Credit Card Companies Make Big Announcements About Pornhub Following Horrifying Claims
An Op-Ed published in The New York Times has made bombshell allegations against porn industry titan Pornhub.
In a Dec. 4 story titled “The Children of Pornhub,” Nicholas Kristof, an opinion columnist specializing in human and women’s rights, alleged the pornographic video site “monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering” and other forms of illegal content.
Included in the story are accusations of multiple underage girls who say their rapes were filmed and uploaded to the site.
In response to Kristof’s column, two of Pornhub’s largest business partners — Visa and Mastercard — said they were banning the use of their cards on Pornhub.
“We are aware of the allegations, and we are actively engaging with the relevant financial institutions to investigate, in addition to engaging directly with the site’s parent company, MindGeek,” Visa said in a statement Sunday, according to Fox News.
“We are instructing the financial institutions who serve [Pornhub parent company] MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network,” pending the completion of the investigation, Visa added on Thursday, according to The New York Times.
Similarly, Mastercard had announced earlier this week it was “investigating allegations raised in the New York Times” as well.
On Thursday, the company said the investigation had “confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site.”
In a statement to The Associated Press on Sunday, Pornhub said it is “irresponsible and flagrantly untrue” to suggest illicit material such as child pornography was allowed on its site.
However, two days later, in an act of what seems to be contrition, Pornhub announced various policy changes to its video platform, according to Kristof.
Pornhub just announced huge changes: a.) allow uploads only from verified users; b.) no downloads; c.) improvements in moderation. Initial take: A great deal depends on how responsibly Pornhub implements these, and it hasn’t earned my trust at all, but these seem significant.
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) December 8, 2020
The changes include no longer allowing unverified users to upload content, no more downloading of content, and various “improvements in moderation.”
It’ll take more than the investigations of a few credit card companies to take on porn industry titan MindGeek, however.
According to one study conducted by Diggity Marketing, Pornhub is the third-most-influential tech company of the 21st century, behind only Facebook and Google.
With many more investigations likely to take place, Pornhub and MindGeek will continue to face harsh scrutiny for what appears to be at best negligent behavior on their site.
The content these companies allegedly made money off of and assisted in distributing was not only illegal, but also inhumane and predatory.
Conduct of this nature on the part of the porn industry has been documented before. Nevertheless, many liberals, and even some conservatives, have argued for the benefits of pornography.
Besides the obvious issues of sexual immorality, such rhetoric has fostered an environment where one of the world’s greatest horrors, child rape, can be a source of profit.
Maybe now the world will wake up to the evils of pornography.
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