The Daily Signal - Why Child Porn on Pornhub Is Making Visa and MasterCard Block Payments

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

Visa and Mastercard are reportedly blocking payments on Pornhub due to allegations of child pornography on Pornhub. What is going on here?  Nicholas Kristof, an opinion columnist for the New York Times recently wrote a heartbreaking column on the children of PornHub, telling some of the stories of the children of PornHub. What are some of those stories? How can people stand up to PornHub and their aiding and abetting of child porn? Haley McNamara, the director of the International Centre on Sexual Exploitation in the UK, and a Vice President at the U.S. based National Center on Sexual Exploitation, joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss.  We also cover these stories: Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to receive the Coronavirus vaccine on TV on Friday morning. Google is under fire from more than a third of America’s states for operation as a monopoly.  Jobless claims have reached 885,000 due to a coronavirus spike.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, December 18th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel D. Judas. Two big credit card companies, Visa and MasterCard, are making news reportedly saying that they're blocking payments on Pornhub due to allegations of child pornography. How rampant is the problem of child porn on porn hub? Haley McNamira, the director of the International Center on Sexual Exploitation in the UK, and a vice president at the U.S.-based National Center on Sexual Eustra. exploitation, joins me today on the Daily Signal podcast to talk about what's going on here. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. And as always, please do encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to receive the coronavirus vaccine on TV on Friday morning.

Pence for Axios plans to be joined by second lady Karen Pence and surgeon general Jerome Adams, who is set to be part of a town hall later in the week to promote the vaccine to the African-American community. Google is under fire from more than a third of America's states for operating as a monopoly. On Wednesday, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that Texas, along with nine other states, were suing Google for violating antitrust and consumer protection laws at both the state and federal level. In the announcement of the suit, Paxton said, Google is a trillion-dollar monopoly, brazenly abusing its monopolistic power going so far as to induce senior Facebook executives to agree to a contractual scheme that undermines the heart of competitive process. In this advertising monopoly on an electronically traded market, Google is essentially trading on insider information by acting as the pitcher, catcher, batter, and umpire all at the same time.

Google was then hit with another similar lawsuit on Thursday, filed by a coalition of 35 states plus Puerto Rico, Guam, and Washington, D.C. The second lawsuit seeks to break up the Google monopoly by demanding that Google sell off assets in the markets of online search and two areas of online search advertising. The second suit was signed by 17 Democrats and 14 Republican attorneys general. Google is also under investigation by the Department of Justice for complaints regarding its powers in the field of technology market advertising. Jobless claims have reached 885,000 due to coronavirus spike. In a Thursday press release, the Department of Labor announced that in the week ending December 12th, the advanced figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 885,000, an increase of 23,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 9,000 from 853,000 to 862,000. The four-week moving average was 812,500, an increase of 34,250 from the previous week's revised average. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Haley McNamara on Pornhub and Child Pornography.

If you do have young ears with you, I'd suggest maybe listening to this episode on your own and not with them. I'm Zach Smith. And I'm John Carl O'Conaparo. And if you want to understand what's happening at the Supreme Court, be sure to check out SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast. We take a look at the cases, the personalities, and the gossip at the highest court in the land. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you find your podcasts. It's SCOTUS 101. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Haley McNamara.

She's the director of the International Center on Sexual Exploitation in the UK. and a vice president at the U.S.-based National Center on Sexual Exploitation. Haley, it's great to have you back on the Daily Signal podcast. Thanks so much for having me. Well, it's great to have you with us. I wanted to talk to you about some big news that just recently came out, that Visa and MasterCard are reportedly blocking payments on Pornhub due to allegations of child pornography on that site.

So, Haley, can you bring us up to speed on what is going on here? Yes. So our organization, we actually met with MasterCard, and Visa back in February and March of this year to let them know about what's been a growing problem. It's been happening for years, but survivors have been starting to come forward and share how videos of sex trafficked persons, videos of child sexual abuse or child pornography, and even non-consensually shared pornography, sometimes called revenge porn, was being uploaded to Pornhub. And there's a couple problems with the Pornhub's system.

such as, you know, they allow these unverified videos to be uploaded. There's no age or consent verification for those videos, not even, you know, a silly box that you tick and say that I'm over 18. And people can download those videos and, of course, reshare and watch them so much. So this has been causing real trauma to survivors who had moments or maybe years of their life of abuse. but now that's being monetized by PornHub and is being watched around the world. So it feels like that abuse is really ongoing.

