it’s also step zero in hurting any and all potentially oppressed minorities and absolutely causing all sorts of bad, if unintended, consequences deriving therefrom. this is the kind of thing that hurts a lot of people, doesn’t hinder profits of major producers of porn, and doesn’t help victims of revenge porn or child porn any more than active and better moderation practices would have without eliminating revenue streams for people who can’t possibly trust mindgeek with their lives.
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But this is part of “active and better moderation practices”. Disallowing anons from indiscriminately publishing video at will is the base of the pyramid.
What’s under discussion is whether that is “enough”, clearly not, I’m not sure anyone is actually saying “welp we’re done here, mission accomplished” … but this change is absolutely better than what we had before which was effectively nothing.
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In the MBA world, “Enhance shareholder value,” is the root of all morality. All else is just public relations.
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Hm. I’m not so sure. So far, this is following the same path as Backpage: Cut off their financial processing channels, force them into dodgy work-arounds, and then bust them on the dodgy transfers with as many “avails of prostitution” type multipliers as they can load on.
Child trafficking is the slayer weapon of choice by groups that have far wider goals.
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That’s what they tell you in school. I’m betting it’s bonus maximization.
I have a hard time believing this. I purchase VPN services yearly with debit card from either Visa or MC.
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Perhaps things have changed since I last tried to subscribe to NordVPN, but it wasn’t my imagination at the time.
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First, they go after the user-generated content platforms like Pornhub (or OnlyFans, or Craigslist and Backpage before them). Then they go after anyone who does business with the platform, from credit card companies and other payment processors to the web hosting services, software, and advertisers that power them. Ultimately, the target becomes anyone enabling adult sex workers to actually work more safely and independently and to profit from their work.
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Of course that is why they do what they do. But they justify that by appealing to the “higher morality” of shareholder value. In the end, they can’t even manage to defer their own self interest and follow the morality of Mammon.
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Speaking of which:
https://twitter.com/petermarksdrama/status/1341393658935914512?s=21
Using the pandemic as leverage to enforce conservatism.
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You know Republicans. I’m sure that they’ll find a way to tuck it under this:
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For normal companies, I agree, it’s not censorship for them to not want to do business with you. For companies that are so critical to operations as to form a monopoly/oligopoly? Yes, them not wanting to do business with you is censorship. If your power or internet company decide not to do business with you, not because you can’t pay your bill, but because they don’t like what you have to say, that is censorship. If you can’t get your money, because your bank doesn’t like your business, that will kill your business.
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I might be missing something but
- Get a Discover card? Or Amex or whatever. Pornhub can choose to accept those, no? Diners Club might really welcome their business (do they still exist?)
and - While Visa and MC are the big dogs, they’re not a 100% monopoly or a public utility and they don’t have to serve everyone. As long as they aren’t discriminating in an illegal way, not much anyone can do about it. And apparently religious discrimination isn’t illegal (WTF, still) so they can cite that as their grounds.
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Visa have close to a monopoly in British EFTPOS debit cards. I would love to get away from them and Mastercard, but there isn’t much choice in banking if you don’t want them. There are also only two building societies that offer current accounts and both are Visa.
I am not directly affected by PornHub’s policy changes, but I am in one of the collateral damage groups. SWERFs are often also TERFs, and Britain is a hostile place for transgender people in a way that it wasn’t ten years ago. I fear for what the next few years will bring.
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V/MC aren’t really hurting the advertiser to Pornhub money channel that much, it’s mainly the payment channel to legal content creators.
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Perhaps they can, but they’re not at present. They’re not accepting any credit cards.
Well, this is a huge bummer. I posted this over on the “Good (Encouraging) Things” thread when the Kristof article and follow up were published, thinking it was great to see such quick reaction to the stories of victimized children and others.
The articles were very clear about not shaming consenting sex workers, but trying to crack down on the child porn and revenge porn Pornhub profits from.
It sucks that the reaction was so ham-fisted that it is hurting legitimate, consenting sex workers 
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