[reaperducer]

It sounds like you haven't read the NY Times article. It's not about religion. It's not about some anti-sex worker movement. It's about content that is illegal and reprehensible.

If it was about some "religious anti-sex work movement," then the credit card companies wouldn't still process payments for the legal brothels in Nevada. Which they do.

[tomwill656]

This article explains the originals of the NYT opinion article and the anti-sex work campaigns behind it: https://newrepublic.com/article/160488/nick-kristof-holy-war... Millions of VERY illegal child abuse are uploaded to Facebook, Twitter and all UGC platforms. In the NYT article, the journalist dismisses the (non religious) Internet Watch Foundations number of 118 cases of CSAM on Pornhub over 3 years. He asks IWF why the number is so low and says they couldn't explain it. Maybe because it is.

[alacombe]

> Millions of VERY illegal child abuse are uploaded to

> Internet Watch Foundations number of 118 cases of CSAM over 3 years

If there is millions of them, I'm sure you can do better than 118 cases over 3 years...

[reaperducer]

So because there are illegal videos on other platforms, they should be allowed on PH, and the credit card companies should process those charges.

That's called deflection. Or in HN-speak: "Whataboutism."

[tomwill656]

No, I wonder why Mastercard does process charges on those platforms and what it means especially for Twitter and Reddit that allow UGC adult content.

Here's an anecdote from Carrie Goldberg about how Pornhub compares to FB and Instagram:

I'm a victims rights lawyer. For every 1 case involving a rape tape on Pornhub, I have 50 involving rape and CSAM being disseminated on Insta and FB. Pornhub is far from perfect. But mainstream big tech is far worse and have a built-in mechanism for harassing victims directly. https://twitter.com/cagoldberglaw/status/1337026875441491973...

[hated]

It's called targeted enforcement where your friends don't get in trouble. Facebook has so much more clout than PH they can never get cut off from payment processors.

[minitech]

> So because there are illegal videos on other platforms, they should be allowed on PH

And this is called a “straw man”!

[spoopyskelly]

No, this is why they should stop processing payments for those other platforms too.

[ric2b]

But why don't they? That's the point, it seems aimed at sex work in general, with illegal content as an excuse.

[monocasa]

If someone was pointing to behavior of another payment processor it'd maybe be deflection or whataboutism.

Pointing out that the actor listed is applying their standards here unequally and therefore the standard might not be what's publicly said isn't deflection or whataboutism.

The amount the term "whataboutism" is used in an attempt to not have to address an empirical counterargument is getting old.

[spottybanana]

> If it was about some "religious anti-sex work movement," then the credit card companies wouldn't still process payments for the legal brothels in Nevada. Which they do.

Don't know about brothels, but even in the strip clubs I went to years ago they didn't process cards. Instead you had to go to the corner ATM with ridiculous fees to withdraw some cash.

[reaperducer]

The strip clubs I went to as recently as three years ago all took cards. The ATM in the lobbies were only so you could hide the charge from your wife.

[chrisco255]

Some also worry about chargebacks and disputes from credit card companies.

[jaywalk]

Only the seediest strip clubs I've been to don't accept cards, and in every case it was because they'd had too many chargebacks in the past.

[WaitWaitWha]

I think your conclusion is wrong.

I am also aware of many other businesses that refuse to take credit cards, and work cash-only.

[sadgrip]

Right but if we follow this to it's logical end we're at the same place. In my mind any platform that can be used to promote sex work is going to have these issues. Does that mean we just push sex work back into the dangerous fringes of society?

[neaden]

Pornhub monetizing user uploaded content is what caused these issues. A Porn company that employs only legal workers avoids, or at least minimizes, this issue. I think the fundamental problem here is people's demand for free pornography.

[varispeed]

Isn't that the same case as if Uber where the users uploading content should become employees?

[adrianmonk]

Your last part needs an "and if they were logically consistent" qualifier. (Which they may be, but I wouldn't assume.)

[tus88]

It's not an article, it's a hit piece, written by a known agitator not a journalist at a time when the religious anti PH movement is at it's crescendo.

[reaperducer]

It's not an article, it's a hit piece,

It's an article. It just happens to be an article you disagree with.

written by a known agitator not a journalist

That's why it's in the Editorial section, not the News section. Also, "agitator" is a loaded term that is in the eye of the beholder. Some people might use "activist" or "hero."

at a time when the religious anti PH movement is at it's crescendo.

If you believe this is true, nobody on the planet change your mind. But I will tell you it comes out like hysterical raving.

[spacemark]

And I'll tell you that your position is as equally misinformed and comes off that way. Those who have been tracking this issue and digging into the details of it understand it to be religiously motivated.

[reaperducer]

I won't claim to be "tracking this issue" and "digging into the details of it." If that's your thing, good for you.

As for it being religiously motivated, I don't believe that it is exclusively religious. I think that regular, average people and people with religious convictions can both be against rape videos and child pornography. If you're not, then I suggest you seek mental health counseling.

[spacemark]

It's fatigue. That's what you're reading from comments like mine and the one you dismissed and judged so easily without informing yourself.

I've been "tracking this issue" and "digging into the details of it" because I'm a pornhub performer who has had payment issues since earlier this year when this campaign kicked off out of nowhere. My partner and I went through Pornhub's verification process (for which we uploaded current government issued IDs and signed forms, and were initially rejected and had to appeal). My partner and I have millions of video views in the last year, and yet despite the fun and monetary benefit of it all, I happen to view myself as a good person who is conscious of how my actions can impact others negatively, often unwittingly. So I've naturally wondered whether I should ethically be involved with Pornhub at all.

So apologies for my snark, but this campaign is not rational, and me and others like me are fatigued at those jumping to all sorts of non-sequitur conclusions based on fearmongering which is in turn based on shoddy (and at times obviously manipulated) statistics. Even IF pornhub had a verification issue (which will never be perfect), it is not AT ALL clear who has responsibility in this new age of information sharing, how morality should be controlled (god I hope it's obvious it shouldn't be controlled by finance execs), etc. Who is financing the campaign against Pornhub?

Dig into this campaign and it's obvious it's not motivated by sound understanding and reason and has its roots in religiously affiliated action groups.

[busterarm]

> It's not an article, it's a hit piece, written by a known agitator not a journalist

I wonder how consistent most HNers are wrt this statement about The New York Times.

[epistasis]

It's important to remember that official Opinion pieces are not fact checked, and don't even have the semblance of being fact-based. And this particular opinion writer is well known for being really bad at facts. That being said, it is simultaneously possible for:

1. Nicholas Kristof to have a tenuous grasp on reality and to launch unfounded moral panics, and

2. PornHub has a lot of serious issues that should be dealt with.

You know the sayings about broken clocks...

(And for that matter, while I trust The NY Times more than the average newspaper on some topics, like science reporting, it has SERIOUS issues with being driven by political access rather than journalism, doing "both sides" too much, and not being willing to question Trump very much. That and their massive support for pretty much any war, to the point of open lying about stuff. I have cancelled my subscription in the past and will not subscribe again.)

[busterarm]

Right but the NYT editorial board does allow those Opinion pieces to be printed.

But yes, I think we agree :)

[ed25519FUUU]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...

We can’t let the abuse that happens on platforms like pornhub become a partisan issue. It’s grotesque and tortuous to the people who are affected by it. This has zero to do with being sex positive.