Visa and Mastercard suspend ad payments on Pornhub after lawsuit, pressure from Bill Ackman

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Yahoo Finance

Visa and Mastercard suspend ad payments on Pornhub after lawsuit, pressure from Bill Ackman

Alexandra Semenova · Reporter
Thu, August 4, 2022 at 1:16 PM · 3 min read

Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) on Thursday temporarily halted card payments for ads across Pornhub and parent company MindGeek after a lawsuit raised questions around the role of payment processors in facilitating the distribution of child pornography.

In a ruling Friday, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court of Central California denied Visa’s request to be dismissed from a lawsuit filed by a woman who claimed Visa was responsible in allowing a sexually explicit video of her at age 13 to be circulated across Pornhub.com.

Visa and Mastercard stopped allowing payments on Pornhub in December 2020 following a New York Times report by columnist Nicholas Kristof that alleged the pornographic website showed videos of child abuse and sexual assault. However, the payments processors continued to allow card payments for ad purchases.

{snip}

The move by Visa comes after public pressure from hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who has urged the payments giant to reevaluate its relationship with MindGeek on Twitter and in a recent televised interview with CNBC.

Yesterday, a Federal judge rendered a decision https://t.co/z7ImYJgWHi that no one has likely read. You should. The lawsuit is against MindGeek, the largest internet porn company in the world, and @Visa. Both are culpable. Visa’s conduct here is inexcusable,

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) July 30, 2022

Link to tweet

{snip}