So as I said, we met with MasterCard and Visa earlier this year to let them know about this information. They started an internal investigation, but they really wanted to keep it quiet. And then a couple weeks ago, the New York Times released a fantastic op-ed called The Children of Pornhub that just unveiled all of this information about these abuse videos on the website. And after that, MasterCard and Visa and most recently Discover Credit Card all said that they were going to cut ties with Porn Hub, which we think is a really important step forward. Well, that's really, that is good news. I did want to talk to you. We'll be talking more about Nicholas Christoph's column about the children of Pornhub.

But I wanted to ask you just to backtrack a little bit. For people who are unaware, how rampant is the problem of child pornography on Pornhub? It's a very serious problem. You know, unfortunately, we don't, we can't say metrics. We can't say a percentage of the videos. But we know that it's a big problem. As in the aftermath of the New York Times article, Pornhub is now deleted over 10 million videos from their platform,

all of which were unverified. Some say that this is like 80% of their content. that they've just deleted over the last couple of the days because of the growing scrutiny of these problems. The fact that it's an unverified video, it means that we don't know, and which probably means that there's a really real chance that that is non-consensual material. Well, you mentioned your meetings with, you know, MasterCard Visa about these issues. do you think that what we're seeing in recent days with MasterCard and Visa reportedly blocking these payments, do you think that this has anything to do as a result of your work educating and talking to them about these concerns? Yes, you know, it's the culmination of a lot of different people's work.

First and foremost, the survivors who've been brave enough to be speaking out about this. Some survivors were quoted in the New York Times article. Also, Rose Kalimba is a survivor whose sexual abuse videos were uploaded, and she had a fantastic article in the BBC earlier this year that had tremendous reach and was really impactful as well. So survivors have been at the forefront. Our organization has been at the forefront. Certainly we were the first ones speaking with the credit card companies. And there's also another organization called Exodus Cry, and they have a potential.

a global petition to shut down Pornhub that has over two million signatures right now. So I would say it's kind of the culmination of, you know, survivors, our organization, Exodus Cry, and so many other advocates too who are just speaking out about this issue. So it's all kind of coming together at the same time, which is really exciting. It's great to see the domino starting to fall here. Well, Pornhub had reportedly said that Viz and MasterCard blocking payments to their site is extremely disappointing. What is your response to their perspective here? I think it's very important that mainstream corporations not partner with facilitators of sexual exploitation and abuse. And that's what

Pornhub is. At the end of the day, Pornhub knew that these videos were on there. Many survivors have spoken about how they reached out to Pornhub and explained to them that, you know, they were minors when the video was taken or that it was actually a video. of their sexual assault asking Pornhub to take it down, and the company wouldn't take it down. There was a recent case, the girls do porn case, where about 20 women were sex trafficked into the legal pornography industry, and their sex traffic videos were on Pornhub. There was a legal case. I think that one of the traffickers even pled guilty to the fact that he had trafficked them

into those videos, and Pornhub kept those videos on their website, even after. you know, these cases were done. So they're absolutely a bad actor and I think mainstream companies should not be partnering with them. I'm glad if Pornhub's disappointed. Well, Haley, you had mentioned this really fantastic, very sad, but well written an informative New York Times op-ed from Nicholas Christoph, who's an opinion columnist for the New York Times. And he wrote this heartbreaking column about the children of Pornhub. I want to talk more about some of the stories. that are included in the article. But first off, can you just tell us a little bit

about the article and your takeaway from it? Right. It's a really impactful article. I encourage anyone to go and to read it. It's great because it lays out what the problem is. And he even mentions in his article, he questions that companies like credit card companies are still partnering with the pornography industry.

