[HN Gopher] Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livel...
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Sex workers say 'defunding Pornhub' puts their livelihoods at risk
Author : ksec
Score : 119 points
Date : 2021-01-10 18:48 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| manigandham wrote:
| Similar to the recent actions by Twitter, Google, Apple and
| Amazon; Visa and Mastercard are private companies and can do
| whatever they want.
|
| Anyone who has an issue with what Visa/MC did must also take
| issue with the others.
| fwip wrote:
| This argument always reminds me of the evergreen dril tweet:
| https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en (cw:
| profanity). You've rhetorically zoomed out so far that only the
| most abstract description of the category of the action is up
| for discussion. But this is begging the question - there's no
| reason that this must be the case.
|
| This rhetorical trick of categorizing all of these as "private
| companies denying service," is the same one used by those who
| opposed anti-discrimination laws. Should an ice-cream store be
| able to kick out a person pissing on the floor? Should they be
| able to kick out a black person for being black? In each case,
| it's simply "a private company doing whatever they want." But,
| obviously, these two cases are not the same.
|
| Personally, I think it's quite a different thing to kick people
| who incite violence off your social media platform than it is
| to ban sex-workers from using you as a payment processor. And,
| because they are different actions, with different intent and
| effects, it is, of course, possible to think "Hey, it's good
| that [x] is happening, but bad that [y] is happening."
| manigandham wrote:
| I compared these situations because both are about
| explicility illegal activities clearly defined by law.
| They're more similar than different.
|
| Your personal opinion on which decision you support is just
| that, your personal opinion, and only reinforces my point
| about the subjectivity and inherent hypocrisy of it all and
| whether private company action over state prosecution is the
| correct course of action.
| cathyreisenwitz wrote:
| "Visa and Mastercard are private companies and can do whatever
| they want." Not without DOJ pressure, unfortunately.
| slg wrote:
| This is a bizarre comment. The complaint isn't that Pornhub,
| Visa, or Mastercard lack the right to do what they are doing.
| People are explaining reasons why it is a bad decision and
| those reasons aren't relevant to Twitter, Google, Apple, and
| Amazon. There is nothing contradictory about someone who
| believes these companies have the right to kick people off
| their platform while also thinking that these companies can
| make mistakes regarding who they kick off.
| manigandham wrote:
| The point is that if you have an issue with companies taking
| private action over state prosecution then that should apply
| to all decisions.
|
| Whether you consider an individual decision to be a mistake
| is entirely subjective and irrelevant.
| slg wrote:
| >The point is that if you have an issue with companies
| taking private action over state prosecution then that
| should apply to all decisions.
|
| Why? I can agree that someone has a right while also
| disagreeing with how they exercise that right. I have no
| idea why you are labeling the specifics irrelevant.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I'm willing to revise my take on the "big tech takedown" when
| someone explains to me how a random member of the American
| public can pay a pornographic performer/model without using
| Visa/Mastercard and in less than 24 hours.
|
| If there were no alternatives to Twitter, Android, iOS and AWS
| then I'd be as unhappy about that as I am about
| Visa/Mastercard's decision here.
|
| However, it's my judgement that there _are_ alternatives to
| these technology platforms to do what recently became less easy
| for some people to do. I don 't believe there are any viable
| alternatives for payment processing.
|
| Show me how I'm wrong.
| tidepod12 wrote:
| Then the pornographic performers should just make their own
| payment network, no?
|
| That's what everyone's been telling Parler since they started
| being removed from these platforms.
|
| I also don't know how you can reconcile this comment with the
| fact that Gab and others _were_ removed from Visa /MC
| networks, to much fanfare.
|
| To be clear, I'm in favor of Parler going away, but I can't
| help but notice the double standards.
| glogla wrote:
| > but I can't help but notice the double standards.
|
| Yes! It's almost as if Nazis and terrorists are not the
| same thing as sex workers.
|
| What a puzzling thing.
| tidepod12 wrote:
| Are you aware of what "double standards" means? The fact
| that they are not the same thing is the point.
|
| Furthermore, please review the HN guidelines for posting.
| Your comment is not substantive nor constructive.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Nobody is suggesting to Parler that they build anything
| like the equivalent of a payment processing network.
|
| They just need a hosting service. If they relied heavily on
| specific services provided by AWS, they would need to
| either recreate them or reengineer their code to do things
| differently.
|
| These are on an entirely differently level of "just make
| your own" from "make your own payment network".
|
| Unless, that is, there is no hosting service that will have
| them (and maybe no colo facility that will allow them
| presence). If so, then I would view the situations as
| essentially equivalent.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| Wait, ignoring the freedom implications, why is it so
| necessary for Parler to rent compute in the first place?
| If the twitter clone analogy holds as true as I think it
| does they are just serving text snippets and the
| occasional image; that's well within the capabilities of
| a rack or two of servers sitting in an office closet
| somewhere.
| tidepod12 wrote:
| When Gab was removed from MC/Visa, plenty of people were
| indeed saying "MC/Visa are private companies and have no
| obligation to serve Gab. If Gab wants to accept payments,
| they can build their own network or use cash/crypto".
| PurpleFoxy wrote:
| So in order to build a controversial but legal social
| media system you must first build your own hosting
| company, own payment processor, own debit cards, and own
| ISP.
|
| I think it's fair to say you just can't realistically run
| a website of the majority of tech corporations are
| against you.
| occamrazor wrote:
| Android/iOS is a duopoly as pervasive as Visa/MasterCard. The
| ither examples only to a much lesser degree.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Well, here's the thing.
