Did Visa, Mastercard, and Mindgeek Financially Profit From Child Porn?

Supernova remnant: Cassiopeia A (Cas A) NASA

The purpose of the mission must be thoroughly understood beforehand, and the men must be inspired with a sense of personal dedication that knows no limitations… In an age of high technology and Jedi Knights, we often overlook the need for personal involvement, but we do so at our own risk. William H. McRaven


I am working on some stories about the ACNA, Teens for Christ, and another church in Texas that exhibits cult-like behavior. I had hoped to write on one of those today, but, as the saying goes, life happened, and it appears that sometimes I can’t drive and move fast enough.

Visa, Mastercard, Mindgeek, and Pornub are tied together with legal problems, and Visa wants out.

So, I’m going outside Christian culture, which has seen its fair share of sexual abuse in children, and looking if Visa (yes, the credit card) profited from child pornography. Several outlets have reported on this story, but it continues to fly under most folks’ radar. I noticed it when I saw a title in the Christian Post: Judge says Visa helped monetize child porn on Pornhub, allows victims’ lawsuit to proceed. Since I am, true confession, a heavy user of VISA, I thought I should look into the controversy.

MindGeek is a tech company that does all sorts of things.

(Mindgeek)continues to drive the state of technology forward, developing industry-leading solutions enabling faster, more efficient delivery of content every second to millions of customers worldwide. The Company is committed to enhancing its technological capabilities and thrives on a sustainable growth trajectory built on innovation and excellence.

With over 1000 employees worldwide, MindGeek continues its expansion with the acquisition and licensing of some of the most iconic brands in entertainment media.

MindGeek is a global industry-leading information technology firm

Unfortunately, it appears that Pornhub, and other such sites, are owned by MindGeek. These sites are accused of hosting videos and photos depicting sex abuse. According to the Christian Post:

A federal judge ruled Friday that Visa likely knew it was monetizing child pornography hosted on Pornhub and other sites owned by its parent company, MindGeek, which has faced increased scrutiny amid allegations its sites host videos and photos depicting sexual abuse

Visa complained that it was “unfair” that they were included in this mess. According to Bloomberg inVisa Must Face Claim It Profited From Pornhub Video of Child, the judge wasn’t buying it.

US District Judge Cormac Carney in California denied parts of Visa’s motion to be dismissed from claims brought by a woman who is suing both the payments giant and MindGeek — the parent company of Pornhub — over a sexually explicit video taken of her when she was 13.

The judge said:

“It is simple,” Carney said in his ruling late Friday. “Visa made the decision to continue to recognize MindGeek as a merchant, despite its alleged knowledge that MindGeek monetized child porn. MindGeek made the decision to continue monetizing child porn, and there are enough facts pled to suggest that the latter decision depended on the former.”

How bad is Pornhub?

National Review looked at the NYT article: Children of Pornhub in ‘The Children of Pornhub’ The NYT article was responsible for companies taking a closer look at the monetization of child porn.

Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for “girls under18” (no space) or “14yo” leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.

After a 15-year-old girl went missing in Florida, her mother found her on Pornhub — in 58 sex videos. Sexual assaults on a 14-year-old California girl were posted on Pornhub and were reported to the authorities not by the company but by a classmate who saw the videos. In each case, offenders were arrested for the assaults, but Pornhub escaped responsibility for sharing the videos and profiting from them.

Pornhub is like YouTube in that it allows members of the public to post their own videos. A great majority of the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year probably involve consenting adults, but many depict child abuse and nonconsensual violence. Because it’s impossible to be sure whether a youth in a video is 14 or 18, neither Pornhub nor anyone else has a clear idea of how much content is illegal.

Who is suing Pornhub and the others?

A woman is taking Pornhub and others to court, claiming her boyfriend posted a sexually explicit video of her without her consent when she was 13. Even so, a 13-year-old child could not consent in this matter anyway. According to the Daily Wife in Reasonable To Conclude Visa Knowingly Helped Monetize Child Porn, Says Judge In Pornhub Case.

Plaintiff Serena Fleites filed the lawsuit last year, alleging MindGeek violated federal sex trafficking and child pornography laws. Such violations led credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard to suspend processing payments on Pornhub following a New York Times report revealing illegal content on its website.

