difference between sleeping with 15 truckers a night, ie physical prostitution, and a middle-class student selling nudes on OnlyFans. The problems with the middle-class version of prostitution are the second order effects. I briefly touched on those in another reply in this thread.
The "difference" you are describing is loaded (LOADED) with your own biases and narrow point of view. There are young students selling nudes online and feeling tremendous shame and grief about it that could cause them significant harm later in life. There are sex workers plowing through 15 truckers every night and considering it a hard night's work, but it's a living! The profound diversity of human experience should never can sometimes be unimaginable, but I encourage you to try and imagine.
> There are young students selling nudes online and feeling tremendous shame and grief about it that could cause them significant harm later in life.
1. They don't feel "tremendous shame and grief about it", you're just projecting. They wouldn't be doing it in the first place if that was the case, at least for the middle-class ones that I'm talking about.
2. The "significant harm later in life" does not stem from the (imaginary) shame & grief, it comes from the discovery when they inevitably hit The Wall that no high-quality mate wants to marry them, and that they have tarnished their reputation forever for a short-lived boost in income and attention that is guaranteed to fade one day. The progressive culture and their friends will tell them about "sex positivity" and that prostitution is just "sex work" like any other work, which it isn't. You will not agree to that of course, "I don't own her body haha".
If there is one thing to take away, let it be this: look at the people around you and their relationships, and observe what works and what doesn't. Don't theorize, don't moralize, don't judge, just observe and make up your own mind.
1. They don't feel "tremendous shame and grief about it", you're just projecting. They wouldn't be doing it in the first place if that was the case, at least for the middle-class ones that I'm talking about.
2. The "significant harm later in life" does not stem from the (imaginary) shame & grief, it comes from the discovery when they inevitably hit The Wall that no high-quality mate wants to marry them, and that they have tarnished their reputation forever for a short-lived boost in income and attention that is guaranteed to fade one day. The progressive culture and their friends will tell them about "sex positivity" and that prostitution is just "sex work" like any other work, which it isn't. You will not agree to that of course, "I don't own her body haha".
If there is one thing to take away, let it be this: look at the people around you and their relationships, and observe what works and what doesn't. Don't theorize, don't moralize, don't judge, just observe and make up your own mind.
I was using hypotheticals to make a point, pedant.
How does one make a point with made-up hypotheticals?
The whole normalisation of porn is not a net win for our civilisation
It doesn't matter.
Or rather, if the only idea you have for solution to the situation is repression, it doesn't matter what you think of the impact of porn because you're not going to stop it, you're just going to create "porn and repression, together" just like the war on drugs created drugs and repression together.
Guns and small pox weren't net wins for a lot of societies they were introduced in but once things start with certain processes, you kind of need to find mitigation, not a heavy handed repression.
And sure, a better for people to relate together than exists currently would be great but shoving the genie back in the bottle isn't going to it.
It doesn't matter.
Or rather, if the only idea you have for solution to the situation is repression, it doesn't matter what you think of the impact of porn because you're not going to stop it, you're just going to create "porn and repression, together" just like the war on drugs created drugs and repression together.
Guns and small pox weren't net wins for a lot of societies they were introduced in but once things start with certain processes, you kind of need to find mitigation, not a heavy handed repression.
And sure, a better for people to relate together than exists currently would be great but shoving the genie back in the bottle isn't going to it.
It is interesting that you equate the consumption of porn to a physically addictive substance. Also, that you equate the existence of the porn industry with a virus such as small pox, and claim that it is equally impossible to get rid of. I don't think either of these is true. Why do you think it is?
You also paint the picture of a new porn-DEA. I don't know what to say to that, except that I don't favour Sharia Law.
I posit that the ever expanding scope of liberalism with regards to intra-sex dynamics is the (or, at one of the) causes of much despair and grief, because they inhibit pair-bonding, family formation and are deeply non-lindy for various reasons. We see this in the number of older women taking anti-depressives, we see this in levels of male celibacy unprecedent since the middle ages, and collapsing populations all over the western world. None of these questions and dilemmas are new, they are as old as time. The idea that the rules have suddenly become invalid is naive at best, and destructive at worst. This will be non-obvious if you approach this from the viewpoint of enlightenment philosophy. It will become quite obvious if take the historical perspective on human behaviour and how societies function.
You also paint the picture of a new porn-DEA. I don't know what to say to that, except that I don't favour Sharia Law.
I posit that the ever expanding scope of liberalism with regards to intra-sex dynamics is the (or, at one of the) causes of much despair and grief, because they inhibit pair-bonding, family formation and are deeply non-lindy for various reasons. We see this in the number of older women taking anti-depressives, we see this in levels of male celibacy unprecedent since the middle ages, and collapsing populations all over the western world. None of these questions and dilemmas are new, they are as old as time. The idea that the rules have suddenly become invalid is naive at best, and destructive at worst. This will be non-obvious if you approach this from the viewpoint of enlightenment philosophy. It will become quite obvious if take the historical perspective on human behaviour and how societies function.
The whole normalisation of porn is not a net win for our civilisation.
Is porn/sex work really being "normalized" in a historically contextual way? Outside of about the last seventy years (maybe less), prostitution and sex work were extremely common, and, compared with the modern era, basically not criminalized. I'm not aware of a body of research that demonstrates a causal relationship between the consumption of porn and any social ill. I'm also not sure if I feel like I'm in a position to decide if OnlyFans customers would be better off without that outlet.
Is porn/sex work really being "normalized" in a historically contextual way? Outside of about the last seventy years (maybe less), prostitution and sex work were extremely common, and, compared with the modern era, basically not criminalized. I'm not aware of a body of research that demonstrates a causal relationship between the consumption of porn and any social ill. I'm also not sure if I feel like I'm in a position to decide if OnlyFans customers would be better off without that outlet.
Video content that people can consume in the privacy of their own home has only really existed for 50 years or so.
The theory being that video porn is substantially more harmful than actual use of prostitution services? It doesn't seem impossible, but I'd want to see some stronger evidence.
It’s certainly different in some relevant ways. Actual use of prostitution services requires money (which limits how much you can consume, unlike online porn), requires interacting face-to-face with other human beings and sometimes even leaving the house.
There’s also a dynamic where people quickly get bored with porn and start consuming increasingly extreme or fringe porn to get the same satisfaction which I think is new. To clarify, kinks aren’t new, but just like political extremism, the internet is much better at radicalizing people into them.
I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, and I’m somewhat libertarian on the issue if only out of resignation, but I think that online pornography is extremely new and unprecedented and may indeed be very detrimental to society.
There’s also a dynamic where people quickly get bored with porn and start consuming increasingly extreme or fringe porn to get the same satisfaction which I think is new. To clarify, kinks aren’t new, but just like political extremism, the internet is much better at radicalizing people into them.
I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, and I’m somewhat libertarian on the issue if only out of resignation, but I think that online pornography is extremely new and unprecedented and may indeed be very detrimental to society.
Yeah. I can see how the hypothesis forms. I feel like it's going to be extremely difficult to tease out what is actually caused by porn and what is caused by increased screen time, changing economic conditions, and changing non-porn cultural norms. So many confounding variables. Is porn use causative (of whatever) or is it just a biased selector?
Anecdote of one, but I use it not infrequently and still have a healthy and fun sexual relationship with my spouse. Managed to produce two children and participate positively in society too. I may be baised, but I think I'm at most 25% degenerate. That being said, maybe I'll try going without for a while and see whether it has any effect.
Anecdote of one, but I use it not infrequently and still have a healthy and fun sexual relationship with my spouse. Managed to produce two children and participate positively in society too. I may be baised, but I think I'm at most 25% degenerate. That being said, maybe I'll try going without for a while and see whether it has any effect.
> The whole normalisation of porn is not a net win for our civilisation.
Sources?
Also you seem to let's assume unintentionally mixing porn with its production modes, its ecosystem, all of its problems, plus the mental health problems of rich men, and so on.
Sources?
Also you seem to let's assume unintentionally mixing porn with its production modes, its ecosystem, all of its problems, plus the mental health problems of rich men, and so on.
You could make the same argument about so many different things. E-cigarettes or junk food is not a net win for civilization. What about addictions to video gaming? Donating to political parties that you think are against progress?
It boils down to the fact that you're wanting to let opinions on "how things should be" steer availability of core economic infrastructure, rather than relying on the legal system which is more properly setup to come to these conclusions.
It boils down to the fact that you're wanting to let opinions on "how things should be" steer availability of core economic infrastructure, rather than relying on the legal system which is more properly setup to come to these conclusions.
Nah I just said its hard to feel sorry for them. I don't think payment providers should be politically partial.
EDIT Oh PornHub is now implementing the following measures:
a.) allow uploads only from verified users;
b.) no downloads;
c.) improvements in moderation
Maybe I'm actually for this then. Apparently this is what it takes.
EDIT Oh PornHub is now implementing the following measures:
a.) allow uploads only from verified users;
b.) no downloads;
c.) improvements in moderation
Maybe I'm actually for this then. Apparently this is what it takes.
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Yeah, sex is just another thing to be commodified. Eventually it might be difficult to have sex without someone making a profit.
To be fair, sex has been a commodity since... probably before humans evolved sapience, since sex trades exist among other primate species. There's a reason the "world's oldest profession" is what it is.
This is a minority opinion, but I very much agree.
https://fightthenewdrug.org has the data. I'd be curious to understand data or reasoning that makes a compelling argument for the contrary ("porn is great or neutral for society").
https://fightthenewdrug.org has the data. I'd be curious to understand data or reasoning that makes a compelling argument for the contrary ("porn is great or neutral for society").
This is why so many people are so gungho about crypto.
Make no mistake, crypto or not, the law still applies and you aren't going to "win" against a nation state that has a monopoly on force and legal enforcement.
Your actions on the ledger are mostly permanent, and one opsec mistake and you're screwed.
Your actions on the ledger are mostly permanent, and one opsec mistake and you're screwed.
That's one less battle to fight, though. At least with crypto the payment platform is plausibly neutral.
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They already accept https://thebitcoinnews.com/pornhub-accepts-bitcoin-top-adult...
This simply means that the government will double down on making life for crypto holders more and more difficult, like KYC on non-hosted wallets
This simply means that the government will double down on making life for crypto holders more and more difficult, like KYC on non-hosted wallets
> Your actions on the ledger are mostly permanent, and one opsec mistake and you're screwed.
Which is precisely what's motivating the ongoing rapid development of various privacy preservation strategies (Monero, Zcash, Wasabi Wallet, ...).