|
| If you agree that the required ability is "use my portable
| cell-connected computing device to exchange messages with
| others on their similar devices", then absolutely, I agree
| that there's a duopoly there (I'm ignoring the possibility
| to use alternative app stores on Android, because it
| doesn't seem particularly central).
|
| But if you instead think the required ability is "be able
| to exchange messages with others in more or less realtime",
| then the duopoly in the portable cell-connected computing
| device world is of much less importance.
|
| For years, because I don't have a cell phone, I was
| excluded from communications taking place via SMS (there
| were a few 1-way linux-accessible gateways, but they didn't
| really change anything there). But I didn't feel that my
| ability to communicate with others was really particularly
| impaired, and eventually Telegram (and others came along)
| that I could use from a desktop, and I was more or less
| back at parity for "real time communication with others".
|
| So whether or not the android/ios duopoly matters in this
| sort of instance depends on precisely what functionality it
| is that you think people have a "right" to ...
| leetcrew wrote:
| can someone ELI5 why Visa/MasterCard is frequently called a
| duopoly? as someone who mostly uses my amex and discover
| cards for day-to-day purchases, I don't really understand
| this. four major processors (two being their own issuers)
| seems like a decent amount of competition and diversity of
| offerings.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| Visa and Mastercard combined represent 83% of the number
| of credit cards in circulation, and 100% of the number of
| debit cards in circulation.
|
| That last one, too, is probably a big part of the reason
| for the classification. There are more Visa/MC debit
| cards out there than their are credit cards.
| ksec wrote:
| 1. If you look into Credit Card World Wide, Amex and
| Discover Cards aren't even viable outside US.
|
| 2. If you look at transaction, Amex and Discover may have
| higher processed transaction _value_ of something like
| 15% in US. But if you look at transition _volume_ , Visa
| / Master are 90%+.
|
| 3. Both are Credit Card only. Debit Card is where the
| majority are using for Payment.
|
| 3. Consider there are no other electronic / digital
| payment method that is as ubiquitous as Visa / Master
| _payment network_ ( ignoring Asia ) and they are the
| baseline method for e-payment, as well as an extreme high
| level barrier of Entry. The two are considered as
| Duopoly.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Only Visa/MasterCard matter outside USA.
| techdragon wrote:
| I'm an Australian and as much as I want an Amex I'd have
| to change banks to get one, it's quite rare over here and
| in a number I'd other countries from what I've been told
| by other people.
| PurpleFoxy wrote:
| From what I have seen, most businesses explicitly refuse
| to accept it since it charges higher fees than visa and
| MasterCard
| adrian_b wrote:
| The comparison is not valid.
|
| For example my phones use Android, but I do not have a
| Google account.
|
| There exists no legal action that could be done by Google
| and that could influence anything that I am using my phone
| for.
|
| On the other hand, if Visa and Mastercard would decide to
| not let me buy something, that would be very bad for me,
| because I buy almost nothing with cash and most things that
| interest me could not be bought with cash anyway, because
| they cannot be found in the shops from my close
| neighborhood.
|
| So the monopoly of Visa and Mastercard really matters and
| it is very hard to circumvent. That of Apple and Google,
| much less so.
| glogla wrote:
| For a common person, Google/Apple cartel is about as much
| unavoidable as Visa/MC one. You are one of the very few
| exceptions - just as there are surely exceptional people
| who can do financial transactions that avoid Visa/MC.
|
| Society is not math or computer science where existence
| of one counterexample makes things invalid. Society is a
| thing of ratios and percentages. If something is almost
| impossible for most people, we have to treat it as
| impossible even though it is possible for some -
| otherwise bad actors get away with terrible stuff on
| technicalities.
|
| (I for example pay everything with cash or wires which
| are free and instantaneous in my country - I use card
| only once in a while to withdraw cash - but it does not
| invalidate Visa/MC duopoly any more than your special
| Android that only one in ten thousand people can use
| either)
| manigandham wrote:
| Use American Express or ACH or wire transfers or cash or
| Paypal/Venmo/Cashapp or bitcoin.
|
| As to your other point, an alternative to Twitter was made.
| Then it was banned by Google and Apple from devices, and then
| Amazon from computing infrastructure. It's no longer about an
| alternative of the primary service but all through the stack
| and that is much more concerning.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| In the USA, domestic wire transfers typically US$20. ACH
| requires that the receiver provides you with their bank
| account and routing number, which while common in the EU,
| is extremely unusual and invasive in a US context.
|
| You are right that PayPal/Venmo (same company) may be an
| alternative for now, although they generally end up
| applying the same restrictions as Visa/MC.
|
| American Express ... wow, it's been years since I did this
| but I think it involves actually going to an Amex brick-
| and-mortar location, and so wouldn't actually count.
|
| Bitcoin is equivalent to paying in a different currency,
| which while possible, mostly breaks the terms of the
| comparison, since you could argue for using some other non-
| crypto-currency to avoid some or all of the limitations of
| Visa/MC.
|
| Parler failed to meets the ToS set by its chosen platform
| (picked in all likelihood because its founder was ex-AWS).
| Had it either met the ToS by providing sufficient
| moderation, or picked a different hosting service, it would
| have had a different experience.
|
| As I said in my opening comment, if there is really no
| alternative hosting service where Parler can allow people
| to openly discuss violence towards specific individuals,
| violence towards state actors and generally be as obnoxious
| and wrong as they feel like, then sure, I'd agree there's a
| problem.