But it basically just lays out the case of several survivors who've had their abuse videos uploaded. And so it's a good. very impactful. It's really created a seismic shift in the culture because, you know, people have been talking about this before. You know, our organization, survivors, others have been almost screaming at the top of our lungs trying to get people to care about this issue. But it really took this piece to bring it into the public eye and to make other people feel like they can talk about it. So it's been really helpful for our movement. Were there any particular stories that he raised

that stuck out to you or just any other takeaways that you saw as you were looking at this that really illustrates why you do the work that you do? Well, you know, one of the survivors in the piece commented that, you know, she was essentially, I mean, I'm butchering it. Please go and read it in her words, but that she was trafficked for a period of a couple years in her life, but that her abuse is now ongoing because it's been uploaded onto this website. And that's the same story that we hear from from so many survivors. You know, a lot of survivors from the pornography industry or survivors who've had pornography made of them in different exploitation circumstances have a really hard time coming forward and speaking about it. You don't hear from them that often

because they know that people will go and look up their videos. And so they know that if they speak out in a way their exploitation, their abuse will be viewed by even more people. So I just, it's so brave for people to be speaking out about it now and it's so, so important. And it's leading to lasting change. You know, the Canadian federal parliament has a committee that is calling Mind Geek, which is the parent company of Pornhub, calling them in and requiring them to testify about how in the world they allowed this much abuse to continue on. on their website. So, you know, we're certainly calling for governments to investigate them, and we expect and hope for criminal charges to come forward. Well, Haley, we talked about this a little

bit ago about the problem of revenge porn, but what about other similar situations like the ones Christoph raised in his column, such as videos of victims that weren't released with the consent of these women on Porn Harbor places like them, but they're basically put up. up there and these individuals are living out this abuse. How big of a problem is this and what sort of awareness can be raised to stop this practice? It's a very, very big problem. As the world has gotten more connected to the internet and especially during COVID, our lives are happening online. And so exploitation is happening online even more so as well. And so we see so many ways. that this intersects with different issues. Often, you know, young girls will be pressured to send

sexually explicit images or videos of themselves. Those might be uploaded to a pornography website, or they might be used as extortion to either abuse them or to even sex traffic them. That is a very common situation. Or many people who are sex trafficked, the sex buyers or the traffickers are taking videos of them during that abuse and either sharing them or uploading them to the internet. You know, there's so many different ways that this can happen, but it's unfortunately, it's a very, very common trend. So it's a really huge problem. And it's so important that people are starting to hear about it more and talk about it more. I think we need to normalize this as a conversation that, you know, if you're watching pornography, you don't know if that person is being

abused in that very moment. You know, if a trafficker can, you know, abuse someone and and coerce them into a sex trafficking situation, they can coerce them into smiling for the camera. They can coerce them into even signing a contract that's happened. And that's been, you know, documented in lawsuits as well. So it's something that people need to be really aware of, I think. And Haley, that was actually my next question. And you did kind of hit the nail on the head there. But Is there any way? And you basically said there isn't, but putting aside a huge significant moral concerns regarding porn for someone to look at porn online and be absolutely sure that they're not viewing an image of someone who's been exploited and didn't give their consent.

Yeah, they can't, you can't know. And I've got two things to say to that. One is that this is really relevant to the conversation because Pornhub, you know, the credit cards stopped processing payments. And that really got Pornhub's attention. That's the reason. why it's deleted over 10 million on verified videos from its website. And it also is now saying that it will only have verified videos. So they're trying to normalize themselves again and say that, okay, we're only going to have verified videos. But the problem is that Pornhub has in the past verified videos of people who have been sex trafficked. Pornhub is in the past even verified videos of minors. They even gave an award to a girl who first started posting videos on Pornhub when she was a

minor, which is child pornography. It's child sexual abuse materials. So we cannot trust them, right? They should not be able to regulate themselves. So that's one important thing. And then the other important thing that I would say is that we do also have to remember that pornography production causes physical and mental trauma to the performers. This is something that a lot of people don't talk about, but there's been research showing that individuals who are used in the process of pornography have worse mental health than the general population. They're more likely to live in poverty.

