The news agency Reuters reported a day before Christmas that Visa has resumed accepting and processing payments for MindGeek companies producing or providing professional content. The decision came after Pornhub and other Mindgeek brands decided to delete all content uploaded on its platforms by unverified accounts and pledged to only accept new content by verified users in the future. Pornhub itself remains suspended until further notice though.
In a sign that might signal that the credit card companies might accept Mindgeek’s efforts to move against problematic content on its streaming platforms, Visa resumed payment processing for Mindgeek companies like Brazzers and Nutaku, meaning companies that either produce content themselves or only distribute professionally produced contents. Pornhub and Youporn f.ex. remain suspended though »until pending investigations are complete,« a statement by Visa said.
The ban against the world’s biggest platforms for user-uploaded adult content means that thousands of self-producing and amateur partners still remain in limbo about their future prospects of raising money with Mindgeek. And the porn conglomerate itself will probably tighten and change huge parts of its business model to avoid getting into hot water again.
In a short statement to XBIZ, a Mindgeek rep said that the company is »dedicated to working with our partners to demonstrate that we have put in place the most far-reaching safeguards in user-generated platform history, including banning unverified users from uploading content – a policy that no other platform has put in place.«
Mindgeek is not accepting the broad, sensationalist, and populist allegations raised in the mainstream press and an impactful opinion piece in the New York Times that led to Visa and Mastercard temporarily refusing any transactions for Mindgeek companies. The article claimed that Mindgeek and especially Pornhub would profit from rape, sex trafficking, and even child porn when in fact no such content is tolerated on the platform.
The rep stated: »Any assertion that we allow child sexual abuse material on our platform is flagrantly untrue. We are committed to combating illegal content for the safety of our community, and so that the hundreds of thousands of models that rely on our platform can continue to earn a living.«
By now it has become clear that the author of the article attacking Mindgeek’s crown jewel Pornhub published his hit-piece with an agenda. The ultra-conservative anti-sex and anti-porn organization Exodus Cry prides itself now on having influenced Nicolas Kristof, the New York Times journalist behind the opinion piece. The organization’s mission is to shut down Pornhub for good.
Maybe there is hope for thousands of legitimate content partners of Mindgeek that Pornhub and Youporn will get access to the credit card issuers again. But for now, they are being held hostage by a populist, anti-porn media environment.