If it was about some "religious anti-sex work movement," then the credit card companies wouldn't still process payments for the legal brothels in Nevada. Which they do.
That's called deflection. Or in HN-speak: "Whataboutism."
Here's an anecdote from Carrie Goldberg about how Pornhub compares to FB and Instagram:
I'm a victims rights lawyer. For every 1 case involving a rape tape on Pornhub, I have 50 involving rape and CSAM being disseminated on Insta and FB. Pornhub is far from perfect. But mainstream big tech is far worse and have a built-in mechanism for harassing victims directly. https://twitter.com/cagoldberglaw/status/1337026875441491973...
Pointing out that the actor listed is applying their standards here unequally and therefore the standard might not be what's publicly said isn't deflection or whataboutism.
The amount the term "whataboutism" is used in an attempt to not have to address an empirical counterargument is getting old.
And this is called a “straw man”!
> Internet Watch Foundations number of 118 cases of CSAM over 3 years
If there is millions of them, I'm sure you can do better than 118 cases over 3 years...
Don't know about brothels, but even in the strip clubs I went to years ago they didn't process cards. Instead you had to go to the corner ATM with ridiculous fees to withdraw some cash.
I am also aware of many other businesses that refuse to take credit cards, and work cash-only.
I wonder how consistent most HNers are wrt this statement about The New York Times.
1. Nicholas Kristof to have a tenuous grasp on reality and to launch unfounded moral panics, and
2. PornHub has a lot of serious issues that should be dealt with.
You know the sayings about broken clocks...
(And for that matter, while I trust The NY Times more than the average newspaper on some topics, like science reporting, it has SERIOUS issues with being driven by political access rather than journalism, doing "both sides" too much, and not being willing to question Trump very much. That and their massive support for pretty much any war, to the point of open lying about stuff. I have cancelled my subscription in the past and will not subscribe again.)
But yes, I think we agree :)
It's an article. It just happens to be an article you disagree with.
written by a known agitator not a journalist
That's why it's in the Editorial section, not the News section. Also, "agitator" is a loaded term that is in the eye of the beholder. Some people might use "activist" or "hero."
at a time when the religious anti PH movement is at it's crescendo.
If you believe this is true, nobody on the planet change your mind. But I will tell you it comes out like hysterical raving.
As for it being religiously motivated, I don't believe that it is exclusively religious. I think that regular, average people and people with religious convictions can both be against rape videos and child pornography. If you're not, then I suggest you seek mental health counseling.
I've been "tracking this issue" and "digging into the details of it" because I'm a pornhub performer who has had payment issues since earlier this year when this campaign kicked off out of nowhere. My partner and I went through Pornhub's verification process (for which we uploaded current government issued IDs and signed forms, and were initially rejected and had to appeal). My partner and I have millions of video views in the last year, and yet despite the fun and monetary benefit of it all, I happen to view myself as a good person who is conscious of how my actions can impact others negatively, often unwittingly. So I've naturally wondered whether I should ethically be involved with Pornhub at all.
So apologies for my snark, but this campaign is not rational, and me and others like me are fatigued at those jumping to all sorts of non-sequitur conclusions based on fearmongering which is in turn based on shoddy (and at times obviously manipulated) statistics. Even IF pornhub had a verification issue (which will never be perfect), it is not AT ALL clear who has responsibility in this new age of information sharing, how morality should be controlled (god I hope it's obvious it shouldn't be controlled by finance execs), etc. Who is financing the campaign against Pornhub?
Dig into this campaign and it's obvious it's not motivated by sound understanding and reason and has its roots in religiously affiliated action groups.
We can’t let the abuse that happens on platforms like pornhub become a partisan issue. It’s grotesque and tortuous to the people who are affected by it. This has zero to do with being sex positive.