| Anon1096 wrote:
| > bank account and routing number, which while common in
| the EU, is extremely unusual and invasive in a US context
|
| So now you're moving the goalposts and saying that it
| being extremely unusual precludes it as an option? Of
| course any alternative to the Mastercard/VISA duopoly is
| going to be unusual. By definition, since they are
| dominant, any other way of payment will have to be
| outside the norm.
|
| > American Express ... wow, it's been years since I did
| this but I think it involves actually going to an Amex
| brick-and-mortar location, and so wouldn't actually
| count.
|
| It does not require going in person at all. You can get
| qualified for a card online and they'll ship it to you.
|
| > Bitcoin is equivalent to paying in a different
| currency, which while possible, mostly breaks the terms
| of the comparison
|
| Again, by construction of the question, alternative
| payment schemes will necessarily be different. The other
| players here are PayPal, Discover, and AMEX.
|
| The alternatives for Parler (going to another hosting
| provider than AWS, alternate App Store on Android, and no
| app on iOS) are at least as unusual compared to the
| alternatives for payment. Just like your Discover card
| won't be accepted at most places, or Bitcoin or PayPal,
| most users are not going to accept a modern day service
| that doesn't have an app. Or even more egregiously, in
| Stormfront's case, users are absolutely not going to
| learn how to use Tor just to access a site. Parler isn't
| there yet, but it may well be soon if their domain
| registrar drops them. Or even Level3 or BGP providers.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| >So now you're moving the goalposts and saying that it
| being extremely unusual precludes it as an option
|
| Well, what I should have said was "ACH rarely completes
| inside 24 hours to a new account", which doesn't move the
| goalposts.
|
| >(Amex) It does not require going in person at all. You
| can get qualified for a card online and they'll ship it
| to you.
|
| Not sure this has anything to do with the ability to pay
| a 3rd party. They would need to have an Amex merchant
| account or an equivalent proxy via an intermediate
| payment processor, and my impression is that when Visa/MC
| drops you, the 3rd party will too, even if Amex didn't.
|
| > users are absolutely not going to learn how to use Tor
| just to access a site
|
| Parler had no privacy (and from what I read, very lax
| security), so I don't think that a Tor-accessed site is a
| part of the replacement for what they had. They just a
| hosting site that can run some moderately but not
| extraordinarily complex backend stack.
|
| The "lack of app" question goes back to a comment I made
| here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25719115
| manigandham wrote:
| You're arbitrarily discounting alternatives to fit your
| narrative. If you think that ACH or Amex is less
| accessible then that's no different than other networks
| not having the same scale or distribution as Twitter and
| Apple. Why is it ok for some but not others when they all
| technically have alternatives?
|
| Anyways my greater point is that illegal actions should
| be forwarded to the appropriate state department which
| can investigate and prosecute with appropriate authority
| and accountability. Private companies are setting a
| dangerous precedent, especially as they gain superior
| scale and then collude at multiple layers against the
| same organization.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| ACH takes longer than 24 hours, so there's no goal post
| moving there.
|
| As I indicated below, I think it is pretty hard to get
| paid via Amex if Visa/MC have blocked you (3rd party
| payment processors such as paypal will likely block you
| too).
|
| I would agree about the "forward to the government" part
| if that was part of normal business to find the illegal
| actions. I read the Visa/MC - Pornhub thing as more as a
| case of of Visa/MC saying "look, we think its clear that
| there's illegal stuff happening on your platform; we're
| not going to play detective here; we don't want to run
| the risk of being complicit of processing payments for
| illegal stuff, so we're cutting you off." That is, it's a
| statement about their desire to (not) take legal risks.
| They are operating within a legal context where _others_
| may do what you are suggesting and then put them in legal
| jeopardy.
| IshKebab wrote:
| There aren't really alternatives to Android/iOS. But I would
| say they need regulation too.
|
| Payment is critical infrastructure. It's crazy that most of
| the world is subject to this duopoly.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Visa and Mastercard should not do whatever they want, because
| they are just middlemen in transactions and all their decisions
| affect their paying customers, much more than themselves.
|
| Visa/MC take the money of their customers, who use their cards,
| by promising to help them pay for anything they want.
|
| Visa/MC do not have any right to decide unilaterally what their
| customers might want to buy (as long as no illegal goods are
| involved), without consulting their customers first.
| PurpleFoxy wrote:
| As it stands right now they do have the right to do whatever
| they want. I guess you are proposing that this needs to be
| changed.
| adrian_b wrote:
| All large companies that have a quasi-monopoly, e.g. the
| large cable providers, ISPs, mobile phone companies, and so
| on, take frequently abusive decisions that affect
| negatively many of their customers.
|
| In most cases the customers are forced to accept these
| unilateral decisions, because they do not have the power to
| attempt a legal battle with those companies, e.g. for
| modifying the fees or the data caps.
|
| Nevertheless, even when we do not want or cannot fight such
| decisions, we should not say that they are private
| companies and they can do whatever they want.
|
| Those companies are not independent to do whatever they
| want, they are in contractual relationships with their
| paying customers.
|
| They may use their power to unilaterally change the
| contracts as they want to, but that does not mean that we
| must accept that might is right.
| PurpleFoxy wrote:
| I agree that they should not be able to do what they
| want. I'm just saying that they can. Which is something
| also think should be changed but it doesn't change the
| reality of how it is currently.
| folli wrote:
| I'm getting slightly fatigued with this point of view ("X is a
| private company and can do what it wants").