Which is precisely what's motivating the ongoing rapid development of various privacy preservation strategies (Monero, Zcash, Wasabi Wallet, ...).
The government can't outlaw payments to a company that isn't illegal, but they can lean on our duopoly of payment providers to effectively do the same thing. Crypto enables true peer-to-peer payments, which prevents aggressive government action against companies that are morally corrupt in the mind of some (but not all) people.
Their platform, their rules. If you don't like it you can go setup your own global payment processor.
Law enforcement does enforce laws for things like this, one of those ways is through finances. Risk averse and perhaps morally motivated, payment processors see a poorly regulated market and choose not to participate in it.
Pornography is hard, it's on the interface of liberty where if you want to maximize freedom, it isn't just a simple action. You need to be careful to protect people in their freedom to express themselves, and you need to protect people from being abused.
>these seemingly arbitrary decisions can be extremely impactful
One would hope that they are impactful. An enormously profitable industry has not been doing enough to protect people from the abuses the business encourages and is thus threatened with losing the ability to sell its product. I really don't see a problem with that.
Pornography is hard, it's on the interface of liberty where if you want to maximize freedom, it isn't just a simple action. You need to be careful to protect people in their freedom to express themselves, and you need to protect people from being abused.
>these seemingly arbitrary decisions can be extremely impactful
One would hope that they are impactful. An enormously profitable industry has not been doing enough to protect people from the abuses the business encourages and is thus threatened with losing the ability to sell its product. I really don't see a problem with that.
The problem is that the former will go after the latter if they knowingly take part in unlawful activity, so they have to cut off support if they believe there's something illegal going on.
It's funny that when some more right leaning site gets banned many people on hacker news are like "yeah well they should create their own payment platforms then".
But when it comes to porn...oh NO! NOT MY PORN!
But when it comes to porn...oh NO! NOT MY PORN!
This is a huge victory for the religious anti-sex work movement. Some backstory to how this happened: https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war...
I suspect Mastercard will pull processing on many adult platforms now. I wonder what this means for Twitter and Reddit that allow UGC adult content.
I suspect Mastercard will pull processing on many adult platforms now. I wonder what this means for Twitter and Reddit that allow UGC adult content.
It sounds like you haven't read the NY Times article. It's not about religion. It's not about some anti-sex worker movement. It's about content that is illegal and reprehensible.
If it was about some "religious anti-sex work movement," then the credit card companies wouldn't still process payments for the legal brothels in Nevada. Which they do.
If it was about some "religious anti-sex work movement," then the credit card companies wouldn't still process payments for the legal brothels in Nevada. Which they do.
This article explains the originals of the NYT opinion article and the anti-sex work campaigns behind it: https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war...
Millions of VERY illegal child abuse are uploaded to Facebook, Twitter and all UGC platforms. In the NYT article, the journalist dismisses the (non religious) Internet Watch Foundations number of 118 cases of CSAM on Pornhub over 3 years. He asks IWF why the number is so low and says they couldn't explain it. Maybe because it is.
> Millions of VERY illegal child abuse are uploaded to
> Internet Watch Foundations number of 118 cases of CSAM over 3 years
If there is millions of them, I'm sure you can do better than 118 cases over 3 years...
> Internet Watch Foundations number of 118 cases of CSAM over 3 years
If there is millions of them, I'm sure you can do better than 118 cases over 3 years...
So because there are illegal videos on other platforms, they should be allowed on PH, and the credit card companies should process those charges.
That's called deflection. Or in HN-speak: "Whataboutism."
That's called deflection. Or in HN-speak: "Whataboutism."
No, I wonder why Mastercard does process charges on those platforms and what it means especially for Twitter and Reddit that allow UGC adult content.
Here's an anecdote from Carrie Goldberg about how Pornhub compares to FB and Instagram:
I'm a victims rights lawyer. For every 1 case involving a rape tape on Pornhub, I have 50 involving rape and CSAM being disseminated on Insta and FB. Pornhub is far from perfect. But mainstream big tech is far worse and have a built-in mechanism for harassing victims directly. https://twitter.com/cagoldberglaw/status/1337026875441491973...
Here's an anecdote from Carrie Goldberg about how Pornhub compares to FB and Instagram:
I'm a victims rights lawyer. For every 1 case involving a rape tape on Pornhub, I have 50 involving rape and CSAM being disseminated on Insta and FB. Pornhub is far from perfect. But mainstream big tech is far worse and have a built-in mechanism for harassing victims directly. https://twitter.com/cagoldberglaw/status/1337026875441491973...
It's called targeted enforcement where your friends don't get in trouble. Facebook has so much more clout than PH they can never get cut off from payment processors.
> So because there are illegal videos on other platforms, they should be allowed on PH
And this is called a “straw man”!
And this is called a “straw man”!
No, this is why they should stop processing payments for those other platforms too.
But why don't they? That's the point, it seems aimed at sex work in general, with illegal content as an excuse.
If someone was pointing to behavior of another payment processor it'd maybe be deflection or whataboutism.
Pointing out that the actor listed is applying their standards here unequally and therefore the standard might not be what's publicly said isn't deflection or whataboutism.
The amount the term "whataboutism" is used in an attempt to not have to address an empirical counterargument is getting old.
Pointing out that the actor listed is applying their standards here unequally and therefore the standard might not be what's publicly said isn't deflection or whataboutism.
The amount the term "whataboutism" is used in an attempt to not have to address an empirical counterargument is getting old.
> If it was about some "religious anti-sex work movement," then the credit card companies wouldn't still process payments for the legal brothels in Nevada. Which they do.
Don't know about brothels, but even in the strip clubs I went to years ago they didn't process cards. Instead you had to go to the corner ATM with ridiculous fees to withdraw some cash.
Don't know about brothels, but even in the strip clubs I went to years ago they didn't process cards. Instead you had to go to the corner ATM with ridiculous fees to withdraw some cash.
The strip clubs I went to as recently as three years ago all took cards. The ATM in the lobbies were only so you could hide the charge from your wife.
Some also worry about chargebacks and disputes from credit card companies.
Only the seediest strip clubs I've been to don't accept cards, and in every case it was because they'd had too many chargebacks in the past.
I think your conclusion is wrong.
I am also aware of many other businesses that refuse to take credit cards, and work cash-only.
I am also aware of many other businesses that refuse to take credit cards, and work cash-only.
Right but if we follow this to it's logical end we're at the same place. In my mind any platform that can be used to promote sex work is going to have these issues. Does that mean we just push sex work back into the dangerous fringes of society?
Pornhub monetizing user uploaded content is what caused these issues. A Porn company that employs only legal workers avoids, or at least minimizes, this issue. I think the fundamental problem here is people's demand for free pornography.
Isn't that the same case as if Uber where the users uploading content should become employees?
Your last part needs an "and if they were logically consistent" qualifier. (Which they may be, but I wouldn't assume.)
It's not an article, it's a hit piece, written by a known agitator not a journalist at a time when the religious anti PH movement is at it's crescendo.
It's not an article, it's a hit piece,
It's an article. It just happens to be an article you disagree with.
written by a known agitator not a journalist
That's why it's in the Editorial section, not the News section. Also, "agitator" is a loaded term that is in the eye of the beholder. Some people might use "activist" or "hero."
at a time when the religious anti PH movement is at it's crescendo.
If you believe this is true, nobody on the planet change your mind. But I will tell you it comes out like hysterical raving.
It's an article. It just happens to be an article you disagree with.
written by a known agitator not a journalist
That's why it's in the Editorial section, not the News section. Also, "agitator" is a loaded term that is in the eye of the beholder. Some people might use "activist" or "hero."
at a time when the religious anti PH movement is at it's crescendo.
If you believe this is true, nobody on the planet change your mind. But I will tell you it comes out like hysterical raving.
And I'll tell you that your position is as equally misinformed and comes off that way. Those who have been tracking this issue and digging into the details of it understand it to be religiously motivated.
I won't claim to be "tracking this issue" and "digging into the details of it." If that's your thing, good for you.
As for it being religiously motivated, I don't believe that it is exclusively religious. I think that regular, average people and people with religious convictions can both be against rape videos and child pornography. If you're not, then I suggest you seek mental health counseling.
As for it being religiously motivated, I don't believe that it is exclusively religious. I think that regular, average people and people with religious convictions can both be against rape videos and child pornography. If you're not, then I suggest you seek mental health counseling.
It's fatigue. That's what you're reading from comments like mine and the one you dismissed and judged so easily without informing yourself.
I've been "tracking this issue" and "digging into the details of it" because I'm a pornhub performer who has had payment issues since earlier this year when this campaign kicked off out of nowhere. My partner and I went through Pornhub's verification process (for which we uploaded current government issued IDs and signed forms, and were initially rejected and had to appeal). My partner and I have millions of video views in the last year, and yet despite the fun and monetary benefit of it all, I happen to view myself as a good person who is conscious of how my actions can impact others negatively, often unwittingly. So I've naturally wondered whether I should ethically be involved with Pornhub at all.
So apologies for my snark, but this campaign is not rational, and me and others like me are fatigued at those jumping to all sorts of non-sequitur conclusions based on fearmongering which is in turn based on shoddy (and at times obviously manipulated) statistics. Even IF pornhub had a verification issue (which will never be perfect), it is not AT ALL clear who has responsibility in this new age of information sharing, how morality should be controlled (god I hope it's obvious it shouldn't be controlled by finance execs), etc. Who is financing the campaign against Pornhub?
Dig into this campaign and it's obvious it's not motivated by sound understanding and reason and has its roots in religiously affiliated action groups.
I've been "tracking this issue" and "digging into the details of it" because I'm a pornhub performer who has had payment issues since earlier this year when this campaign kicked off out of nowhere. My partner and I went through Pornhub's verification process (for which we uploaded current government issued IDs and signed forms, and were initially rejected and had to appeal). My partner and I have millions of video views in the last year, and yet despite the fun and monetary benefit of it all, I happen to view myself as a good person who is conscious of how my actions can impact others negatively, often unwittingly. So I've naturally wondered whether I should ethically be involved with Pornhub at all.
So apologies for my snark, but this campaign is not rational, and me and others like me are fatigued at those jumping to all sorts of non-sequitur conclusions based on fearmongering which is in turn based on shoddy (and at times obviously manipulated) statistics. Even IF pornhub had a verification issue (which will never be perfect), it is not AT ALL clear who has responsibility in this new age of information sharing, how morality should be controlled (god I hope it's obvious it shouldn't be controlled by finance execs), etc. Who is financing the campaign against Pornhub?
