Card Companies Face Increased Pressure to Cut Ties With Adult (XBIZ)
Read the full article Lawrence Walters at XBIZ.com
As part of the aggressive campaign to tie adult websites to sex trafficking, various anti-porn activists are pressuring the major credit card associations to stop doing business with the adult industry. A recent opinion piece published in the Washington Examiner posed the loaded question: “How can mainstream credit card companies process payments for an industry that is virtually guaranteed to profit from rape and sex trafficking?” This led to an article on CBN News claiming that “Your Credit Card Company Is Likely Partnering With Porn Websites.” The proponents of this effort point to the fact that PayPal decided to stop processing payments for most adult sites in late 2019 and suggest that the major credit card companies follow suit. The public pressure campaign is accompanied by an effort to shut down a large adult site for allegedly facilitating sex trafficking and a bill designed to force online platforms to impose restrictions on underage content.
This campaign is fueled by the unproven notions that pornography contributes to sex trafficking and turns our youth into a bunch of degenerates. Instead of proof, the activists rely on a small sampling of incidents where individuals claim “revenge porn” videos have been uploaded to large tube sites or point to the outlier sex trafficking prosecution against the GirlsDoPorn producers. With these examples in hand, some are seeking to shut down the entire adult industry, which relies largely on credit card transactions. Given the vast amount of sexually explicit content found online, it is hardly surprising that some minute portion may be created and uploaded by bad actors. However, these instances are being used to support widespread censorship of adult content by demanding denial of access to basic credit card services. While probably not surprising in the era of “cancel culture,” this call for financial disruption of the adult industry should be taken seriously.