|
| If a company reaches a certain size and has a quasi-
| monopolistic position so that other people or companies depend
| on it, it starts to have some degree of responsibility towards
| society that's beyond value maximization for shareholders.
| [deleted]
| ars wrote:
| Does that mean you are against AWS, Google, and Apple
| shutting down Perler? All of those are large enough, and are
| quasi-monopolistic to meet your definition.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I'm not OP, and I'm not a trumper or Conservative but I am
| 110% into free speech and I don't like the parler ban.
|
| That said, it's really not equivalent. There are 101 other
| services if AWS turn you down. You can still access the
| parler site from an apple/android phone too. On android you
| can still install the app, just not via the play store.
|
| Censorship is incidious because many people support at
| least some. So you convince liberals to support banning
| parler and conservatives to support banning porn payments
| (or whatever). And they're both poorer for it. We should
| all be agreeing on this, not being fractional...
|
| We should all be uniting in our call to get Visa ,
| Mastercard, Apple, Google and a dozen others declared
| utilities. Rather than arguing over which problem is
| biggest, solve them all.
| TingPing wrote:
| Other hosts exist. But Apple shouldn't be allowed to
| prevent sideloading which makes the app store no longer a
| monopoly.
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| >Anyone who has an issue with this must also take issue with
| the others.
|
| That doesn't follow. Someone can acknowledge that companies
| have the right to run itself however it wants but disagree with
| this particular decision. It is possibly incoherent to argue
| that Twitter _may_ ban people but Visa _may not_ ban anyone; it
| is perfectly coherent to argue that Twitter _should_ ban
| certain people and Visa _should not_ ban these particular
| businesses.
|
| Also, I don't think it's a contradiction even to say that Visa
| _may not_ ban anyone. Running a website is a form of speech.
| Every website absolutely must be moderated beyond what is
| required to remove spam or what is required by law. Telling
| them what kind of community they are allowed to run is an
| excessive infringement on their freedom of speech. This is
| similar to why I support net neutrality but fervently oppose
| any sort of mandatory neutrality on websites. It would take a
| tortured argument to claim that routing packets is a form of
| speech (particularly when these packets are encrypted), while
| running a website always requires taking an editorial role.
|
| No one would find it strange if a book store decided not to
| carry a particular book. People would find it very strange if
| their credit card company refused to process a payment for a
| particular book.
|
| I neither support nor oppose banning payments to Pornhub since
| I don't know much about the website. I have no skin flicks in
| the game.
| [deleted]
| wmf wrote:
| The banking/payment industry is acting as a cartel to shut down
| certain activities. This is what antitrust law is for.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Really they're utilities.
| bjeds wrote:
| <I deleted my comment because people only want to argue.>
| marcinzm wrote:
| [delete]
| andrepd wrote:
| Are you implying abuse, or just "kinky shit"?
| [deleted]
| Daho0n wrote:
| >No, no it's not. Seriously, browse PornHub's recommended
| videos in incognito mode. Go through a few pages. Click
| into a few categories. Don't even do weird searches, just
| go through what it recommends. I found some of what it
| promoted disturbing to be honest.
|
| Disturbing !== illegal.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| > browse PornHub's recommended videos in incognito mode. Go
| through a few pages. Click into a few categories. Don't
| even do weird searches, just go through what it recommends.
|
| Yeah, I totally never did that before at all.
| jowsie wrote:
| >I found some of what it promoted disturbing to be honest.
|
| But was it illegal?
| elric wrote:
| > Anyone who has an issue with this must also take issue with
| the others.
|
| Yeah .... no. For a variety of reasons. But for one, it's
| _impossible_ to do business online if you 're not in the good
| graces of major payment providers (assuming you want to get
| paid). It might be _hard(er)_ to advertise your business if
| Twitter bans you, but that 's in no way comparable to how
| essential Visa/MC are to any business.
|
| Providers of critical infrastructure (payments, search,
| appstores, probably a few other things), when they're big
| enough to be a monopoly/duopoly, could really use more
| oversight. If you piss off Google/Apple, your business can be
| ruined, and you'll have virtually no recourse -- as evidenced
| by the frequent "google/apple killed my app" threads on HN.
| manigandham wrote:
| None of this is considered critical infrastructure today,
| that's the point. What's important to you is entirely
| subjective and these are private companies that can apply
| their terms however they see fit. Visa/MC can easily say that
| ACH and cash payments exist as an alternative.
|
| If you feel that monopolistic powers by major tech companies
| need more oversight then that should apply equally. I don't
| see why communications networks are any less important than
| payment networks.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Visa/MC are really critical infrastructure, because for
| many people they are the main means of payment or even the
| only one.
|
| In most cases they are the only existing means for making
| remote payments. I would have much preferred a world in
| which the remote payments would not have been done by
| credit cards, but by wire transfers (with much lower fees
| than the current fees for wire transfers), but we do not
| live in such a world.
|
| I am not sure about what weird conditions might be written
| in the small print of the contracts for credit cards, but
| certainly when Visa/MC advertise their services, they claim
| that you should pay for their cards in order to buy
| anything that you want, they do not invite you to pay them
| in order to let you buy only what they like.
|
| So I do not believe that it is correct to say that VISA/MC
| are private companies that can do anything they like.
|
| They have also obligations towards the customers who use
| their cards and they cannot decide unilaterally to ban some
| sellers, unless those are selling something illegal, which
| is not the case with Pornhub (after they took down what was
| said to be illegal content).