Dig into this campaign and it's obvious it's not motivated by sound understanding and reason and has its roots in religiously affiliated action groups.
> It's not an article, it's a hit piece, written by a known agitator not a journalist
I wonder how consistent most HNers are wrt this statement about The New York Times.
I wonder how consistent most HNers are wrt this statement about The New York Times.
It's important to remember that official Opinion pieces are not fact checked, and don't even have the semblance of being fact-based. And this particular opinion writer is well known for being really bad at facts. That being said, it is simultaneously possible for:
1. Nicholas Kristof to have a tenuous grasp on reality and to launch unfounded moral panics, and
2. PornHub has a lot of serious issues that should be dealt with.
You know the sayings about broken clocks...
(And for that matter, while I trust The NY Times more than the average newspaper on some topics, like science reporting, it has SERIOUS issues with being driven by political access rather than journalism, doing "both sides" too much, and not being willing to question Trump very much. That and their massive support for pretty much any war, to the point of open lying about stuff. I have cancelled my subscription in the past and will not subscribe again.)
1. Nicholas Kristof to have a tenuous grasp on reality and to launch unfounded moral panics, and
2. PornHub has a lot of serious issues that should be dealt with.
You know the sayings about broken clocks...
(And for that matter, while I trust The NY Times more than the average newspaper on some topics, like science reporting, it has SERIOUS issues with being driven by political access rather than journalism, doing "both sides" too much, and not being willing to question Trump very much. That and their massive support for pretty much any war, to the point of open lying about stuff. I have cancelled my subscription in the past and will not subscribe again.)
Right but the NYT editorial board does allow those Opinion pieces to be printed.
But yes, I think we agree :)
But yes, I think we agree :)
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...
We can’t let the abuse that happens on platforms like pornhub become a partisan issue. It’s grotesque and tortuous to the people who are affected by it. This has zero to do with being sex positive.
We can’t let the abuse that happens on platforms like pornhub become a partisan issue. It’s grotesque and tortuous to the people who are affected by it. This has zero to do with being sex positive.
From what I've seen, PornHub is one of the worst thing that happened to the porn industry. It is a piracy hub, 90% of it is illegal with regards to copyright, the rest is fueled by predatory business practices. If it was mainstream media, it would have been sued to oblivion, or, like YouTube, forced to adopt aggressive anti-piracy measures.
And, maybe there is a little bit of child porn on PornHub, it is bound to happen since users can upload anything. I could probably upload child porn on YouTube if I wanted to, that would be short lived and it would get me into trouble but I can probably get a few hundred views before it gets caught. But the thing is, I never stumbled upon it. In fact, I pretty much only get illegally uploaded content from legitimate studios or "PornHub originals".
That anti-sex work groups attack PornHub is ironic. It would be like being against the record industry and attacking The Pirate Bay.
And, maybe there is a little bit of child porn on PornHub, it is bound to happen since users can upload anything. I could probably upload child porn on YouTube if I wanted to, that would be short lived and it would get me into trouble but I can probably get a few hundred views before it gets caught. But the thing is, I never stumbled upon it. In fact, I pretty much only get illegally uploaded content from legitimate studios or "PornHub originals".
That anti-sex work groups attack PornHub is ironic. It would be like being against the record industry and attacking The Pirate Bay.
They have hundreds of thousands of sex workers uploading and making ad revenue, and selling content, which they now won't be able to. They also announced a few days ago that uploads would only be for people in their model program and partners, so this is a huge blow to those sex workers.
It also has a dark history -- it basically managed to dominate by initially causing pornography publishers/producers to go under due to its rampant and unchecked hosting of pirated content, and then, in the ultimate ironic twist, it would turn around and cheaply acquire them: https://slate.com/technology/2014/10/mindgeek-porn-monopoly-...
Pornhub is full of child porn and does very little about it. This is a good choice. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra....
They do as much as any UGC platform (auto scanning with photoDNA, reviewing, flags etc) and just committed to doing even more like forcing users to give ID to upload https://help.pornhub.com/hc/en-us/categories/360002934613
This was a long campaign by anti-sex work campaigners.
Here's an anecdote from Carrie Goldberg about how Pornhub compares to FB and Instagram:
I'm a victims rights lawyer. For every 1 case involving a rape tape on Pornhub, I have 50 involving rape and CSAM being disseminated on Insta and FB. Pornhub is far from perfect. But mainstream big tech is far worse and have a built-in mechanism for harassing victims directly. https://twitter.com/cagoldberglaw/status/1337026875441491973
Here's an anecdote from Carrie Goldberg about how Pornhub compares to FB and Instagram:
I'm a victims rights lawyer. For every 1 case involving a rape tape on Pornhub, I have 50 involving rape and CSAM being disseminated on Insta and FB. Pornhub is far from perfect. But mainstream big tech is far worse and have a built-in mechanism for harassing victims directly. https://twitter.com/cagoldberglaw/status/1337026875441491973
Yes, now that they got caught they've started doing this stuff. They weren't before, such was the whole point of the (first) NYT article.
They were using photoDNA and Youtube CSAI Match before the article. This is the same as what Reddit uses. I see it mentioned here back in March https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN21D3E9
Users who desire to upload content should be forced to provide ID to comply with US law as it relates to age verification of adult talent (2257 Regulation) [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_film_industry_regulation...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_film_industry_regulation...
Pornhub does verify its uploaders, requiring IDs for performers and affidavits of consent for all involved. Obviously some bad actors slip through. But far less than these pearl clutchers would have you believe.
No, they don't. Speaking from experience, I've uploaded plenty of personal content on PH without showing ID.
Hm, then your experience was different from mine. When did you get approved as a model? Because I certainly did have to show IDs back in... January I think it was. And my partner and I were initially rejected, then we had to appeal. For us at least there definitely was a process.
You're right, it seems to have changed recently. Meh, I just opened an account on xvideos and could upload within 5 minutes...
> Users who desire to upload content should be forced to provide ID to comply with US law as it relates to age verification of adult talent (2257 Regulation)
2257 requirements even on primary producers have been struck down on First Amendment grounds for material containing a wide class of performers; Free Speech Coalition vs. Attorney General of the United States (3d Cir. 2020.) And, serious Constitutional issues have been raised about the application of 2257 to “secondary producers” like individual users.
And, even under 2257, covered “secondary producers” aren’t required to provide their ID, they are required to have specific information about the maintenance of records related to the perfomers age affixed to the content.
2257 requirements even on primary producers have been struck down on First Amendment grounds for material containing a wide class of performers; Free Speech Coalition vs. Attorney General of the United States (3d Cir. 2020.) And, serious Constitutional issues have been raised about the application of 2257 to “secondary producers” like individual users.
And, even under 2257, covered “secondary producers” aren’t required to provide their ID, they are required to have specific information about the maintenance of records related to the perfomers age affixed to the content.
A Third Circuit ruling applies to the whole US now?
Should they also comply with $pick_a_dictatorship_you_find_reprehensible 's laws?
Edit: The comment I replied to has been edited and originally explained the owner was Canadian but serves US customers and so should abide by US law.
I don't want to claim to agree or disagree, I'm just not sure how to work out what's right.
Edit: The comment I replied to has been edited and originally explained the owner was Canadian but serves US customers and so should abide by US law.
I don't want to claim to agree or disagree, I'm just not sure how to work out what's right.
> Should they also comply with $pick_a_dictatorship_you_find_reprehensible ‘s laws?
To be fair, MindGeek has an office in the US. Now, if they closed that office, the argument that they were subject to US law would be weaker.
To be fair, MindGeek has an office in the US. Now, if they closed that office, the argument that they were subject to US law would be weaker.
Yes. You comply with the laws of the jurisdiction you operate in. You have the freedom to not operate where you don't want to obey local law.
EDIT: I edited my comment as I'm not willing to argue the merits of cross border law enforcement actions in this thread.
EDIT: I edited my comment as I'm not willing to argue the merits of cross border law enforcement actions in this thread.
I think that's a perfectly reasonable stance for more physical businesses, e.g. shipping products.
Really though, how does it work for a business like this? How do you not serve a specific country on the internet? I'm not aware of any technical solution to this - geoip databases simply aren't accurate.
For businesses where most customers pay, perhaps you can gate the site and verify payment details but that plainly doesn't work for the business model we're discussing as most people surely don't pay anything by design? This isn't Netflix?
Really though, how does it work for a business like this? How do you not serve a specific country on the internet? I'm not aware of any technical solution to this - geoip databases simply aren't accurate.
For businesses where most customers pay, perhaps you can gate the site and verify payment details but that plainly doesn't work for the business model we're discussing as most people surely don't pay anything by design? This isn't Netflix?
It's not our job to enforce Iran's or Saudi Arabia's sharia code. Nor is it a Canadian's job to enforce America's 2257 regime.
So, no more gay porn if your site is accessible from the UAE ?
How do you know they dont do anything about it though? I’d wager they try
FTA, the amount of hires they have to weed out visually intensive and traumatic material was listed at 80 worldwide. The article compares it to Facebook's hires for similar weeding out and there was a couple of orders of magnitude difference. I recommend reading the article - it was sobering how bad it is and how it continues to traumatize its victims.
Given the sizes of the two companies I'd expect Facebook to have one or two orders of magnitude more employees for most roles.
Facebook is full of sedition and does nothing about it.
Sexual assault of children is illegal. Sedition is only illegal in rare circumstances. In the US anyway.
Do you think any of those circumstances are happening on FB? Does the supposed rarity make them harder or easier to find?
If FB is unaware of the illegal sedition they have plausible deniability.
In this case, MasterCard no longer has plausible deniability. This increases their liability.
Imagine someone at a liquor store sells beer to someone. Then, they learn the ID is fake and the person is lying about their age. Once they know someone is doing something illegal they can be held liable if they continue to sell the person beer.
Note, I'm not getting into right an wrong here. I'm getting into legal liabilities. Large companies like MasterCard are conservative (legally speaking) in how they handle this stuff.
In this case, MasterCard no longer has plausible deniability. This increases their liability.
Imagine someone at a liquor store sells beer to someone. Then, they learn the ID is fake and the person is lying about their age. Once they know someone is doing something illegal they can be held liable if they continue to sell the person beer.
Note, I'm not getting into right an wrong here. I'm getting into legal liabilities. Large companies like MasterCard are conservative (legally speaking) in how they handle this stuff.
