'Visa can be speculated to have helped monetize child sexual abuse content by Pornhub,' federal judge ruled, Visa to face lawsuit
In December 2020, major credit card brands
Visa 'Intended to Help' Pornhub, MindGeek Monetize Child Porn: Ruling - Variety
https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/pornhub-visa-child-pornography-court-ruling-1235330052/
Visa knew about Pornhub's child porn, judge says, and now must face trial | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/08/california-court-says-visa-may-be-partly-liable-for-child-porn-problem/
Judge Greenlights Suit Accusing Visa Of Monetizing Child Porn
https://gizmodo.com/pornhub-lawsuit-visa-mindgeek-child-porn-monetize-1849355488
Visa could be liable in MindGeek Pornhub lawsuit, says court - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/1/23287036/visa-mindgeek-pornhub-child-sexual-abuse-videos-court-liability
With the publication of the New York Times article in 2020, Pornhub received strong pressure from credit card companies such as Visa and Mastercard to suspend payment processing. As a result, Pornhub banned uploading and downloading videos by unauthorized users and removed over 10 million movies to rid the platform of illegal content.
Pornhub deletes more than 10 million movies, unapproved users are prohibited from uploading to eliminate illegal content - GIGAZINE
by Prachatai
In a civil lawsuit filed in June 2022 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, more than 30 child pornography, rape, and human trafficking victims allege that MindGeek, the company behind Pornhub, committed non-consensual sexual acts. They claim they made money from their videos.
Mr. Serena Fleites, the representative of the plaintiff, said that when he was 13 years old, he was instructed to shoot sexual videos by his boyfriend at the time, and that video was uploaded to Pornhub without consent. A video posted titled '13-Year Old Brunette Shows Off For the Camera' has been viewed millions of times and suffered emotional distress, Fleites said. He claims to have struggled with drug addiction and depression. Plaintiffs seek damages for damages and demand that MindGeek adopt stricter policies on its platform to prevent further exploitation.
In addition to MindGeek, the plaintiffs also accused payment provider Visa of violating California law by processing payments for child pornography. In response, Visa claimed that they could not control MindGeek's content and would not be legitimate defendants, and sought to exclude it from the lawsuit.
However, on July 29, Judge Cormac Carney of the United States District Court for the Central District of California ruled that it was reasonable for the plaintiffs to claim that 'Visa intentionally assisted MindGeek in its criminal activities.' Did. This allowed the lawsuit to proceed with Visa as the defendant.
``(Visa) was aware that MindGeek monetized a significant amount of child pornography on its website,'' Carney said in the document. Instead, they were alleged to have deliberately provided the tools to complete their crimes.' In other words, in the plaintiff's allegation that 'MindGeek committed a crime of profiting from child pornography,' it is reasoned that Visa, which processed the payment, 'intentionally provided a tool to complete the crime.' I am thinking that it is possible.
On the other hand, the ruling distinguishes Visa's role from other companies indirectly associated with Pornhub and MindGeek. For example, Google displayed links to Pornhub in its search results, which could be recognized as 'providing a tool to complete a crime,' even if it indirectly supported Pornhub. Therefore, it is not necessarily responsible. Judge Carney also ruled partially in favor of Visa, pointing out that the plaintiff's claim that Visa directly participated in the sex trafficking business is unfounded.
In a statement to foreign media Variety, Visa said, ``Visa condemns sexual trafficking, sexual exploitation, and child sexual abuse content as being contrary to its corporate values and purpose. We are disappointed that the pretrial ruling misrepresents Visa's role, policies and practices, and we continue to believe that Visa is an improper defendant in this case.' and commented.
MindGeek pointed out that this ruling was only made at the stage of sorting out the validity of Visa as a defendant in the lawsuit, and that the court has not yet made a judgment on the content of the lawsuit. “We are confident that if the court actually considers the facts, plaintiffs' claims will be dismissed as frivolous. We have enacted the most comprehensive safeguards in the history of the platform that we use,' he said, and at the time of writing the article, he said that he was working to eliminate illegal content by checking ID cards and strengthening moderation tools. claimed.
In recent years, the regulation of online pornography platforms by credit card companies has been viewed as a problem . In Japan, in July 2022, DMM, which operates the major adult content platform FANZA, announced that it would terminate the payment contract with Mastercard, which attracted a lot of attention.
Mastercard will not be available on DMM from July 29, 2022-GIGAZINE
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