|
| I do not think that making a referendum among Visa/MC
| customers about whether to ban some vendor or another would
| be the most appropriate solution, but certainly unilateral
| decisions taken just by the Visa/MC management are an
| abuse.
|
| While I have never used Pornhub, so I have no opinion about
| how correct were their actions, I have paid in the past for
| a few other sites with erotic content and I would not like
| to discover one day that Visa or MC has again decided to
| block such a site without any valid reason.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > "There's not a lot you can do about it, which makes you feel
| really helpless. I have friends who are considering leaving the
| business as a whole, just because Pornhub was such a big source
| of income."
|
| I would guess for at least some of the public, sex workers
| leaving the business would be seen as a feature rather than a
| bug.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| Yes, me for example
| paulgb wrote:
| One of the performers quoted summed it up well in the article:
|
| > "The real target of these groups is not to help victims or
| fight illegal content on the internet, but to ban all forms of
| adult material."
|
| A few years ago I was doing some research to figure out how I
| felt about SESTA/FOSTA, and one of the things I quickly came to
| realize is that a lot of groups and politicians who are
| ostensibly anti-trafficking are actually anti-porn, and use the
| boogieman of trafficking to build a broader coalition than they
| could on a purely anti-porn agenda.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| It's not really a secret. Even when actual "trafficking"
| charges get filed in court, the most common type is
| prosecuting a woman for trafficking herself.
| mst wrote:
| On top of that, anti-trafficking NGOs tend to be
| unnecessarily friendly with law enforcement groups and both
| get more funding by exaggerating the problem.
| antisthenes wrote:
| I'm surprised no one's mentioned platforms like OnlyFans so far.
|
| That's the path forward for adult entertainment content (among
| other content). It puts the power back in the hands of content
| creators, and removes a lot of avenues for exploitation.
|
| As long as VISA/MC don't do the same thing there, of course.
| yiny123 wrote:
| So was Pornhub. That's what the sex workers in the article are
| upset about. They were able to sell their videos. They can
| still make ad revenue but the ban by Visa/MC just ends up
| hurting them.
|
| I doubt it will be long before the religious lobbies go after
| Onlyfans.
| noitsnot wrote:
| Moody doesn't seem to care about the abuse or victims that is
| rampant in the industry, she just wants to get paid.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Few seem to care enough about the abuse that exists in
| Hollywood and in tech, so why the hullabaloo over sex work? Oh,
| yeah - sexism against women because they're not supposed to be
| sexual.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| If you can get paid reliably then abusers have less leverage in
| the first place. I've been friends with a lot of sex workers
| and their #1 gripe is that prohibitionist types create the
| conditions for abuse.
| marcinzm wrote:
| A lot of the people being mentioned as abused aren't sex
| workers and do not want to be sex workers. They don't want to
| be paid for or involved in sex work.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Most people wouldn't be happy to give up a large percentage of
| their income to help someone they didn't know. If they were
| then charity donations would be a lot higher than they are.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Not getting paid for your work is a form of abuse. None of us
| can solve all the world's ills and most of us focus on things
| that hit close to home.
|
| Think of all the foundations that have been created because
| some wealthy celebrity (or a relative of theirs) had a
| particular medical condition.
|
| Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research
|
| https://www.michaeljfox.org/
|
| Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation
|
| https://www.christopherreeve.org/
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Think of all the foundations that have been created because
| some wealthy celebrity (or a relative of theirs) had a
| particular medical condition.
|
| > Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research
|
| This is a tangent, but I remember a minor news item of
| Michael J. Fox appearing in an ad soliciting donations for
| Parkinson's research, Rush Limbaugh (maybe?) criticizing him
| for "exaggerating his symptoms" in the ad, and then Jon
| Stewart (definitely) lambasting the criticism on the Daily
| Show, something along the lines of "How DARE Michael J. Fox
| appear in an ad trying to fund research into the crippling
| disease that Michael J. Fox has?!?"
|
| I've been trying to find a clip of that, if anyone knows
| where to look?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Clip of it within another clip of an interview with Michael
| J. Fox:
|
| ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_fQ3VLSvfI
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| I don't know if I honestly care though. Their livelihood is to
| have sex on camera for money, it's not something I or many other
| people really value. COVID restrictions on movie theaters put a
| lot of actors / actresses livelihoods at risk and I don't care.
| They don't provide a lot of value past entertainment (for some).
| kitkat_new wrote:
| Can't believe people still use PornHub anyways. In my experience,
| the content is not the greatest
| ImprovedSilence wrote:
| What's better, more ubiquitous, or has higher quality content,
| all while still having largely ad-driven revenue and not being
| pure cancer?
| secondcoming wrote:
| reddit ticks 4 out of those 5 boxes
| noitsnot wrote:
| The quality is very poor and I don't think they verify age.
| kyriakos wrote:
| Most of reddit adult content is links to pornhub and other
| adult sites.
| xg15 wrote:
| I'm really glad that no one in this subthread proposed anything
| involving a blockchain.