Fleites alleges a former boyfriend pressured her into making a sexually explicit video and uploaded it to Pornhub without her knowledge or consent when she was 13 years old. The video garnered millions of views and spiraled the plaintiff’s life out of control.

…While MindGeek profited from the child porn featuring Plaintiff, Plaintiff was intermittently homeless or living in her car, addicted to heroin, depressed and suicidal, and without the support of her family,” the lawsuit reads.

Variety reports the plaintiff’s lead attorney, Michael Bowe, said, “the court’s holding that our detailed complaint adequately pleads Visa was engaged in a criminal conspiracy to monetize child porn means Visa and other credit card companies are finally going to face the civil and perhaps criminal consequences of … this unconscionable and illegal activity.”

Visa, Mastercard, and MindGeek claim they would never monetize child porn!

CNBC reported that Visa and Mastercard suspend payments for ad purchases on Pornhub and MindGeek amid controversy. Visa, Mastercard, and MindGeek are running for cover, claiming they only support legal adult entertainment and would never, ever support the sexual abuse of children.

Visa and Mastercard said Thursday card payments for advertising on Pornhub and its parent company MindGeek would be suspended after a lawsuit stoked controversy over whether the payments giants could be facilitating child pornography.

MindGeek told CNBC it has never tolerated child sexual abuse material or any other illegal material.

“Recently, allegations have been made that MindGeek knowingly allowed and monetized [child sexual abuse material]. These assertions are reckless and, more importantly, absolutely false,” a spokesperson at MindGeek said in a statement. “In many cases, these falsehoods have been propagated by groups whose stated agenda is to shut down the adult entertainment industry.”

Pornhub got removed from Instagram due to sex abuse material, sex trafficking, and filmed rape.

In September, Pornhub got booted off Instagram. The Christian Post reported this in Pornhub booted off Instagram after complaints from anti-sexual exploitation group.

A nonprofit that advocates against sexual exploitation praised Instagram’s reported decision to suspend Pornhub, citing the move as proof that the social media company acknowledges the severity of the accusations against the MindGeek-owned platform.

As the National Center on Sexual Exploitation reported on Saturday, the Meta-owned platform removed Pornhub’s account followed by over 13 million with over 6,200 posts. While the account didn’t share pornographic content, it promoted pornography and encouraged users to become pornography performers.

“Instagram was right to remove Pornhub from its platform for violating its community standards given the increasing reports of Pornhub hosting child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking, filmed rape, and non-consensual videos and images,” NCOSE CEO Dawn Hawkins said in a statement shared with The Chrisitan Post.

“Instagram served as a distribution partner with this criminal enterprise, helping to push millions to their website, including children. We are grateful that Instagram has heard the voices of sexual abuse survivors who have been personally harmed by Pornhub’s insatiable appetite for profit,” she continued.

Final thoughts

I believe that financial and tech companies have turned a blind eye to the activities they unwittingly support due to the usage of their products. Sadly, I think there could be a “wink, wink, nod, nod” culture. In the meantime, children subjected to rape and trafficking are being used to make money for some of the biggest companies that have the resources to figure out what is happening in the product they support. Instead of whining about the judge’s decision, they should hire sex abuse and exploitation experts to scan their sponsored products for illegal activity. There are quite a few of us out here.

Also, I have a strong message for Visa, Mastercard, and MindGeek. Just because an adult is being used for “legal” porn does not mean they are acting in porn of their own free will. Many are trafficked and often deliberately hooked on drugs so their traffickers can sell them to companies to create what so many call “legal porn.” It’s time to wise up, but I’m sure it is easier to overlook it since stockholders/boards, etc., need their “expected return.”

Comments

Did Visa, Mastercard, and Mindgeek Financially Profit From Child Porn? — 25 Comments

  1. “children subjected to rape and trafficking are being used to make money for some of the biggest companies that have the resources to figure out what is happening in the product they support.”

    “It’s time to wise up, but I’m sure it is easier to overlook it since stockholders/boards, etc., need their ‘expected return.’”

    Reading through the post, the thought that occurred repeatedly was: for these companies, it’s all about the money. No morals, no integrity, no dignity, no values.

    Bottom line is $$$. Unfortunately, for the individuals who are enriched by these companies’ profits, $$$ is their idolatry. Nothing else matters. Including the health, safety, protection, dignity, and innocence of vulnerable persons.

