Across the world, child porn is banned and carries severe consequences. However, due to the dark net, some websites manage to create and spread such content. A federal judge ruled that credit card company Visa helped Pornhub monetize child porn and sex trafficking.
This decision is bound to have a long-lasting impact on credit card companies, according to legal observers. In fact, the court denied Visa’s motion to be dropped from a lawsuit against porn parent company MindGeek, saying that there was enough evidence that the company knowingly provided the tool used to complete the ‘crime’ of distributing child pornography.
The decision came following a lawsuit filed by a woman who says that Pornhub was hosting a video of her as a 13-yr-old with explicit content. Of course, photographic evidence for the suit was asked to ascertain whether it was the same child in the video. After several weeks, the clip titled ’13-yr-old brunette shows off for the camera’ was removed, though sites like MindGeek reuploaded it, getting millions of views and earning advertising money facilitated by Visa. According to the victim, the clip was still on the company’s site in 2020.
Meanwhile, the woman took to drugs, tried to kill herself, and even made porn videos as an adult to support her habit. The judge felt there was enough evidence to show that Visa engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the online pornographers.
While the court is in the process of passing a judgment against MindGeek, it has shot down Visa’s argument that it was an innocent third party. In fact, Visa did cut ties for a while, only to resume them after a brief lull.
While MindGeek is a Montreal-based company that gets 115 million daily visitors, PornHub was the most popular webpage in the US last month.