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless
| you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated
| controversies and generic tangents._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| I find that surprising. I think cryptocurrencies are the worst
| technology known to man, but avoiding censorship is what they
| are built for and their only legitimate use case.
| coliveira wrote:
| The big concern of NYTimes is that this is a Canadian company
| making lots of money from the American market. I wonder if they
| would be so harsh with an American conglomerate.
| [deleted]
| TedShiller wrote:
| Bitcoin
| bdcravens wrote:
| This has been done before by others in response to credit card
| networks cutting the cord, and it never replaces the lost
| revenue.
| cyberbanjo wrote:
| And for a number of national currencies there's liberapay.
|
| https://liberapay.com/
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| How do you ensure that the person performing sex work is being
| compensated for sex work, versus some form of exploitation
| (whether that's the platform or an individual exploiting)?
|
| A sex worker union [1] who can negotiate with distribution
| companies and platforms, lobby legislators and payment
| facilitators (who should not be prohibiting payments for legal
| business transactions), and ensure quality working conditions and
| anti-exploitation controls are in place.
|
| [1] https://www.iusw.org/ (just an example, not familiar with
| them specifically, just demonstrating the existence of such an
| org)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Same way you ensure any other person isn't being exploited.
| Society provides resources allowing the person to have the
| opportunity to not be leveraged into exploitation as their only
| option.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Yeah, not so much. North American developed countries aren't
| shining examples of labor protection champions. I'd refer to
| parts of Europe [1] and New Zealand [2] on how to protect sex
| workers in a more substantial way.
|
| [1] https://www.nswp.org/sites/nswp.org/files/Declaration_boo
| kle...
|
| [2] https://www.nzpc.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Model
| ravenstine wrote:
| Well that and the labor protections we do provide end up
| primarily benefiting businesses and unions over the
| individual workers themselves.
| emteycz wrote:
| Same here in Europe. I don't believe it's possible to
| have unions (or governments) that work for the
| individual.
| Daho0n wrote:
| Definitely not the same "in Europe". Maybe in some of it
| (after all the two biggest countries in Europe is Russia
| and Ukraine). In Scandinavia unions work really well for
| the most part - at least extremely well compared to the
| US. It is one of the biggest reasons for the Scandinavian
| model.
| emteycz wrote:
| I'd say "most of it", you're right that there are two
| countries where it seems to work at least a little - at
| great costs though, I have many Scandinavian colleagues
| (working in hi-tech fields) that left their country
| because of overregulation.
| jedmeyers wrote:
| It's possible but the majority of stakeholders need to be
| actively engaged in managing that entity. Otherwise it
| will be taken oven by the bad actors trying to primarily
| benefit themselves.
| emteycz wrote:
| Yeah, but that ceases to work once that entity is too
| large. I personally think the limit is around 50 or so,
| but I don't see the need for union in a 50-head company.
|
| I've literally never seen a functioning union anywhere I
| went (I live in Europe). Everyone I met in my life, in a
| bar, etc is angry at their unions.
| riffraff wrote:
| Sex workers are vastly exploited in Europe too, sadly.
|
| Not all of them are, but it does not seem like the issue
| has been solved.
| smt88 wrote:
| I agree, but I think you inverted it.
|
| "Exploitable people are pushed into sex work" is closer
| to being true than "sex workers are exploited," only
| because almost no one starts out as a sex worker if they
| have better opportunities.
| marcinzm wrote:
| How does this work on the internet where there are a 100+
| separate countries involved?
| watwut wrote:
| The easier for them to press charges when mistreated, the more
| control they have over places and customers, the safer they
| are.
|
| E.g. abilities like hiring bodygourds, platforms that allow
| them to vet customers etc.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| UBI
| mst wrote:
| This is an important question in terms of all work.
|
| But even without being able to answer it, restricting sex
| workers' choices via deplatforming and criminalisation
| invariably makes them less safe, so I'd argue that we should
| stop doing that _anyway_.
|
| Letting them actually report exploitation to the police would
| be a start (and no, swedish model bullshit doesn't achieve
| that, if you criminalise any part of the transaction they
| realistically can't take full advantage of the existing
| protections under law).
| ImprovedSilence wrote:
| Interesting question, because I would be tempted to say "use
| the same safeguards as any other labor", but there are definite
| grey areas there. I suppose a union is the best way to go about
| it, but I don't know how that helps independents, side gigs, or
| people just trying to break into the industry..?
| kbar13 wrote:
| sex work should be legalized and regulated, just like marijuana.
| sex work and porn has been a reality since the beginning of time,
| and making it "illegal" and letting it fester in dark corners is
| unhealthy. without proper education, acceptance, and oversight,
| it encourages predatory behavior and other mental health issues
| like porn addiction.
|
| you don't have to think "porn is good" or "prostitution is good"
| to acknowledge that it is something that a large % of men consume
| and protect workers and consumers. we know that alcohol and drugs
| are bad, but they're legal and regulators do try to educate and
| protect the public. why not have the same for sex work?
| cathyreisenwitz wrote:
| Sex workers prefer decrim to regulation because regulation ends
| up creating a white market dominated by a few anti-competitive
| players and a vast black market with all the existing problems.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Source?
| pdkl95 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DZfUzxZ2VU
|
| Both the video for interviews and the bibliography links in
| the description.
| snarfy wrote:
| It's America. Having sex outside of marriage is a sin while
| water is turned to wine.
| sweeneyrod wrote:
| The porn that has existed since the dawn of time (I guess cave
| paintings) is qualitatively different from PornHub content.
| Arguably even there is even a qualitative difference from the
| situation even 15 years ago. Then, very few 10-year-olds would
| have had access to unlimited amounts of high definition
| hardcore porn; now probably the majority in developed countries
| can.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| 200 years ago, those 10 year olds would have seen their
| parents at it pretty regularly. 2000 years ago, they'd have
| seen everyone in the tribe with their partners.
| sushid wrote:
| Are you sure about that? Your claim is that folks during
| the Enlightenment just regularly wanted into their parents
| having sex. And moreover you're equating porn to walking in
| your parents.