  2. For the best resource I have heard to date is the 8 episode podcast by the Financial Times, Pushkin, called “Hot Money: Who Rules Porn?” about Mindgeek, and all the behind the scenes business dealings involving Visa/Mastercard, and in the last 2 episodes, the OnlyFans platform which is now making large in roads toward providing porn. The key people who attempt to remain secretive have links to wall street, hedge funds, etc. And they remain outside the borders of the US, in Canada and Eastern Europe. Podcast is a 10 out of 10 in terms of learning the truth about an industry that impacts the internet.

  3. I understand why the plaintiffs went after MindGeek–there’s a LOT of money in those interchange (“swipe”) fees. Just imagine 2 percent of every transaction (that’s an average) going to Visa. This link, from a credit site, will give you an idea about interchange fees.

    https://www.creditdonkey.com/interchange-rates.html

    And yes, Visa and MasterCard have dumped clients before. I know Jim Bakker’s ministry was dumped in 2020 after he got in trouble with the FDA and the state of Missouri for selling a coronavirus “cure.” He’s settled with everyone, and why yes, he’s apparently taking credit cards again. (Why yes, I’m hugely disappointed at whoever is providing him interchange services.)

  4. Dee, it is an eye opener, and dates back to the early days of porn and how a picture of Bo Derek changed everything. Here is the synopsis:
    Sharing a preview of Hot Money, a new podcast from Pushkin and our friends at the Financial Times. When FT reporter Patricia Nilsson started digging into the porn industry, she made a shocking discovery: Nobody knew who controlled the biggest porn company in the world. Now, Nilsson and her editor, Alex Barker, have figured out who the guy was, and much more. Their reporting reveals a shadowy power structure that includes billionaires, tech geniuses and the most powerful finance companies in the world.

  5. Big money as an entity is amoral.
    It has no concern as to whether or not an activity is right or wrong.
    Its only goal is to make money and more money.

  6. Muff Potter: Big money as an entity is amoral.

    This cupidity is the sole motive of the fake pro- and anti Bolshevik aggiornamentos, resurgences, etc which introduced the widespread ban on supplication and thoughtfulness * and exploited instantaneous access to hearts *** , noticeably begun in 1946 and gathering pace during the 1980s after the convenient Jim Jones / Cyrus Vance / Mrs Carter scare. This is how the now almost totally dominant William James ** / Bismarck religious mentality sets the spiritual tone for worldwide administration and commerce.

    ( * Even pope Pius X mocked the aggiornamento proponents’ vaunting of their ignorance of philosophy who were just like those resurgents who have claimed to be dunces. )

    ( ** Dialectical-materialist, i.e button pushing, so called pragmatism about which Susan Haack is, fortunately, scathing. )

    ( *** Marshall McLuhan asked us to help each other be ready )

    This is why so many religious authorities are dead on their feet / dead hands precisely as they proclaim “communion”.

    Whether it was with teacher’s gracious official permission or not, the girl was conditioned by authority to allow this approach and the boyfriend was conditioned to exercise it. Those authorities, including church authorities of the kind that cosied up to Jimmy Savile, kn ew exactly what they were bringing about. (I knew a traumatised BBC studio cameraman.) Michel Foucault has traced the trend.

    Such a shame “christians” teach one ought not to pray the prayer of Daniel 9: 3-21 which is our repentance for the sins of our elders and betters. The people with their hands on financial levers will actually turn round to us in the next world and ask why we didn’t supplicate for them / thank us that we did. So much for the (loud mouthed) quietists’ irrelevant mini-salvation.

  7. prodinov: The key people who attempt to remain secretive have links to wall street, hedge funds, etc.

    For the money, porn is “a victimless crime”.

    The overlookables include violating those filmed and photographed.

    Those filmed and photographed are disposable.

    Because … money. $$$.

    This same rationale is used by church leaders to keep collecting from donors in their hunting ground toxic unsafe communities.

    Victimless, overlookables, disposables. Set up that hierarchy of who counts, who matters, who is human, who has a voice, who is permitted to have agency and dignity, then keep the money rolling in while the underbelly of vice proliferates.

  8. Muslin, fka Dee Holmes: Jim Bakker’s ministry

    Racketeer running his racket.

    One hit wonder guy doing the only thing he knows how to do. Grift. Once a grifter always a grifter.

    The grifter exposed will rise again. And grift. Like taxes and death, a sure thing.

