Two credit card companies have had enough of Pornhub’s sexual exploitation, and have determined to no longer allow payments on the site.
Visa stated that it has suspended payments with Pornhub, pending an investigation. Mastercard, however, has decided to cut ties with the website entirely.
The announcements followed a scathing New York Times investigation revealing that the website is allegedly “infested” with videos depicting brutal rapes and assaults, even including some victims who are minors.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) announced via Twitter: “@Mastercard has just informed me that they are terminating the use of their cards on Pornhub.” He continued in a thread: “@Visa and every other credit card company should immediately do the same.”
“Today, the use of our cards at Pornhub is being terminated,” Mastercard confirmed to NewsBusters in a statement. “Our investigation over the past several days has confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site. As a result, and in accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions that connect the site to our network to terminate acceptance. In addition, we continue to investigate potential illegal content on other websites to take the appropriate action.”
“Given the allegations of illegal activity, Visa is suspending Pornhub’s acceptance privileges pending the completion of our ongoing investigation,” Visa told NewsBusters. “We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network. At Visa, we are vigilant in our efforts to stamp out illegal activity on our network, and we encourage our financial institution partners to regularly review their merchants’ compliance of our standards on this and other platforms.”
Visa and Mastercard have now joined PayPal in ending their relationships with Pornhub. PayPal cut ties with Pornhub in 2019, according to Business Insider.
PornHub “monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for ‘girls under18’ (no space) or 14yo’ leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are,” reported The Times.
Pornhub announced on Dec. 8 that it would make some changes to its content and site moderation, according to Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in a tweet. The website has claimed that it will now only allow uploads from “Verified Uploaders Only,” will prohibit downloads and will expand moderation. The site also introduced a “trusted flagger program.” The site has partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, plans to release a transparency report in 2021 and has brought in a legal team for an independent investigation. However, it did take a nationally recognized paper reporting on the alleged abuse and the threat of federal investigation from a sitting senator for the site to take action to protect children.
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