|
| And you're saying people in ancient Rome saw everyone in
| their "tribe" going at it? You do realize that humans
| weren't cavemen 2000 years ago, right? Ancient
| Rome/China/etc. had prostitutes and brothels 2000 years
| ago.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Folks during the enlightenment were mostly illiterate
| peasants. Try keeping your sex life a secret when you,
| your brother, your wives, your parents and 6 kids/orphans
| all share 1 hut with a single room.
|
| Back in Rome, life was again one room, all share 1 bed
| etc for most people. Add to that a few examples from
| their public activity: The poisoner Locusta (the world's
| first serial killer supposedly) was executed by being
| raped to death by a specially trained giraffe. Half their
| pottery is people being killed, the other half is sex
| scenes. Seriously. You think kids there didn't know what
| sex looked like?
|
| I don't know why people are shocked by this. It was the
| Victorians that brought in both the idea of privacy and
| the idea that sex was sinful and people should hide it.
|
| If you're going to argue for more restrictions on porn,
| you need to argue from first principles and evidence. You
| can't harken back to an imaginary time when no one knew
| where babies came from until the priest told them on
| their wedding night...
| Darmody wrote:
| Can't they somehow verify themselves and then be allowed to
| upload anything they want[1]?
|
| I thought the problem was that anyone could make an account and
| upload whatever they wished like child pornography, hidden cams,
| etc.
|
| [1] As long as it is legal and it's their own stuff.
| manigandham wrote:
| That's not the problem, as stated in the article. It's payments
| being cut off by card networks.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Isn't that because PornHub didn't verify anything and was
| filled with content that exploited people? In the end, the
| issue seems to be PornHub rather than the card networks.
| NeutronStar wrote:
| They removed all unverified content a month ago. So that's
| clearly not an issue anymore.
| Darmody wrote:
| The article also says the following. Credit
| card giants Visa, Mastercard and Discover have blocked all
| payments to Pornhub, after the adult site was accused of
| being "infested" with child abuse and rape-related videos.
|
| So if PH solves that problem I don't see why they couldn't be
| back in business.
| t-writescode wrote:
| This misses some historical context around credit cards and
| online pornography companies where credit card companies
| basically just refuse to be allowed to be used for online
| porn, primarily around chargebacks.
|
| If they've found an excuse to not need to work with
| PornHub, they could easily retain that for perpetuity
| because credit card companies don't like being associated
| with the porn industry.
|
| I'll be surprised if PornHub ends up working directly with
| the major credit cards again.
| adrian_b wrote:
| While I cannot know for sure what Pornhub does, as I have
| never used it (but I use other sites with erotic content),
| I have read about the evolution of this case.
|
| It was said that after the accusations have been published,
| Pornhub has reacted by removing the content that was
| claimed to include illegal parts and they have changed the
| rules for using the site (e.g. disabling anonymous uploads
| and downloads) in order to prevent such cases in the
| future.
|
| Only after the Pornhub reaction, VISA and MC blocked the
| payments, at a time when there already was not much more
| that PH could do, except maybe closing the site completely.
|
| So only Visa and MC can change anything now.
| QuesnayJr wrote:
| Didn't they solve it? I heard they deleted something like
| 80% of their videos last month.
| [deleted]
| mst wrote:
| However, the accusations were made by anti-sex-work groups,
| not anybody who genuinely cares about the performers'
| safety or livelihoods.
|
| It's generally advisable in cases like this to go find what
| the sex workers rights advocacy organisations are saying,
| because mainstream reporting is often puritan trash.
|
| (also, so long as the performers were well compensated, I
| don't honestly see why we should care about "rape-related"
| given e.g. 50 Shades of Grey was very much 'written porn
| for women' and while I don't understand that particular
| kink I'm unwilling to judge what people want to fap/schlick
| to)
| Mavvie wrote:
| The article also says they have solved that problem, by
| deleting all videos not uploaded by "verified users". So I
| don't see why the credit card companies wouldn't unblock it
| relatively soon.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| The cat-and-mouse game between adult industry workers and
| the credit card industry is legendary. Credit card
| processors have never been kind to that industry, and once
| they find a reason to kick someone to the curb it stays
| that way.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It would really be ideal if some of these sex workers could get
| their own platform. Pornhub seems like it was frankly
| unresponsive on a lot of serious concerns until they were forced
| to deal with them by the panic articles that went around last
| month
|
| And frankly it seems to me like it's still trivial to go on there
| and find what seems to me to be a lot of content that has dubious
| consent or related issues.
|
| These performers would be better off with a platform that was
| highly moderated, something Pornhub and the sites similar to it
| don't seem to be able to (or want to) properly do.
| bdcravens wrote:
| OnlyFans allows them to sell their content directly (not the
| same as it's up to them to solve the discoverability problem)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| In a perfect world, you'd have something like Patreon or
| OnlyFans that runs like a utility out of a non profit org
| (such that Signal, Let's Encrypt, Wikipedia, and similar
| platforms operate as 501(c)(3) non profits). Removing the
| profit motive removes a lot of room for bad behavior on the
| part of the platform.
|
| Verify the creator, provide a way to get payments to them
| without you acting as the intermediary, charge reasonable
| fees for your tech stack to organize and distribute digital
| content, and keep a paper trail when regulators, legislators,
| and law enforcement knock.
