Mastercard, Visa and Discover are blocking customers from using their companies’ credit cards to make purchases on Pornhub.
Following the Times’ column, Mastercard (MA) launched an investigation into the claims against Pornhub and said it found them to be substantiated.
Our investigation over the past several days has confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site,” Mastercard said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Visa (V) is suspending the use of its cards for purchases on Pornhub, although its own investigation is still pending.
“Given the allegations of illegal activity, Visa is suspending Pornhub’s acceptance privileges pending the completion of our ongoing investigation,” Visa told CNN Business in a statement.
“We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network. ” MindGeek is the parent company of Pornhub.
“We require our financial institution partners to monitor for and prevent card acceptance at merchants that allow illegal or any other prohibited activities that violate our operating standards,” Discover said in a statement.
“When Discover determines merchants are offering prohibited activity, we promptly terminate card acceptance through the offending merchant’s financial institution. “
In response, Pornhub said, “these actions are exceptionally disappointing. ” The company noted that just days before the bans it announced new measures to eliminate child abuse and nonconsensual activity on its platform, including removing all unverified content and banning unverified users from uploading content on its site.
American Express (AXP) has prohibited its cards from being accepted on Pornhub as part of a longstanding policy on “digital adult content sites. ” PayPal (PYPL) cut its payment services to the site in 2019.
Many advocates including the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) have called for credit card companies to stop processing payments on Pornhub and other pornographic sites.
