Mastercard has announced an end to the use of its cards on the p*********y site Pornhub. The company took this decision after a review confirmed the presence of unlawful content on the site.
A New York Times investigation alleged an infestation of child-abuse and r**e-related videos on the site. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof wrote New York Times article, in which he said “didn’t see why search engines, banks or credit-card companies” should “bolster” Pornhub.
“Our investigation over the past several days has confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site. We instructed the financial institutions that connect the site to our network to terminate acceptance,” Mastercard said in a statement.
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Pornhub, which has denied the claims in the report referring to Mastercard’s decision as “exceptionally disappointing”. Its parent company, MindGeek, had also denounced the claims in the New York Times article, referring to them as “irresponsible and flagrantly untrue”.
“These actions are exceptionally disappointing, as they come just two days after Pornhub instituted the most far-reaching safeguards in user-generated platform history. Unverified users are now banned from uploading content – a policy no other platform has put in place; including Facebook, which reported 84 million instances of child s****l abuse material over the last three years. In comparison, the Internet Watch Foundation reported 118 incidents on Pornhub over the last three years,” Pornhub said in a statement.
The company also expressed concern for its model as Mastercard’s decision will mean a shortfall in their revenue. “This news is crushing for the hundreds of thousands of models who rely on our platform for their livelihoods,” Pornhub said.
Pornhub has since removed the ability of its visitors to download content; and says users must now be verified to upload videos.
Pornhub says it has “zero tolerance” for child s****l abuse. It claims to use a combination of tools from Google, YouTube, and Microsoft to detect and remove illegal material.
Rival payments giant Visa is also, like Mastercard, suspending the use of its cards on Pornhub; pending the outcome of its review.
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