  9. Ava Aaronson: The grifter exposed will rise again. And grift.

    The pew donors supporting these guys, apparently, want it that way. They seek a loosely put together anything goes on in the underbelly community. Youth pastors hitting on the youth kids (overlookable cuz apparently these kids are disposables), pastors hitting on others’ wives and/or the secretaries (overlookable as these women, too, are disposable or in on the grift), etc.

    As long as church leaders and churches have a certain “look” or public appeal, the rest doesn’t matter. Pew people hold their noses and don’t look too deep, beyond the shiny surface.

    What people want out of “church”. As in Jesus’s day. Tepid.

  10. prodinov: Their reporting reveals a shadowy power structure that includes billionaires, tech geniuses and the most powerful finance companies in the world.

    Thank you. This does not surprise me. Porn, both adult and child, make tons of money and, therefore, must be protected.

  11. dee: Thank you for this info. I hope your mouth is feeling better!!

    I didn’t expect it to hurt quite this much. (I had a root canal circa 1993 retreated yesterday as a root was missed then and decided now was the time to make its presence known. Why yes, this involved a lot of drilling and poking around.) As long as I stay on top of taking analgesics, it’s down to “annoying” and not “here, let me curl in a ball” pain.

  12. Muff Potter:
    Michael in UK,

    What does that have to do with the price of coffee in Costa Rica?

    I’ve wondered the same about a lot of his comments.
    All I can figure is it’s one of those things that’s totally obvious to him but not understandable to anyone else. I think it has something to do with the Sexual Revolution of the Sixties and its effects; maybe (like me) he got burned bad by the fallout.

  13. People think porn is a “victimless crime”, but it’s not.

    Like prostitution.

    Two books I read that really opened my eyes was Canadian journalist Victor Malarek’s books “the Natashas” & “the Johns”.

    Both books skewer the idea that these are chosen professions.

    Organized crime is heavily involved as well. About 10 years ago there was an expose on our city’s strip clubs. Most of the girls were addicted and kept that way by local biker gangs.

    There’s a misperception that porn is harmless but it’s not. The internet is a force multiplier.

    It doesn’t help that we’ve sexualized children in movies repeatedly. Look at “Porky’s” or “American Pie”. I didn’t understand how prevalent it was until I became a parent.

    The damage is killing people. Look up “Amanda Todd”, a girl who was exploited, blackmailed and then died by suicide.

    I hope the lawsuit is successful. The internet can be hard to police but when you have an obvious offender like Mindgeek enabled by Visa then hit them hard.

    Pornhub should be shut down, a full investigation into every video and start collecting ISPs for those downloading and uploading illegal material. Gut the site, seize the servers, make arrests.

    You won’t stop abuse but you’ll send a clear message that this is not acceptable.

    Problem is, how many public officials are using this site?

  14. Jack:
    People think porn is a “victimless crime”, but it’s not.

    Problem is, how many public officials are using this site?

    Rationale of “victimless” for both those who want it and those who want to do nothing about it.

    Likewise, consensual rape.

    … how crimes are framed, and criminals get away with it, along with their BFFs.

  15. Jack,

    Agreed, Jack, and good comment. I wasn’t sure quite how to take this post since porn is such a trigger subject for me – it quite literally destroyed my marriage due to my spouse’s unrepentant and unceasing porn addiction.

    I am a responsible cc user – I never carry a balance – but I was about to cut up all my cards if in some way my use of them was supporting or enabling porn usage. I’ve calmed down somewhat 😉

  16. Muff Potter,

    1

    In case some of our readership (within our spectrums of relative belief and agnosticism) are curious, boldly exploring angles neglected by official religion, I mentioned that we could pray the prayer of Daniel ch 9 v 3-21 about the noticeable dearth of critical mass of prayers during the sexual revolution from major denominations who were concentrating on their image updatings.

    We all needed the revolution and it has not been all bad (the learned Michel Foucault and Martha Nussbaum are enlightening, as indeed is Susan Collins). It’s easy to assume along with public religious leaders that prayer has no effect on society; prayer is one of the things they have mostly helped discredit.

    Effects vary from one locality to another and in the centralised UK with deference and unbuffered selves (Charles Taylor phrase) we are ahead of what may catch up with your locality. Have religious leaders started to assume that influence comes solely from “influencing” like Ravi Zacharias’ staff (material dialectic)? Marshall McLuhan asked us not to lose awareness of the way the new means of media get to us.