Did you notice that article is in the opinion section? That implies it's a work of fiction. No fact checking needed.
> Did you notice that article is in the opinion section? That implies it's a work of fiction. No fact checking needed.
That is factually untrue (as I also pointed out in the other sub-thread where you made the same claim): they do fact check their opinion section:
The below quote is from a previous NYT Op-ed editor that describes their editorial process. Emphasis is mine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.htm...:
> What happens when your article is accepted? First, you’ll get a contract giving us the right to publish it and laying out some of your responsibilities. The most important ones have to do with originality and truthfulness. You can’t plagiarize yourself, or someone else, and we won’t run something that has appeared in another publication, either print or digital. We request that you disclose anything that might be seen as a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise: Did you invest in a company that you praise in passing? Did you once work with a public official you mention in flattering or critical terms? Could you or an organization or company you represent benefit from the stance you take in an Op-Ed? We need to know. That doesn’t mean we’ll throw out your article on that basis — in most cases it just means disclosing the relationship to the reader. We also need all of the material that supports the facts in your story. That’s the biggest surprise to some people. Yes, we do fact check. Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes, and when we do we correct them. But the facts in a piece must be supported and validated. You can have any opinion you would like, but you can’t say that a certain battle began on a certain day if it did not.
That is factually untrue (as I also pointed out in the other sub-thread where you made the same claim): they do fact check their opinion section:
The below quote is from a previous NYT Op-ed editor that describes their editorial process. Emphasis is mine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.htm...:
> What happens when your article is accepted? First, you’ll get a contract giving us the right to publish it and laying out some of your responsibilities. The most important ones have to do with originality and truthfulness. You can’t plagiarize yourself, or someone else, and we won’t run something that has appeared in another publication, either print or digital. We request that you disclose anything that might be seen as a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise: Did you invest in a company that you praise in passing? Did you once work with a public official you mention in flattering or critical terms? Could you or an organization or company you represent benefit from the stance you take in an Op-Ed? We need to know. That doesn’t mean we’ll throw out your article on that basis — in most cases it just means disclosing the relationship to the reader. We also need all of the material that supports the facts in your story. That’s the biggest surprise to some people. Yes, we do fact check. Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes, and when we do we correct them. But the facts in a piece must be supported and validated. You can have any opinion you would like, but you can’t say that a certain battle began on a certain day if it did not.
The first nail came in January 2019: https://www.pcmag.com/news/mastercard-bans-automatic-billing...
It's not "anti-sex work" to want to stop people from being abused. Are they targeting onlyfans too? No. Just these exploitative sites that enable bad behavior.
Not to be cynical, but they're probably working their way down the list. CESTA/FOSTA was also ostensibly about stopping people from being abused and has instead harmed sex workers[1].
[1] https://hackinghustling.org/erased-the-impact-of-fosta-sesta...
[1] https://hackinghustling.org/erased-the-impact-of-fosta-sesta...
US VISA also does not process porn or sex-work related charges, but VISA international does. Hence things like CC bill (source: I tried to become a cc provider for sex workers and porn sites, and found out it is a trainwreck). I'm not defending PornHub at all, I'm pointing out religious conservatives still have significant power when there is such a credit-card monopoly.
There is a subtle element here... US lawmakers have control over what is legal and illegal. US VISA won't process activities that are illegal in the particular country. It's not that religious conservatives have power over the credit card companies.
I also hope you're not saying that the US should allow child sexual assault which is the issue in this case.
I also hope you're not saying that the US should allow child sexual assault which is the issue in this case.
Porn isn't illegal in the US, so I'm not sure why US VISA won't process it.
Nothing to do with legality: as I said, christian values at high levels. I mean, contraception, and gay and interracial marriage are legal, but Christians in the US still fight it tooth and nail, like: refusing to hand out marriage certificates, or refusing to fund the pill but fund viagra, or closing down health clinics for women. I mean this can't be your first rodeo, right?
Child porn is. In this case the issue is one dealing with children. To understand this case we need to keep it in context.
I think that's mixing issues. On the one side, we have a beautiful thing memorializing the most basic, and instinctually pleasant of human activities (sex between adults).
On the other side, we have something so unequivocally and fundamentally immoral that many countries place it on the same level as murder, and even typical murderers draw their own moral line against it.
The two can't be spoken with in the same sentence.
If PornHub is complicit in child pornography, every single executive involved should go to prison. If MasterCard has evidence, or suspicion that PornHub is complicit then they must turn such evidence over to the authorities immediately, and have a moral (not legal) duty to ensure that all the PornHub executives they dealt with are prosecuted. This is a poison barrel issue from which no one must escape.
However, the way MasterCard is acting is as if they merely want to break ties with a high-fraud risk client, whose risk profile may have changed during the COVID crisis. It reeks of a company protecting profit margins, and not of a company hurriedly running away from a tarpit of felonies and turpitude.
I may be wrong, and PornHub will be destroyed within 2021 like BackPage was, but right now I doubt it. VISA was their primary payment processor, and they only cut off access after MasterCard made public allegations. VISA has their own evaluations team, and I know from experience they're quite strict. The question is how could they not catch this before MasterCard?
On the other side, we have something so unequivocally and fundamentally immoral that many countries place it on the same level as murder, and even typical murderers draw their own moral line against it.
The two can't be spoken with in the same sentence.
If PornHub is complicit in child pornography, every single executive involved should go to prison. If MasterCard has evidence, or suspicion that PornHub is complicit then they must turn such evidence over to the authorities immediately, and have a moral (not legal) duty to ensure that all the PornHub executives they dealt with are prosecuted. This is a poison barrel issue from which no one must escape.
However, the way MasterCard is acting is as if they merely want to break ties with a high-fraud risk client, whose risk profile may have changed during the COVID crisis. It reeks of a company protecting profit margins, and not of a company hurriedly running away from a tarpit of felonies and turpitude.
I may be wrong, and PornHub will be destroyed within 2021 like BackPage was, but right now I doubt it. VISA was their primary payment processor, and they only cut off access after MasterCard made public allegations. VISA has their own evaluations team, and I know from experience they're quite strict. The question is how could they not catch this before MasterCard?
We're talking about porn being processed by VISA in the USA vs VISA International.
CP is illegal everywhere.
VISA International isn't going to let you pay for this stuff in the EU either.
CP is illegal everywhere.
VISA International isn't going to let you pay for this stuff in the EU either.
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If pornhub is breaking the law, then it should be prosecuted. The ability of companies and individuals to send and receive payments should not be at the whim of public opinion anymore than their access to the electric grid. Payment processing is at the point where it needs to be regulated as a utility.
This is one of the few benefits I can see to cryptocurrency.
And even that is tenuous. In cases where you run afoul of AML regulations, cryptocurrency will not save you.
In cases such as this where you break no laws, but your payment processor refuses to process payments ... well, at some point you'll have to convert your crypto cash into real cash - so all you did was kick the ball downstream and fixed nothing. If MasterCard refuses to process your payments, they can also refuse to process payments for the crypto exchange if they do business with you.
In cases such as this where you break no laws, but your payment processor refuses to process payments ... well, at some point you'll have to convert your crypto cash into real cash - so all you did was kick the ball downstream and fixed nothing. If MasterCard refuses to process your payments, they can also refuse to process payments for the crypto exchange if they do business with you.
That's part of the issue here--they aren't breaking the law (at least in the U.S.)
Thanks to protections enacted by "Section 230" of the 1996 Communications Descent Act [1]:
Thanks to protections enacted by "Section 230" of the 1996 Communications Descent Act [1]:
Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
You should read the wikipedia page further as it points out an exemption for this type of case... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230#Sex_trafficking_-_...
The exception for this type of case had bi-partisan support.
The exception for this type of case had bi-partisan support.
Section 230 no longer protects companies who are hosting child exploitation as of SESTA/FOSTA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Enabling_Sex_Traffickers_...
And Section 230 will be gutted more thoroughly or retired entirely in the coming decade. A lot of internet marketing is going into protecting it from tech companies whose bad behavior relies on it, but both political parties in the US agree it's time is over.
And Section 230 will be gutted more thoroughly or retired entirely in the coming decade. A lot of internet marketing is going into protecting it from tech companies whose bad behavior relies on it, but both political parties in the US agree it's time is over.
> but both political parties in the US agree it’s time is over.
There are factions within both parties that agree that Section 230 should be repealed or replaced with something significantly different, but there are factions in both parties that disagree and, perhaps more importantly, there is a lack of consensus on whether it should be simply repealed or modified/replaced, and if the latter on what the replacement/modification should be, and many of the people that agree that there is a problem view the status quo as better than other faction’s preferred end-state.
So, while I think there will be a lot of noise about 230 over the next few years, I’m a lot less confident than you seem to be that there will be any successful action to repeal or massively modify it.
There are factions within both parties that agree that Section 230 should be repealed or replaced with something significantly different, but there are factions in both parties that disagree and, perhaps more importantly, there is a lack of consensus on whether it should be simply repealed or modified/replaced, and if the latter on what the replacement/modification should be, and many of the people that agree that there is a problem view the status quo as better than other faction’s preferred end-state.
So, while I think there will be a lot of noise about 230 over the next few years, I’m a lot less confident than you seem to be that there will be any successful action to repeal or massively modify it.
Don't think that this problem lies solely with porn websites. The same illegal content is uploaded and distributed to Twitter, tictok and other social media but they're protected by the same article 240 pornhub is.
However, in the eyes of the leftist cesspool twitter is, if you say you want to remove article 240 to hold twitter accountable for distributing illegal content via tweets, then suddenly you're a Trump supporting alt right conspiracy theorist.
However, in the eyes of the leftist cesspool twitter is, if you say you want to remove article 240 to hold twitter accountable for distributing illegal content via tweets, then suddenly you're a Trump supporting alt right conspiracy theorist.
Are you suggesting that platforms should be held responsible for all content posted on their respective sites? I personally feel that is an absurd burden and simply won't work.
In May of 2019, 500 hours of content were uploaded to YouTube every minute. How could a platform possibly be held accountable for that sheer volume of content? YouTube already tries to do this, but AI is only so good and hiring that many humans to both watch the content and report on it is a massive undertaking.
It would make sense to pursue Twitter if they are in fact acting in _bad faith_, but not being able to read all 9255 tweets posted _every second_ doesn't seem like a reason to punish Twitter.
