Mastercard, Visa to stop working with Pornhub
Mastercard said in a statement Thursday it would no longer let its products be used on Pornhub.com after “(an) investigation over the past several days has confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site.”
It said it will “continue to investigate potential illegal content on other websites.”
Visa also announced it was suspending its service to Pornhub “pending the completion of (its) ongoing investigation.”
Mindgeek, the Montreal-founded corporate entity behind Pornhub and some of the other biggest pornography sites, has faced renewed scrutiny this week after The New York Times reported its sites hosted videos of abused children and other illegal material.
Mindgeek has repeatedly denied its site hosts such material, but earlier this week said it would take new steps to improve trust and safety. The Logic reported in October on the problems with some of the content hosted on Mindgeek's sites, and last month revealed that the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, a government-backed charity, had withdrawn from a global anti-child-exploitation network over Mindgeek's involvement.
Federal Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault told The Logic last week the government would introduce new regulations early next year to ensure “platforms are respecting our laws and regulations” around harmful online content.
“Fines could be imposed in the millions of dollars. We're not talking about a slap on the wrist.”
Mastercard said it's continuing to investigate potential illegal content on other websites. Pornography sites have long faced difficulty accepting electronic payments, and sex workers have claimed they've had their bank accounts shut down after lenders learned of their profession.
“At Visa, we are vigilant in our efforts to stamp out illegal activity on our network, and we encourage our financial institution partners to regularly review their merchants' compliance of our standards on this and other platforms,” the company said in its statement.
A spokesman for Pornhub didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.