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Major Credit Cards Stop Allowing Cards To Be Used On Pornhub; Porn Site Outraged

   DailyWire.com
In this photo illustration, the Pornographic video sharing website Pornhub logo is seen displayed on an Android mobile device with a couple holding hands image in the background.
Miguel Candela/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Mastercard and Visa announced Thursday that they will prohibit the use of their cards on embattled pornography site Pornhub, The New York Times reported.

“The credit card companies had started separate investigations this week into their financial ties with MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub,” the report said.

Mastercard said in a statement Thursday that it was “confirmed” through an investigation that there were “violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site.”

“We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network,” Visa said in a statement.

Pornhub was outraged at the news, slamming the credit card companies’ decision as “crushing for the hundreds of thousands of models who rely” on the exploitative site.

“These actions are exceptionally disappointing, as they come just two days after Pornhub instituted the most far-reaching safeguards in user-generated platform history,” Pornhub said, reported Fox Business’ Audrey Conklin. “This news is crushing for the hundreds of thousands of models who rely on our platform for their livelihoods.”

Pornhub announced “huge changes” to their terms Tuesday, on the heels of a brutal exposé from the Times that uncovered videos of rape and sex trafficking victims on its platform.

Pornhub “is infested with rape videos,” outlined Times writer Nicholas Kristof, in an opinion piece published Friday. “It 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.”

Kristof announced Tuesday that Pornhub says they are now only allowing uploads from verified users, will ban most downloads, and will make improvements to their moderation.

“Initial take,” he offered, “A great deal depends on how responsibly Pornhub implements these, and it hasn’t earned my trust at all, but these seem significant.”

“Effective immediately, only content partners and people within the Model Program will be able to upload content to Pornhub,” the pornography site posted on their “commitment to trust and safety” page. “In the new year, we will implement a verification process so that any user can upload content upon successful completion of identification protocol.”

The site also “removed the ability for users to download content from Pornhub, with the exception of paid downloads within the verified Model Program. In tandem with our fingerprinting technology, this will mitigate the ability for content already removed from the platform to be able to return.” This, too, will allegedly be “effective immediately.”

“We have worked to create comprehensive measures that help protect our community from illegal content,” Pornhub said. “In recent months we deployed an additional layer of moderation. The newly established ‘Red Team’ will be dedicated solely to self-auditing the platform for potentially illegal material.”

Traffickinghub founder Laila Mickelwait reacted to the news Tuesday: “Pornhub just conceded to the pressure, admitted their guilt, & made drastic changes to the way they operate,” she said in a Twitter thread. “This is a huge win for the movement! However we need reliable implementation, apologies to victims, restitution for victims & more.”

“Pornhub has shown that it cannot be trusted to self police. It has spent years knowingly making hundreds of millions of dollars on the bloody, bruised, abused, raped and trafficked bodies of society’s most vulnerable,” the anti-porn activist continued. “Pornhub must first delete all user generated amateur videos from the site [—] too many of them are blatantly illegal. Pornhub’s proposal for verified only uploads is insufficient as is because all that is required to be ‘verified’ on Pornhub is a photo and a username.”

Mickelwait noted that currently “no government-issued ID or real consent is needed for Pornhub ‘verification.’”

“This is unacceptable,” she said. “Verification must mean more than that. They must implement third party reliable age and consent verification using government issued ID immediately.”

“Pornhub must apologize and provide restitution to all victims whose lives have been destroyed by their predatory criminally negligent and intentionally reckless disregard for the safety of children as well as adults,” Mickelwait argued. “Pornhub must still be investigated by the USDOJ and Canadian Ministry of Justice for flagrantly and knowingly violating the criminal code. Why?”

“We don’t allow sexual predators and traffickers to get away with a slap on the wrist and a promise of better behavior. Justice for victims means criminal prosecution and restitution—nothing less,” she wrote, tagging Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the U.S. Justice Department. “[T]his is on you. Act now.”

“Lastly,” she closed, “these changes must apply to ALL MindGeek owned tube sites. MindGeek currently holds a monopoly on global user generated internet pornography and these changes and demands apply to all of their sites.”

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