That's probably the reason that they're engaging in that in the first place. There's an economic coercion there. And that they're exposed to serious physical, physical harm, even beyond STDs. You know, so much pornography portrays violence against women, and pornography is not staged what is happening in that video is actually happening to that person. So I think it's also just important to remember,

you know, a lot of the conversation around Porn Hub is around the fact that they are literally profiting off of abuse materials, but our organization, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, even just argues that the production of pornography in general causes harm to the performers. So I think that's important for people to understand as well. Well, you've touched on this in your last answer, Haley, but how big is the reach of Porn Hub and other porn sites, even excluding Porn Hub, and how does it affect victims when their videos are being hosted on such popular sites?

Pornhub is huge. It's one of just the very largest pornography websites in the world. world. I think it has, I think in 2019, it had 42 billion with a B visits to its website. So that's a pretty impactful, impactful website. But they are owned by Mind Geek, which is a corporation that's based in Montreal, Canada, but they have headquarters all over the world. And Mind Geek owns not only Pornhub, but also a number of other pornography websites. Hopefully your listeners have haven't, you know, been researching the pornography industry to the extent that we've all had to. But if you kind of look at the structure of the marketplace of pornography, to the average viewer,

it would look as if there's just thousands and thousands of unrelated pornography websites. But actually, if you zoom out and look up, there's only a couple mega corporations that are running all of these different websites, Mind Geek being the largest. And they also run an advertising site that they, so they host their own advertisers, they host, they've created their own payment processor, so they've really built up this ecosystem of companies all surrounding pornography and this corporation is pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars every year. So it is, it's global, it's very global, they're powerful, they're upset, you know, about about all of these changes that have been happening. But I think it's helpful for people to think about that

and realize, you know, this isn't an issue about free speech or self-expression. This is about a mega-corporation that is facilitating exploitation in order to make money. That's really what their goal is. Well, earlier this year, Senator Ben Sass, who's chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, asked U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, who's now retiring, to hold an investment. Investigation into Porn Hub and its owner Mind Geek for their involvement in streaming videos of raped women and children. What should happen here, Haley? And do you know any updates on where this effort is at? I don't have any updates, but I know that, you know, we have also written in and asked for there to be investigations. We think it's critical that there are investigations.

If we're not going to go after some of these online companies who are intentionally facilitating this content, then what's the point of law enforcement? This is such a critical thing for us to start enforcing. If Pornhub was trading this kind of material through the mail, I think that they would have been caught years ago. But I think law enforcement is just slow. I think they're starting to catch up. But historically, they've been slow to address the. online side of these harms. But I think it's urgent.

The Canadian Center for Child Protection's project has said that they, over a couple of months, got 22,000 cases of child sexual abuse materials or child pornography on porn hub. So, I mean, this is an urgent matter, I think. And I would just add, you know, porn hub says that now they're only going to do the verified content. Of course, we can't trust them. They've already been verifying abuse video.

and also, you know, criminals don't get let off the hook because they're promising better behavior. Pornhub had its chance, and it's very clearly, I think, a company that needs to be held accountable. Well, finally, Haley, just going back to Visa and MasterCard and the whole situation with Pornhub, how can people stand up to Porn Hub and they're aiding and abetting of child porn? How would you encourage people to get involved if they can? Definitely. So one thing you can do is you can go to trafficking hub.com. That is the online petition to shut down Porn Hub led by Exodus Cry.

So I would encourage you to sign that petition. It's really impactful. And then also in February, we are launching our 2021 Jerdy Dozen list, which names 12 mainstream companies that are facilitating sexual exploitation and abuse. So Visa was on the list this list. last year because of its work with Pornhub. So we, I suspect, although I cannot confirm, that we will also have some other companies, mainstream companies that are aiding and abetting the pornography industry in similar ways on the Dirty Dozen List. So you can learn more about that

at Dirty Dozenlist.com. Well, Haley, thank you so much for being with us today and for really unpacking a tough issue, but one that needs to be discussed. We appreciate having you. Thanks so much for having me. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcast. And as always, encourage others to subscribe.

Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.