In May of 2019, 500 hours of content were uploaded to YouTube every minute. How could a platform possibly be held accountable for that sheer volume of content? YouTube already tries to do this, but AI is only so good and hiring that many humans to both watch the content and report on it is a massive undertaking.
It would make sense to pursue Twitter if they are in fact acting in _bad faith_, but not being able to read all 9255 tweets posted _every second_ doesn't seem like a reason to punish Twitter.
> in the eyes of the leftist cesspool twitter is,
> suddenly you're a Trump supporting alt right conspiracy theorist.
Maybe it's how you use language and not the idea?
Saying that Twitter should be held accountable for illegal content is fairly agreeable, even if it's a huge burden.
> suddenly you're a Trump supporting alt right conspiracy theorist.
Maybe it's how you use language and not the idea?
Saying that Twitter should be held accountable for illegal content is fairly agreeable, even if it's a huge burden.
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I am not a fan of PornHub because I feel that many of their practices are unethical. That said, as with so many other controversial topics, keeping things legal is ultimately better as it provides opportunities for oversight and regulation. Things being legal don't make them okay though, I am in favor of legalizing prostitution but I also believe it should not exist in the first place.
Kristof's piece is a classic "moral panic" article. It could have been written basically at any time in the last 100 years (at least). What is different this time is that the focus is on a modern delivery medium, the internet. But scandalized reporting about the wide distribution and availability of child pornography is nothing new. I remember being a kid and seeing headlines in the newspaper about "internet pedophile porn web rings" being taken in by the police, that was in the 1990s.
As for the motivations behind the people pushing the narrative, they're diverse. Some are religious, some are political, some have nefarious motives. Ultimately these things always distract from the thing no-one ever wants to do: hear from the victims and find real ways to prevent the abuse.
Kristof's piece is a classic "moral panic" article. It could have been written basically at any time in the last 100 years (at least). What is different this time is that the focus is on a modern delivery medium, the internet. But scandalized reporting about the wide distribution and availability of child pornography is nothing new. I remember being a kid and seeing headlines in the newspaper about "internet pedophile porn web rings" being taken in by the police, that was in the 1990s.
As for the motivations behind the people pushing the narrative, they're diverse. Some are religious, some are political, some have nefarious motives. Ultimately these things always distract from the thing no-one ever wants to do: hear from the victims and find real ways to prevent the abuse.
The crux of the problem is that for much of the US population any porn is unethical and immoral. Since the advent of the Internet the % of population declaring no religious affiliation has jumped by 25%. Once the US hits near 50% non-religious population then the fights are really going to begin about social norms. The struggle is much larger than just porn norms, but all norms.
One thing that seems to be overlooked is that this only applies to PornhubPremium. Illegal videos are uploaded anonymously, which doesn't allow you to put a "premium" flag on it - no Premium money was going to supporting anonymous content. Anonymous content is solely ad-supported... And you're still allowed to buy ads on PornHub with a MasterCard.
This is the New York Times editorial (mentioned in the 3rd paragraph) that led to this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...
Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25301913
Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25301913
> I came across many videos on Pornhub that were recordings of assaults on unconscious women and girls. The rapists would open the eyelids of the victims and touch their eyeballs to show that they were nonresponsive.
Either the writer is one of the few people on earth who believes that porn is real, or he's somebody who lies to push their ideology. Hard to believe that it's the first.
Either the writer is one of the few people on earth who believes that porn is real, or he's somebody who lies to push their ideology. Hard to believe that it's the first.
Out of curiosity, did you read the linked article? It would appear that you're implying that the women that were directly quoted as being harmed by the site were also lying.
If so, I find the stance of "either the author is an idiot or there's a conspiracy" to be an interesting dichotomy that excludes a third possibility.
If so, I find the stance of "either the author is an idiot or there's a conspiracy" to be an interesting dichotomy that excludes a third possibility.
Yes, I did, and I find the article very disingenous, biased, and intentionally confused (it mixes different problems in other to make the point).
Considering that porn simulates reality (to various degrees), touching somebody else's eye doesn't prove anything. Also a title "very young teen" doesn't prove anything (it's pretty much standard for videos of this genre).
If you want to find abusive videos, you can also find them on YouTube, which has been criticized as well, for the same reasons.
The legal/moral issue is how the hosting company handles them. The author of the article mentions a low report rate, but he did not investigate the possibility that PornHub makes reporting difficult or ineffective.
Ultimately, the article is intentionally ideological, and not factual, because a real investigation may hurt the point. Here's how disconnected from reality the author is:
> The problem goes far beyond one company. Indeed, a rival of Pornhub, XVideos, which arguably has even fewer scruples, may attract more visitors. Depictions of child abuse also appear on mainstream sites like Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. And Google supports the business models of companies that thrive on child molestation.
Considering that porn simulates reality (to various degrees), touching somebody else's eye doesn't prove anything. Also a title "very young teen" doesn't prove anything (it's pretty much standard for videos of this genre).
If you want to find abusive videos, you can also find them on YouTube, which has been criticized as well, for the same reasons.
The legal/moral issue is how the hosting company handles them. The author of the article mentions a low report rate, but he did not investigate the possibility that PornHub makes reporting difficult or ineffective.
Ultimately, the article is intentionally ideological, and not factual, because a real investigation may hurt the point. Here's how disconnected from reality the author is:
> The problem goes far beyond one company. Indeed, a rival of Pornhub, XVideos, which arguably has even fewer scruples, may attract more visitors. Depictions of child abuse also appear on mainstream sites like Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. And Google supports the business models of companies that thrive on child molestation.
Did you notice the article is in the opinion section? I believe that means it isn't fact checked at all and there's no journalistic expectation it's anything other than fiction.
So you are of the opinion that the women were lying. Thanks for clarifying, I was unsure what you were responding to.
I wasn't the person you responded to, I just wanted to point out the expectation should be the article is fiction. The women may not even exist. They may not have been quoted correctly if they even exist. There is no expectation it's been fact checked. The article is in the opinion section, which means NY Times doesn't believe it's journalism at all.
> I wasn't the person you responded to, I just wanted to point out the expectation should be the article is fiction. The women may not even exist. They may not have been quoted correctly if they even exist. There is no expectation it's been fact checked. The article is in the opinion section, which means NY Times doesn't believe it's journalism at all.
You misunderstand what the opinion section is for: it's not for fiction, it's for advocacy [edit: and subjectivity]. A direct condemnation of PornHub or expression of revulsion to them (which I recall the article had) would have been totally inappropriate for the news pages.
Nicholas Kristof would be fired if he made all this up.
You misunderstand what the opinion section is for: it's not for fiction, it's for advocacy [edit: and subjectivity]. A direct condemnation of PornHub or expression of revulsion to them (which I recall the article had) would have been totally inappropriate for the news pages.
Nicholas Kristof would be fired if he made all this up.
If the opinion section isn't fact checked, why would you believe the premise that results in call for advocacy is correct?
> If the opinion section isn't fact checked, why would you believe the premise that results in call for advocacy is correct?
You're just plain wrong that it isn't fact checked. Read this description of their process from a previous NYT Op-ed editor. Emphasis is mine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.htm...:
> What happens when your article is accepted? First, you’ll get a contract giving us the right to publish it and laying out some of your responsibilities. The most important ones have to do with originality and truthfulness. You can’t plagiarize yourself, or someone else, and we won’t run something that has appeared in another publication, either print or digital. We request that you disclose anything that might be seen as a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise: Did you invest in a company that you praise in passing? Did you once work with a public official you mention in flattering or critical terms? Could you or an organization or company you represent benefit from the stance you take in an Op-Ed? We need to know. That doesn’t mean we’ll throw out your article on that basis — in most cases it just means disclosing the relationship to the reader. We also need all of the material that supports the facts in your story. That’s the biggest surprise to some people. Yes, we do fact check. Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes, and when we do we correct them. But the facts in a piece must be supported and validated. You can have any opinion you would like, but you can’t say that a certain battle began on a certain day if it did not.
You're just plain wrong that it isn't fact checked. Read this description of their process from a previous NYT Op-ed editor. Emphasis is mine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.htm...:
> What happens when your article is accepted? First, you’ll get a contract giving us the right to publish it and laying out some of your responsibilities. The most important ones have to do with originality and truthfulness. You can’t plagiarize yourself, or someone else, and we won’t run something that has appeared in another publication, either print or digital. We request that you disclose anything that might be seen as a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise: Did you invest in a company that you praise in passing? Did you once work with a public official you mention in flattering or critical terms? Could you or an organization or company you represent benefit from the stance you take in an Op-Ed? We need to know. That doesn’t mean we’ll throw out your article on that basis — in most cases it just means disclosing the relationship to the reader. We also need all of the material that supports the facts in your story. That’s the biggest surprise to some people. Yes, we do fact check. Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes, and when we do we correct them. But the facts in a piece must be supported and validated. You can have any opinion you would like, but you can’t say that a certain battle began on a certain day if it did not.
I'm pretty skeptical about that quote, here's Coumbia Jounalism Review in 2008:
"The New York Times has long given its op-ed columnists a virtual free hand, exempting their copy from the layers of editing and fact-checking that a regular Times news story would undergo before it appeared in the paper. "
https://archives.cjr.org/campaign_desk/opeds_and_factcheckin...
"The New York Times has long given its op-ed columnists a virtual free hand, exempting their copy from the layers of editing and fact-checking that a regular Times news story would undergo before it appeared in the paper. "
https://archives.cjr.org/campaign_desk/opeds_and_factcheckin...
> "The New York Times has long given its op-ed columnists a virtual free hand, exempting their copy from the layers of editing and fact-checking that a regular Times news story would undergo before it appeared in the paper. "
Less fact checking is not no fact checking. That article also cites errors (e.g. misattributing one conservative pundit for another), but you're claiming fabrication (made up accounts), which is a far graver thing.
Also, that article dates from 2008, and the article I quoted is from 2013, five years later.
Less fact checking is not no fact checking. That article also cites errors (e.g. misattributing one conservative pundit for another), but you're claiming fabrication (made up accounts), which is a far graver thing.
Also, that article dates from 2008, and the article I quoted is from 2013, five years later.
That's a really interesting take. Do you regularly read opinion pieces and take it as proof that the opposite position is correct?
For example, if another writer published an article in the opinion section saying "PornHub has never even accidentally hosted illegal content, especially not child sex exploitation material. These PornHub employees that I've interviewed know this to be true" how would you interpret that?
For example, if another writer published an article in the opinion section saying "PornHub has never even accidentally hosted illegal content, especially not child sex exploitation material. These PornHub employees that I've interviewed know this to be true" how would you interpret that?