|
| I want to _really stress_ as a financial infra and payments
| system armchair enthusiast and scholar that crypto payments
| don 't fix this. The law just comes for you if you try to
| subvert the law with crypto. You have to drive home the point
| (lobbying, marketing) that consenting adults adhering to the
| law should not be in fear when exchanging value in a
| transactional business and should not have their payments
| intercepted.
| qchris wrote:
| Even something like a public benefit corporation in a state
| with more strict reporting requirements could even fill the
| same niche, without dealing with the rigamarole of
| obtaining/maintaining 501(c)3 status. It'd be interesting
| to see how the corporate charter would be written.
| mst wrote:
| The panic articles were primarily drawing on statistics
| provided by groups that want to eliminate sex work entirely.
|
| Last thing I saw from sex workers rights groups was roughly
| "Pornhub are far from perfect, but moderation at scale is hard,
| and they're actually talking to us and trying to improve, which
| is far better than most other platforms."
|
| So I suspect what would be ideal, honestly, would be "let the
| sex workers rights groups lead the way rather than panic
| articles placed by people who hate sex workers" - and that
| includes disregarding my opinion just as much as yours ;)
| bassman9000 wrote:
| _It would really be ideal if some of these sex workers could
| get their own platform._
|
| Then they'll go after the platform infrastructure (AWS), or any
| other fundamental aspect. Peer pressure.
|
| We've been warning for ages: the Cancel Everyone game the NYT
| and others with very loud voices are playing is a dangerous
| one.
| marcinzm wrote:
| OnlyFans seems to be having no issues. I do find it funny how
| "this site is filled with a lot of rape and child porn" is
| being framed as "it's being cancelled for no reason." No,
| there is a reason and other sites with better policies aren't
| being targeted.
| yiny123 wrote:
| There was a documentary earlier this year about how many
| underaged people were selling on Onlyfans.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5e7dad06-c48d-4509-b
| 3...
|
| _But there 's a dark side: the documentary found evidence
| of the age verification process being circumvented, meaning
| under-18s were able to illegally sell explicit content of
| themselves on the site._
| yarcob wrote:
| 16 year olds circumventing age verification to sell
| explicit content of themselves is a problem, but at least
| they are doing it voluntarily.
| yiny123 wrote:
| Surely if a 16 year old can circumvent age verification
| then any criminal can. I understand nothing is perfect,
| my point was to show that any user generated platform
| faces the potential of illegal content being hosted.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| Pornhub was targeted not because of the content, but
| because it was by far the 800-lb gorilla in the room.
| Facebook has far more numerous instances of cheese pizza
| being thrown around but Facebook is a far more sympathetic
| entity than something with the name "Pornhub". The people
| who went after Pornhub were looking for any angle that
| would be palatable to the Left in a bid to remove adult
| material from the US landscape. There is a reason that they
| changed their name from Morality In Media to something
| else.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > I do find it funny how "this site is filled with a lot of
| rape and child porn" is being framed as "it's being
| cancelled for no reason."
|
| It's because this is the wrong way to deal with that issue.
|
| The fairly obviously correct way to do it is that you have
| law enforcement investigate instances of child pornography,
| arrest the creators for it, and then issue a court order to
| the hosting sites to remove the specific instances that
| they've found.
|
| The content gets removed. The correct people to go jail. If
| there was a mistake, the site and the uploader have
| standing to challenge the order.
|
| Who ever thought it was a good idea to turn websites into
| the police? It's not their job, they're bad at it, don't do
| that.
| yarcob wrote:
| According to the NY Times article, what you suggest is
| exactly what people have tried to do.
|
| However, according to the article, it was really hard to
| get Pornhub to remove illegal videos. And since videos
| could be downloaded and uploaded by anyone, removed
| videos quickly showed up on the website again and again.
|
| Sex abuse victims have been fighting for years to keep
| their videos off Pornhub, yet they show up again and
| again.
|
| Pornhub is the only one making money from the videos, so
| I do think it's their job to keep rape videos off the
| site. The police can't spend all their time making sure
| no anonymous users reupload illegal videos again and
| again.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > However, according to the article, it was really hard
| to get Pornhub to remove illegal videos.
|
| You're saying that if you go to them with a court order,
| they don't comply with it? So then have the court find
| them in contempt. This requires no involvement from Visa
| or Mastercard.
|
| > And since videos could be downloaded and uploaded by
| anyone, removed videos quickly showed up on the website
| again and again.
|
| How are they supposed to know it's the same video?
| Compare every video to every other one? The uploader
| would presumably just reencode the video or make whatever
| other changes to evade an automated system, and a manual
| system is infeasible. And no matter what Pornhub does,
| there are six quintillion porn hosting sites on the
| internet and it would just end up on a different one.
|
| The correct answer is for the police to investigate who
| is continuing to upload them and impose penalties. Then
| no more uploads, no more video.
| yarcob wrote:
| > You're saying that if you go to them with a court
| order, they don't comply with it?
|
| No, I'm saying it's hard for sex abuse victims to get
| their videos off Pornhub.
|
| > How are they supposed to know it's the same video?
|
| If they can't even prevent re-uploads of known illegal
| videos, maybe they should never have allowed user uploads
| at all.
| dheera wrote:
| Well yes, and defunding fur trade will put poachers' livelihoods
| at risk, and defunding Amazon will put Amazon warehouse workers'
| livelihoods at risk.
|
| Jobs will always come and go. New jobs will come.
| dubcanada wrote:
| Are you trying to imply this is the end of pornography? Cause
| that's super not going to happen, they will just move onto
| other sites that may or may not be more "sketchy".
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