Pornhub

Payments giant Mastercard is considering banning people from spending their money at Pornhub.

Mastercard  is reviewing its business with pornography platform Pornhub, following a campaign against the website being highlighted by the New York Times.

Mastercard responded after reporter Nicholas Kristof said he didn't see why search engines, banks or credit-card companies should bolster Pornhub.

Pornhub is free to use but users can pay £9.99 a month for higher-quality video streams and advert-free and exclusive content.

Update: Visa too

13th December 2020. See article from avn.com

Visa followed Mastercard's lead and said that it too won't allow Pornhub users to use their credit cards to make charges on the adult content site. Visa said in a statement:

We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network.

And according to Bloomberg.com, Mastercard said it's continuing to investigate potential illegal content on other websites, most likely XVideos.

Pornhub explained in a blog post:

At Pornhub, the safety of our community is our top priority. Last week, we enacted the most comprehensive safeguards in user-generated platform history. We banned unverified uploaders from posting new content, eliminated downloads, and partnered with dozens of non-profit organizations, among other major policy changes (please read here for more details).

As part of our policy to ban unverified uploaders, we have now also suspended all previously uploaded content that was not created by content partners or members of the Model Program. This means every piece of Pornhub content is from verified uploaders, a requirement that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter have yet to institute.

Leading non-profit organizations and advocacy groups acknowledge our efforts to date at combating illegal content have been effective. Over the last three years, Facebook self-reported 84 million instances of child sexual abuse material. During that same period, the independent, third-party Internet Watch Foundation reported 118 incidents on Pornhub. That is still 118 too many, which is why we are committed to taking every necessary action.

It is clear that Pornhub is being targeted not because of our policies and how we compare to our peers, but because we are an adult content platform. The two groups that have spearheaded the campaign against our company are the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (formerly known as Morality in Media) and Exodus Cry/TraffickingHub. These are organizations dedicated to abolishing pornography, banning material they claim is obscene, and shutting down commercial sex work. These are the same forces that have spent 50 years demonizing Playboy, the National Endowment for the Arts, sex education, LGBTQ rights, women's rights, and even the American Library Association. Today, it happens to be Pornhub.

In today's world, all social media platforms share the responsibility to combat illegal material. Solutions must be driven by real facts and real experts. We hope we have demonstrated our dedication to leading by example.

Anti porn campaigners have been cataloguing porn titles on Pornhub, XVideos and xHamster and claim that one in eight have titles describing sexually violent acts. Their use of the term 'sexually violent' is a little bizarre though, and inevitably has been redefined to include non-violent material that the authors deem to be violent totally at odds with normal people's use of the English language.

The campaigners analysed 131,738 titles of videos that appeared on the front page of the tube websites (without specifically searching for anything nor allowing the site to build up a profile of preferences).

The campaigners claimed that

• 8,421 (6.4%) titles included terms for family relationships and 5,785 (4.4%) titles described sexual activity between family members - the most common category of 'sexually violent' material identified in the survey
• 5,389 (4.1%) titles referred to physical aggression or the depiction of forced sexual activity (acknowledging that performers had likely consented
• 2,966 (2.2%) titles described image-based sexual abuse, including hidden cams and upskirting
• 2,698 (1.7%) titles described as coercion and exploitation

The campaigners excluded BDSM material as they seemed to have gotten confused about whether the term 'violence' applies to the genre that seems to be higher more PC than other genres.

Pornhub's owner Mindgeek recently removed millions of videos that had been uploaded by users who had not been verified after claims of hosting illegal content. But it commented on the clips it has allowed to remain online:

Consenting adults are entitled to their own sexual preferences, as long as they are legal and consensual, and all kinks that meet these criteria are welcome on Pornhub.

Academic Clare McGlynn who co-authored the survey, said:

It's shocking that this is the material that the porn companies themselves are choosing to showcase to first-time users.

Collegue Fiona Vera-Gray and co-author of the survey, said:

Sexually violent material eroticised non-consent and distorted the boundary between sexual pleasure and sexual violence.

The survey, titled Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography, is published in the latest issue of The British Journal of Criminology. with its abstract reading:

This article examines the ways in which mainstream pornography positions sexual violence as a normative sexual script by analysing the video titles found on the landing pages of the three most popular pornography websites in the United Kingdom. The study draws on the largest research sample of online pornographic content to date and is unique in its focus on the content immediately advertised to a new user. We found that one in eight titles shown to first-time users on the first page of mainstream porn sites describe sexual activity that constitutes sexual violence. Our findings raise serious questions about the extent of criminal material easily and freely available on mainstream pornography websites and the efficacy of current regulatory mechanisms.

Offsite Comment: Academic Click Bate: The War On Porn Continues

7th April 2021. See article from reprobatepress.com by David Flint

The study makes big claims that were inevitably picked up and repeated uncritically by media outlets like the BBC. But even a cursory glance at the evidence and the conclusions might make a more open-minded person raise their eyebrows. If ever there was a study that set out in search of evidence to back up a belief already held, this is it.

See article from reprobatepress.com

Offsite Comment: British Journal of Criminology Study on Violence in Porn

10th April 2021. See article from avn.com

If you only read headlines about a new study from the British Journal of Criminology you might think that large quantities of criminal videos of sexual violence on tube sites are warping most children's minds, turning them into sexual violators.

But this isn't even close to true. The coverage of the study is misleading and exaggerated. But the study itself is extremely flawed.

First, the researchers included everything from stepmom to ploughed in the category of sexual violence. Defined that broadly, it's shocking the study found only one in eight videos depicted sexual violence.

See full article from avn.com

Mastercard has taken another step along the path to a dystopian world where moralists and US corporate monsters can dictate how people can spend their money. Mastercard explains:

Enhancing requirements for adult content, preventing anonymous content

This month, we are extending our existing Specialty Merchant Registration requirements. The banks that connect merchants to our network will need to certify that the seller of adult content has effective controls in place to monitor, block and, where necessary, take down all illegal content.

You might ask, "Why now?" In the past few years, the ability to upload content to the internet has become easier than ever. All someone needs is a smartphone and a Wi-Fi connection.

Now, our requirements address the risks associated with this activity. And that starts with strong content control measures and clear, unambiguous and documented consent.

Other updated requirements include:

• Documented age and identity verification for all people depicted and those uploading the content

• Content review process prior to publication

• Complaint resolution process that addresses illegal or nonconsensual content within seven business days

• Appeals process allowing for any person depicted to request their content be removed

 Comcast Cable (owners of the Xfinity brand)-- the largest cable television company in the United States with close to 20 million pay TVsubscribers is banning cable channels and streaming services owned by Mindgeek (owners of Pornhub).

A Comcast representative said that they were deeply concerned over the growing number of reports against MindGeek for unlawful business practices, including minors being exploited on their sites. As a result of this increasing evidence, Comcast decided to drop all MindGeek content from their cable systems. As of April 2021, all MindGeek material has been removed.

Furthermore, Comcast disabled new subscription video on demand (SVOD) signups and notified all their existing SVOD customers of their decision to remove content and cease distribution of MindGeek's SVOD services. Existing customers were informed of Comcast's decision through bill messages. Once the subscriber notification process was completed, the SVOD content became unavailable on their cable channels.