Your framing doesn't make sense. If someone tells me "I'm not a doctor or a scientist but you should eat 4 Apples a day" the correct response is to ignore it, not try to decide what the opposite of 4 Apples a day is and to believe that, whatever the heck the opposite of 4 Apples a day would be.
If I read an article where someone says "I'm not a journalist that this isn't fact checked but ABC" it would seem the correct response is to ignore it, not assume what you read is correct or even the opposite is correct.
If I read an article where someone says "I'm not a journalist that this isn't fact checked but ABC" it would seem the correct response is to ignore it, not assume what you read is correct or even the opposite is correct.
That's an interesting analogy, but I'm not sure how that's a response to my example question.
If every opinion piece is by definition fiction (and by your reasoning should never be believed), what would your response be if you read an article positing the opposite case on this topic? Surely PornHub employees could hypothetically be made up or misquoted in the same way the women in this story possibly were.
In that case, we'd know that the article was pure fiction, which indicates that the opposite case is true based on this strict ruleset of "opinion pieces are always fiction" and "fiction is always to be treated as categorically false."
If every opinion piece is by definition fiction (and by your reasoning should never be believed), what would your response be if you read an article positing the opposite case on this topic? Surely PornHub employees could hypothetically be made up or misquoted in the same way the women in this story possibly were.
In that case, we'd know that the article was pure fiction, which indicates that the opposite case is true based on this strict ruleset of "opinion pieces are always fiction" and "fiction is always to be treated as categorically false."
I didn't say every opinion piece is fiction, I said you should expect it is. That isn't the same thing.
I have a counter example to your example. Say the New York Times on Monday runs a opinion column saying trees cause cancer by the Anti-Tree foundation . It is accompanied by a opinion column arguing trees prevent cancer by the Pro- Tree foundation.
(I'm trying to pick a silly, non-partisan example rather than a political one)
It's clear the NY Times opinion section cannot be trusted because the opinions are mutually exclusive and make claims on facts.
I am saying rather than chop down a tree (before it's too late and you get cancer) or plant a tree (to prevent yourself from getting cancer) you should assume both articles are fiction and ignore them.
I have a counter example to your example. Say the New York Times on Monday runs a opinion column saying trees cause cancer by the Anti-Tree foundation . It is accompanied by a opinion column arguing trees prevent cancer by the Pro- Tree foundation.
(I'm trying to pick a silly, non-partisan example rather than a political one)
It's clear the NY Times opinion section cannot be trusted because the opinions are mutually exclusive and make claims on facts.
I am saying rather than chop down a tree (before it's too late and you get cancer) or plant a tree (to prevent yourself from getting cancer) you should assume both articles are fiction and ignore them.
That is an interesting counterexample. I apologize for perhaps not being clear.
My question is specifically how would you (the person I'm responding to) would react to a hypothetical New York Times opinion piece stating that PornHub in particular and no other hypothetical website, has never had illegal content or child sex exploitation material knowingly or unknowingly. I'm not asking in broad terms, I'm asking about what your response would be to this individual article.
I am not asking about trees or apples or cancer. I'm asking about a specific instance of your reasoning in regard to this single subject. Just the one single hypothetical question with a very narrow scope.
My question is specifically how would you (the person I'm responding to) would react to a hypothetical New York Times opinion piece stating that PornHub in particular and no other hypothetical website, has never had illegal content or child sex exploitation material knowingly or unknowingly. I'm not asking in broad terms, I'm asking about what your response would be to this individual article.
I am not asking about trees or apples or cancer. I'm asking about a specific instance of your reasoning in regard to this single subject. Just the one single hypothetical question with a very narrow scope.
I don't know how anyone could know that nothing illegal had ever been posted on a web site, proving a negative appears to be impossible. The hypothetical article writer would not appear to be trustworthy who hypothetically wrote that.
Forget the staged videos, there's a whole heap of categories of those. However, there are tons of real ones,where predominantly women,were duped by men and ended up on videos either by filming secretly,or agreeing on the basis it won't be shared with anyone. I remember reading a UK based woman's ordeal trying to get rid of the content hee ex uploaded. Multiple jurisdictions, variations in laws and attitudes towards such cases and the amount of money needed just so PornHub would delete the video. There are lots of issues with these platforms and people often don't quite know,or can possibly know,where the content is legit and where it's just rape videos on demand.
I personally had a former partner put images of me on the Internet. (I got drunk, got the content taken down, and got a restraining order within 24 hours) I know people first hand who have been victims of similar situations but far worse.
A lot of the content out there is indeed real, and a lot of what is “staged” is still abuse. Please try to expand your horizons.
A lot of the content out there is indeed real, and a lot of what is “staged” is still abuse. Please try to expand your horizons.
User-generated content always has at least some terrible stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if it's true. The real question is whether these sites are entitled to some equivalent of the DMCA Safe Harbor if they attempt reasonable policing. I think the answer is yes and I think automated analysis and ID verification is sufficient so long as they pass human-reported cases on to law enforcement.
I believe this for Pornhub but I also believe it for Youtube and Facebook or whoever else. It doesn't really matter if your site is a porn site or a family pictures site. You should be allowed to have user-generated content with some reasonably high-sensitivity auto-detector coupled with human reports that are passed on to law enforcement and be indemnified.
I believe this for Pornhub but I also believe it for Youtube and Facebook or whoever else. It doesn't really matter if your site is a porn site or a family pictures site. You should be allowed to have user-generated content with some reasonably high-sensitivity auto-detector coupled with human reports that are passed on to law enforcement and be indemnified.
is it that hard to believe he may have come across genuine examples? I'm certainly not willing to search "14yo" on pornhub to judge for myself.
> I came across many videos on Pornhub
I bet :)
I bet :)
Interesting article. It makes me wonder how different women are at age 14 and age 18. In other words what makes it okay for them to make the decision to go public just when they hit 18. 18 seems like a very arbitrary barrier. It is arguable that a many women are undeveloped mentally and emotionally at that age and that it is not a reasonable decision to leave in their hands.
18 is probably the "somewhat average" line we draw from a legal sense when we decide people are able to make and be responsible for their own decisions. Some places and for some reasons it's 16, or 21. It's not a perfect method by any means, but it protects for the most part the most vulnerable of our population.
Probably worth updating the link to https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/business/visa-mastercard-... or similar as Visa joins the suit:
“We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network,” pending the completion of its investigation, Visa said in a separate statement.
(source: https://twitter.com/VisaNews/status/1337133093031841792)
“We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network,” pending the completion of its investigation, Visa said in a separate statement.
(source: https://twitter.com/VisaNews/status/1337133093031841792)
While you're at it, why not shut down MasterCard too. They've been facilitating payments to sites with unlawful content.
Two thinks:
1. Yes, pornhub has frequently unlaful content. Under german law it literally contains child pornography (hentai containing children) to just name one example.
2. I'm supper annoyed how payment providers discriminate (and by law often have to discriminate) against pornographic content platforms. IMHO this will just push/benefit platforms which operate on a less legal basis and in turn have much less motivation to hinder problematic content (like child pornography, revenge porn uploads, etc.)
1. Yes, pornhub has frequently unlaful content. Under german law it literally contains child pornography (hentai containing children) to just name one example.
2. I'm supper annoyed how payment providers discriminate (and by law often have to discriminate) against pornographic content platforms. IMHO this will just push/benefit platforms which operate on a less legal basis and in turn have much less motivation to hinder problematic content (like child pornography, revenge porn uploads, etc.)
To clarify: According to German law, any sexualized content in any media (including text) containing persons who can reasonably be thought of as below the age of 18 are illegal. Here, 'thought of' is quite literal and is allowed to contradict facts. There is no need for real or even just virtual children to be involved.
So if you draw a hentai image of someone who is 18, or 20, or 25, but could also be seen as younger, that's illegal. If you've seen hentai, you'll know that virtually all of it belongs in this category.
Two 17yo vampires having consensual sex would be legal in Germany, but writing a fanfiction about them would be child porn.
If you think that's batshit crazy, you are right.
So if you draw a hentai image of someone who is 18, or 20, or 25, but could also be seen as younger, that's illegal. If you've seen hentai, you'll know that virtually all of it belongs in this category.
Two 17yo vampires having consensual sex would be legal in Germany, but writing a fanfiction about them would be child porn.
If you think that's batshit crazy, you are right.
> 2. I'm supper annoyed how payment providers discriminate (and by law often have to discriminate) against pornographic content platforms.
IIUC there is a fraud component to this as well. As a generalization these businesses have an above average fraud rate. This does make it more expensive to support these and it is within they payment processor's rights to avoid doing business for that reason alone.
I think the bigger issue is that these payment processors have a sort of monopoly. Most businesses can't afford to not accept MasterCard or Visa since many North American customers (IDK about globally) will only have these cards, and possibly only one of them.
IIUC there is a fraud component to this as well. As a generalization these businesses have an above average fraud rate. This does make it more expensive to support these and it is within they payment processor's rights to avoid doing business for that reason alone.
I think the bigger issue is that these payment processors have a sort of monopoly. Most businesses can't afford to not accept MasterCard or Visa since many North American customers (IDK about globally) will only have these cards, and possibly only one of them.
I'm really happy that credit card back end processors now decide what is lawful and unlawful. I fully support corporations deciding now what is right and wrong to their risk mitigation strategies and this signals the need of why cryptocurrency or peer to peer transactions are bad.
This is how they stuck down wikileaks too. Stop the easy flow of money and they will go away.
I'd imagine some government friendly investor is already spinning up his own porn video site, or investing into competition.
I'd imagine some government friendly investor is already spinning up his own porn video site, or investing into competition.
15-20 years ago most video porn on line cost money. Now it's almost all "free" clips on these sites. I'm not an expert on the industry, but from the outside it looks to me like the pornhubs, xhamsters, xvideos, etc. of the world have been making money off content without charging for it by allowing arbitrary upload of mostly copyrighted content. Beyond the very dubious stuff that gets uploaded, there's bound to be boatloads of copyright violations as well.
What's that saying? When the product is free you are the product? Something like that applies here.
What's that saying? When the product is free you are the product? Something like that applies here.
Pornhub actually charges a subscription fee, pays actors/actresses, and owns a half dozen production companies.
Sure they got to this position by allowing the free upload of copyrighted content, but they don't do it now because they're now part of the establishment that others try to disrupt.