    The story in the blog piece is partly about one girl and I have mentioned her in my response.

    The charismatic revolution and the environmental revolution, and reforms to improve capitalism (also mentioned in the story), are amongst examples of things that needed to go better but a critical mass of normal, ordinary supplications was no longer being raised.

    The main denominations in the UK are international and with diplomatic status. ALso attitudes, policies and relationships are much shared with smaller ones. Most of Dee’s stories are connected with churches I’ve been at, or goods sold in my neighbourhood, by only one remove.

  17. 2

    Nussbaum and Foucault have traced how administration and commerce have continually intruded into private sexuality and Collins’ novels exemplified it also. I have realised in retrospect that our classes at secondary school were being procured by proxy (our boundaries in ideas torn down). Abiding in Jesus and doing the will of God mean defending orphans (well worn Bible phrase), and the belief of believers some of whom maybe don’t know Dee and those others of you that are helping, is invisibly fuelling this good work.

    From many of your accounts I see many of you are impacted, e.g by not knowing “how” (according to general lore) to relate (common knowledge gets lost or has become too contradictory), hence the general loss of companionship. I was told not only at school but by resurgents that ladies would expect to be thrust upon, and I couldn’t figure out how that added up.

    Where influential churches muddied waters, secular culture follows, including what is with the best will, but evil elements are gleeful about the cover from spiritual green lights given (for water muddying) and some churches then further normalised that. Nonetheless even agnostic children and invalids can give society strength by their straightforwardness of heart.

    Thus defence of the integrity of the young from intrusion (I am just about ex-young) to get us through an unknown world is helped by spiritual underpinning: belief and prayer levels. Yoof culture compartmentalises cohorts every 6 to 8 years so that things can be tried on the young that wouldn’t go down well with the age group of most commenters here. As I didn’t know my grandparents I’m empathetic to youth who know isolation.

    As Jesus put it, believers are to be salt, light, and leaven, in their own community so that outsiders will see and be encouraged. The salt is in parts not good enough, with even some church members subliminally bamboozled.

    Much trouble in the world is when a lot of people generally have become discouraged. As Julian Baggini put it, morals in the positive sense (helping people gain integrity against intrusion, and backbone, whether they become christians or not) are connected to morale and not just in etymology.

    That’s why I don’t stop at wishing christian leaders would have more christian manners, I try to match them against meanings I’ve spotted behind Scripture, and also why I don’t assume I ought to wait till people turn christian to pray that they have help in life. If we mutter some simple general prayers frequently, God will send good angels to all sorts of people.

    Most denominations began during my life to teach, i ) we mustn’t pray without naming people, ii ) we mustn’t pray about the unbelief of our previous leaders (because of superstitions around their being dead) (and Falwell Senior was very influential in the UK). Some of the prayers of the OT contain good attitudes to copy. Thank you for asking and as I am joining the dots by Dee’s kind hospitality, please keep asking me questions. You have all been giving me very good heart. Jesus’ twin, namely Holy Spirit, is trying to roll out “so great” and not “so small” salvation.

    As Gilles Deleuze points out, your truth and my truth are additive and not subtractive. I hugely value the vivid detail and literature references with which so many of you fill in so many issues.

  18. prodinov,

    This reminds me of the essay Projection and objectification by Rae Langton of MIT, in the compilation The future for philosophy ed Brian Leiter 2004, p 205-303. Langton describes the REAL goings on at Deep Throat (spectacle and intrusiveness were becoming trendy in international religion about then). Langton also draws on Martha Nussbaum and Catherine Mackinnon to explain how projection camouflages the objectification process (one’s mind possesses the space where the object is; Dan Allender would call this lustfulness codependence).

  19. Headless Unicorn Guy: maybe (like me) he got burned bad by the fallout

    We have a valuable testimony. If we see what God sees we are bearing witness, which has nothing to do with proselytising. Telling it how it is helps people stay where they are if they want, but more thoughtfully. To embrace God’s principles means simply to defend others’ integrity. God only sent us into this world to see: that is the meaning that our lives already have.

  20. prodinov: podcast by the Financial Times, Pushkin, called “Hot Money:

    Listening to the entire series.

    Excellent exposé. Listening to the entire series. Another triumph by Pushkin.

    Thx for the tip.