Sure they got to this position by allowing the free upload of copyrighted content, but they don't do it now because they're now part of the establishment that others try to disrupt.
You type a lot but say little to none. I don't know what to make of it, so I'll pass on.
They of course are free to work with or not work with whatever vendors they choose, but it's really surprising to see a financial services company make a choice that will mean they make less money. Maybe I'm just jaded, but it can't possibly be that they're doing this just because they think it's the right thing to do. Why is this better for their bottom line in the longer run? Do they foresee some sort of huge liability headache if that site gets shut down, so they're just taking their ball and going home before the storm hits?
> They of course are free to work with or not work with whatever vendors they choose
Don’t like Standard Oil? Just heat your home and cook your food with someone else’s oil!
I’m tired of hearing this argument to defend technology monopolies and duopolies. If you have no legal reason to deny services to someone, don’t.
That would mean baking cakes for gay weddings if you’re a baker open to the public and processing credit card payments for pornography if you’re a payment processor.
Don’t like Standard Oil? Just heat your home and cook your food with someone else’s oil!
I’m tired of hearing this argument to defend technology monopolies and duopolies. If you have no legal reason to deny services to someone, don’t.
That would mean baking cakes for gay weddings if you’re a baker open to the public and processing credit card payments for pornography if you’re a payment processor.
I think the more apt analogy might be choosing not to sell flour to that jerk who runs the anti-gay cake store anymore because you don't want to be caught up in the bad PR.
I'm pretty sure you can still use MasterCard to fund a PayPal account, which can be used to buy any manner of thing, so it's not purely that Mastercard doesn't want their money being used to buy illegal things. They just don't want to be associated with it.
I'm pretty sure you can still use MasterCard to fund a PayPal account, which can be used to buy any manner of thing, so it's not purely that Mastercard doesn't want their money being used to buy illegal things. They just don't want to be associated with it.
Except you can't pay for Pornhub with PayPal, as PayPal can't be used to buy pornography. Not even the legal kind. They won't even take the proceeds. Venmo is owned by PayPal and has the same policies.
Google Pay also has an explicit ban on pornography. As does Apple Pay. As does Samsung Pay. In fact, I don't think any balance-carrying service available to Americans even theoretically allows paying for porn.
Google Pay also has an explicit ban on pornography. As does Apple Pay. As does Samsung Pay. In fact, I don't think any balance-carrying service available to Americans even theoretically allows paying for porn.
That's interesting, I didn't know that. So in this case MasterCard is really sort of joining an established bloc among their peers? Though I guess they're not saying "no more porn" right out, just this one vendor it sounds like.
But in this case, it appears they do have legal reasons for denying services.
The company was aware of it's CP problem and didn't do much to stop it. Now they have a very strong incentive to police their site.
The company was aware of it's CP problem and didn't do much to stop it. Now they have a very strong incentive to police their site.
But why are we looking to MasterCard to police pornography on the internet and not our government?
Because that's a false dichotomy and we are looking to both.
Imagine you are a Visa or Mastercard executive. Your company has found evidence of illegal, sexually exploitative (including that of the underage variety) materials on a site your company tangentially provides services for. What other option do you have?
Congressional testimony, civil suits, reputational risk and damage. These are the pitfalls you are attempting to avoid by deplatforming Mindgeek through their payment processor.
Congressional testimony, civil suits, reputational risk and damage. These are the pitfalls you are attempting to avoid by deplatforming Mindgeek through their payment processor.
I guess it could be the case that they regularly sever relationships with vendors for this, but usually it's not newsworthy.
So the angle is basically preventative PR? Business lost based on future outrage outweighs business lost to porn subscribers, sort of thing?
So the angle is basically preventative PR? Business lost based on future outrage outweighs business lost to porn subscribers, sort of thing?
> So the angle is basically preventative PR? Business lost based on future outrage outweighs business lost to porn subscribers, sort of thing?
Yeah. See exileration's comment about the NY Times piece. Pornhub looked the other way on verified users and safety/trust (content moderation and the like) to generate more users/views and they got burned.
Yeah. See exileration's comment about the NY Times piece. Pornhub looked the other way on verified users and safety/trust (content moderation and the like) to generate more users/views and they got burned.
Edit: I wasn’t thinking about financial regulation applied to processors on a whole range of illegal behavior, where regulator will go after the payment processor to force it to police transactions
Gist of the original comment: As other commenters point out, your go to option should be to alert authorities and have them investigate.
Gist of the original comment: As other commenters point out, your go to option should be to alert authorities and have them investigate.
> your go to option should be to alert authorities and have them investigate
And then continue processing payments for what you sincerely believe to be child abuse and rape until the justice system finally gets around to dealing with it?
And then continue processing payments for what you sincerely believe to be child abuse and rape until the justice system finally gets around to dealing with it?
I sympathize with the point, because as an individual that’s what I would do.
I see it as a less clear situation for an entity that has so much control other everyone’s life. Phrasing it in a “innocent until proven guilty” would be too much, as they are not governing bodies, but there is a line somewhere that should be set in my opinion, and crossing it should be backed by something legal happening on with it (basically PornHub having an injunction to stop doing business until due trial), and not just the processor acting on its principles.
I see it as a less clear situation for an entity that has so much control other everyone’s life. Phrasing it in a “innocent until proven guilty” would be too much, as they are not governing bodies, but there is a line somewhere that should be set in my opinion, and crossing it should be backed by something legal happening on with it (basically PornHub having an injunction to stop doing business until due trial), and not just the processor acting on its principles.
Mastercard is so big that them choosing to ban some recipients is almost like banning these recipients from existing. I know there’s visa but I can imagine that as a company that’s a huge stab in the guts. Imagine having a product banned by the iOS apps tore!
I actually wonder if credit card companies even make money doing business with PornHub? My understanding is that porn credit card charges are charged back extremely often. Dealing with those has to eat away at the margin.
Maybe they just saw this as an opportunity to get out of business with PornHub and not look like they are unfairly denying service?
Maybe they just saw this as an opportunity to get out of business with PornHub and not look like they are unfairly denying service?
It's likely the DOJ is pressuring them. Look up Operation Choke Point.
> It's likely the DOJ is pressuring them. Look up Operation Choke Point.
No, this is driven by public and media pressure. There was a really blunt expose about PornHub a week ago by a prominent NYT columnist.
No, this is driven by public and media pressure. There was a really blunt expose about PornHub a week ago by a prominent NYT columnist.
2020 is a brave new world and Karens run it.
Is it on PornHub alone or is it on everything that Mindgeek controls? Because that would be most of the porn on the internet. If it isn't.. why not?
The law of unintended consequences applies. By not not processing porn payments the credit card companies force porn companies to generate revenue via advertising that works best if they give the content away for free. My surprise here is that Pornhub was able to process payments via Mastercard and Visa as I was under the impression that all porn was rejected by them already. https://www.vice.com/en/article/kb7ak9/the-secret-censorship...
Seems MasterCard just did not want to continue business with that customer, and I suppose others in the same "entertainment" sector, be it a corporate decision or through external pressures to so. Should alleged "unlawful content" be cited there should be throughout proofs (through formal jurisdictional procedure), otherwise I do not see how this is not defamation. These !accusations are quite a growing phenomenon with service providers I believe.
This is good news for cryptocurrencies. Mastercard/VISA offer no value in 2020 and are an anachronism to an era that no longer exists.
The same pearl clutching about making payments to site hosting "unlawful content" will apply to cryptocurrencies as well. Sadly, there are already efforts to track crypto payments and regulate the crypto ecosystem.
How do you block/censor a Bitcoin transaction to a porn site?
Perhaps if the sending address has been linked to an IRL identity you could prosecute. But then you could just use Monero or other anonymous currencies instead.
Perhaps if the sending address has been linked to an IRL identity you could prosecute. But then you could just use Monero or other anonymous currencies instead.
My understanding is that the US government cannot realistically regulate the Bitcoin protocol, but it can regulate it's own citizens use of it. It wouldn't be materially difficult to pass a law stating that all bitcoin transactions made by citizens and businesses subject to US jurisdiction must be registered. While they would not be able to block the transaction, they can go after anyone who made the transaction.
When I buy things with my Visa and accidentally break them, Visa buys me a new one.
When a business screws me over, Visa takes my payment back.
You can argue that the core activity of processing payments is a commodity (and it isn't, because building a merchant network as big as Visa's is incredibly difficult), but you can't argue that they don't add any value on top of that.
When a business screws me over, Visa takes my payment back.
You can argue that the core activity of processing payments is a commodity (and it isn't, because building a merchant network as big as Visa's is incredibly difficult), but you can't argue that they don't add any value on top of that.
I would wonder how much of a role chargeback issues played as well. Other similar sites like OnlyFans or online gambling fall under the "high risk" category for payment processors, so PornHub might have been borderline.
It's also worth noting that MindGeek, Pornhub's parent companys other holdings are, consisting of the majority of other free sites (redtube, youporn, xtube gaytube etc)[1,2] and even production studios (Brazzers, Reality Kings) the Playboy site, but don't seem to be affected.
[1] https://twitter.com/rosekalemba/status/1274593099445153795
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek
It's also worth noting that MindGeek, Pornhub's parent companys other holdings are, consisting of the majority of other free sites (redtube, youporn, xtube gaytube etc)[1,2] and even production studios (Brazzers, Reality Kings) the Playboy site, but don't seem to be affected.
[1] https://twitter.com/rosekalemba/status/1274593099445153795
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek
According to victims rights lawyer Carrie A. Goldberg, for every one case involving a rape tape on Pornhub, she has 50 involving rape and CSAM being disseminated on Instagram and Facebook. Mainstream big tech is far worse than Pornhub for rape porn and have a built-in mechanism for harassing victims directly.
I agree that Pornhub should have to follow the same rules as American porn companies as far as ID requirements and copyright rules.
But let's not pretend that any other part of this is about protecting children. Tech companies sent the DOJ more than 45 million instances of CSAM in 2019 alone, most of which they never investigated.
This is about the DOJ pressuring Pornhub into allowing the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a DOJ subsidiary, to censor their content. Which they agreed to.
I agree that Pornhub should have to follow the same rules as American porn companies as far as ID requirements and copyright rules.
But let's not pretend that any other part of this is about protecting children. Tech companies sent the DOJ more than 45 million instances of CSAM in 2019 alone, most of which they never investigated.
This is about the DOJ pressuring Pornhub into allowing the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a DOJ subsidiary, to censor their content. Which they agreed to.
Neither Visa, nor MasterCard, nor PayPal, nor Stripe should have the power to pick whose payments get processed. I don't care that these are private organizations. Payment processing is a fundamental utility service for society today. The fact that we've outsourced it to oligopolies that enjoy the lack of real competition from network effects is an indication that these companies must be broken up or heavily regulated. Payment processors should not get to deny clients except where the law is explicitly broken, and even then, only at the behest of the justice system.
Nonsense.
There’s an inherent risk in payment processing which needs to be evaluated before taking on a customer. You’d end up with loads of chargeback fraud if you took everyone on. It’s fair enough saying that clients should only be denied once they’ve broken the law, but often the payment processor is the enabler & it’d be too late waiting for illegalities to be detected and prosecuted accordingly. Best to stop it before!
There’s an inherent risk in payment processing which needs to be evaluated before taking on a customer. You’d end up with loads of chargeback fraud if you took everyone on. It’s fair enough saying that clients should only be denied once they’ve broken the law, but often the payment processor is the enabler & it’d be too late waiting for illegalities to be detected and prosecuted accordingly. Best to stop it before!
Briefly started reading some of the NY Times article. Seems to me they may be exaggerating slightly and also possibly slightly misinterpreting how the Pornhub search engine works.
But it seems like AI may be able to help. Also it might really be necessary for uploaders to identify themselves because who really doubts that a small percentage of it is actually quite heinous?
Also if we really are concerned about the age of people in respect to laws then we probably need better ID systems and a way to tie that into AI and databases.
But it seems like AI may be able to help. Also it might really be necessary for uploaders to identify themselves because who really doubts that a small percentage of it is actually quite heinous?
Also if we really are concerned about the age of people in respect to laws then we probably need better ID systems and a way to tie that into AI and databases.
Reading the New York Times article mentioning women and trafficking reminded me of this old American classic from over a century ago, about the yellow journalists of the day spinning the same stories, sans the modern streaming element https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-the-whi...
Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25301913
I guess this story explains why Pornhub decided to change their policies a few days ago & banned uploads by unverified users. See this Vice story: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7m7k8/pornhub-banned-upload...
Too little, too late.
I guess this story explains why Pornhub decided to change their policies a few days ago & banned uploads by unverified users. See this Vice story: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7m7k8/pornhub-banned-upload...
Too little, too late.
If more and more business are cut off by the payment gatekeepers perhaps it will spur the adoption of alternative currencies.
Don't forget, the Vatican just joined the Inclusive Capitalism club. Mastercard is one of many prominent members. I never expected them to actually mean what they said, but this could be the start of something... interesting.
https://www.inclusivecapitalism.com/organization/mastercard/
https://www.inclusivecapitalism.com/organization/mastercard/
Elated by this.
That said, curious if others have any thoughts about the externalities of this.
That said, curious if others have any thoughts about the externalities of this.
> Elated by this.
How come?
How come?
Because it might help limit easy, mass distribution of child molestation, rape, etc. videos.
I dunno, seems like the vast, vast majority of "for the children" initiatives rarely end up accomplishing what they say they will, and mostly just end up limiting the freedom of people totally blameless in such things.
this will do nothing to stop that, what it will do is further empower banks, fintech and chokepoint monopolies to curtail what speech and whose business is allowed on the internet in a manner that just so happens to to completely appeal to the whims of anti-queer, anti-sex, anti sexworker moralists in the halls of power.
i have never met an extremely online anti-pedo person who wasn't the most specious kind of kony2012 virtue signaller.
i have never met an extremely online anti-pedo person who wasn't the most specious kind of kony2012 virtue signaller.
Because he's not a fan of enabling kiddie porn, rape videos, and worse?
Read the NY Times article that sparked this.
Read the NY Times article that sparked this.
There isn't a video or image sharing service that doesn't have to deal with child porn getting uploaded. Nobody is going to be perfect on stopping that either. From kids uploading explicit content of themselves to tiktok and snapchat to people cross-uploading random videos they found from other porn sites purely for the ego of the view count to actual intentional spreading of childporn.
pornhub is not the only user upload powered adult site out there, they just happened to be one of the few that actually has and enforced rules against extreme content like rape, so i don't know why they got targeted other then they are #1.
pornhub is not the only user upload powered adult site out there, they just happened to be one of the few that actually has and enforced rules against extreme content like rape, so i don't know why they got targeted other then they are #1.
Are you against the internet? Surely there's no larger enabler than the broad internet
It's not about me, or my views. I'm merely giving a possible reason for his sentiment. Your hyperbole is meaningless.
Not seeing how it's hyperbole, nor how it would be meaningless.
Exactly.
Sounds like Pornhub's changes weren't satisfactory or were too late.
This is an absolute inditement of the "let anyone upload anything and police it later" model that YouTube and Pornhub depend on.
I think it's long overdue.
This is an absolute inditement of the "let anyone upload anything and police it later" model that YouTube and Pornhub depend on.
I think it's long overdue.
I don't even understand it since most of these sites just have the same videos (mostly clips from commercial porn) uploaded over and over again with different titles. The actual amount of novel content is much less than the total number of videos. Clamping down on arbitrary uploads would be doing their users a favour.
Allowing arbitrary/anonymous upload is a way for a company to host pirated content without being sued, because they can hide behind (or traditionally have hid behind) Section 230.
It's absolutely true that the death of anonymous upload on Pornhub will be a massive boon to commercial and professional adult performers, who will find piracy of their content evaporate overnight. This may actually bring on a renaissance for the adult industry, given how much harm Pornhub has had to the revenues of many studios. Users are going to have a harder time finding that content outside of torrents or the like, so I'm not sure I'd call it a straight upside for them.
It's absolutely true that the death of anonymous upload on Pornhub will be a massive boon to commercial and professional adult performers, who will find piracy of their content evaporate overnight. This may actually bring on a renaissance for the adult industry, given how much harm Pornhub has had to the revenues of many studios. Users are going to have a harder time finding that content outside of torrents or the like, so I'm not sure I'd call it a straight upside for them.
I dunno, beyond Pornhub there seem to be a dozen other similar sites. Unless they all ban uploading, it will just continue there.
Sure, but Pornhub is the largest and probably the most technically superior. And it's likely after this, it'll be easier to bring the smaller sites down as well.
Bully which made a business of distributing videos of small studios which weren't large enough to enforce their copyright, gets bullied by an even bigger bully.
Hard to have strong feelings about it.
Hard to have strong feelings about it.
until PornHub does something about the absolute oceans of child porn, rape content, and content from sex traffickers - this is good
I understand the repulsion against child pornography and unauthorized porn, I should not have to clarify that, but this the Internet. Let me tell you a story, some months ago I came across a NGO that is heavily against pornhub (You can see their campaign in many social media sites) They were a little bit over the top so that got me suspicious, so I started to research them a little, being an NGO and all. To summarize, they have been basically running a scam for years! Those people must be racking mid-high six figures a year from donations and when you check their numbers they have not done anything of what they promised (Like helping sexual workers and stuff) 95% of their budget goes to A)A hefty salary for the founder. B) The budget for a "documentary" years in the making. Ironically, those guys have a profitable cottage industry from outrage on the Internet.
If you are a sociopath that is a highly motivating example. I thought about tipping a journo, but knowing current media I thought better and just let them be.
If you are a sociopath that is a highly motivating example. I thought about tipping a journo, but knowing current media I thought better and just let them be.
Let's be real, allowing anonymous users upload pornographic content that can potentially be a felony is insane! You must verify those users. Child pornography has to stop and this is one issue IDGAF about your internet privacy rights
Credit card companies already discriminate against hypnosis videos because they believe it removes consent, obviously too dumb to spend 5 minutes figuring out that hypnosis requires someone to want to be hypnotized and be willing throughout the entirety for it to have any effect.
The reasons behind this are a big part of why I will only look at porn that features older women by porn standards, i.e. 30 years old, or verified amatuers in their 20's. It's not a fetish, I just don't want to view porn of women who could very well be girls still. On top of that, exploitation of younger women is much more common. Tags like barely legal, teen, just18, etc all likely have illegal content.
It's not about the legal status, I just don't want to see young girls exploited. Even 18-20 year olds are too young and are often naive and exploited. Look at Mia Khalifa as an example. Young and impressionable, she did a few porn shoots at a young age over some months and now it's the defining point of her life and something she'd love to leave behind.
It's not about the legal status, I just don't want to see young girls exploited. Even 18-20 year olds are too young and are often naive and exploited. Look at Mia Khalifa as an example. Young and impressionable, she did a few porn shoots at a young age over some months and now it's the defining point of her life and something she'd love to leave behind.
Pornhub uses the Tether stablecoin (USDT) operating on the Ethereum and Tron blockchains as a valid payment option https://cointelegraph.com/news/pornhub-adds-tether-stablecoi...
One of cryptocurrencies' core use cases is uncensorable payments for vendors shut out of the mainstream financial system.
One of cryptocurrencies' core use cases is uncensorable payments for vendors shut out of the mainstream financial system.
Doesn't this just make this a problem of converting USDT to USD at some point? Any guy who offers that feature as scale is likely to fall into the same problem.
Many ways to do that, including OTC desks that can do a big lump sum conversion at once. Retail can use a multitude of exchanges.
Right, I just don't understand how this doesn't just become a problem for the exchanges at that point. Right now they're too small to be on the radar.
For how "small" they are, the amount of attention they attract from regulators, and the intense focus on regulating Bitcoin and similar, shows the powers are very aware of the risk to their monopoly.
The content that exists of women and girls being raped online is absolutely horrible and terrifying. People are monsters.
Why was Mastercard even allowing PH to process payments at all?
Why was Mastercard even allowing PH to process payments at all?
Because to do so would be an extrajudicial act. They're bad, real bad. States have a monopoly on violence for a reason.
> 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.
I understand the different angles people will take on this. Yet, it looks like the issue at hand in this case is illegal activity surrounding children. If MasterCard is aware of this illegal activity and is complacent with it... what does that mean ethically and legally? Some people have to deal with that.
I understand the different angles people will take on this. Yet, it looks like the issue at hand in this case is illegal activity surrounding children. If MasterCard is aware of this illegal activity and is complacent with it... what does that mean ethically and legally? Some people have to deal with that.
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> Pornhub said on Tuesday it had banned video downloads
youtube-dl still work great..
youtube-dl still work great..
They are certainly free to do business with whomever they please, but with MC/Visa being a more-or-less global duopoly, these seemingly arbitrary decisions can be extremely impactful.