Visa knew about Pornhub’s child porn, judge says, and now must face trial

First of all, this is a lawsuit and civil trial, but worded this way in common use you might assume a criminal trial. The word "lawsuit" or maybe "trial in lawsuit" would be clearer if more boring.

Secondly, the judge did not really say "Visa knew about ... child porn". What actually happened is that the judge ruled for Visa in one motion-to-dismiss and against in the other.

"a judge has agreed that they're not just speculating. It's a real possibility that Visa could be liable."

"In his order, Carney granted Visa's motion to dismiss claims that the company knowingly participated in child sex trafficking"

"but denied its motion to dismiss claims that it conspired with MindGeek to benefit financially from a child sex-trafficking venture."

What that means is that Visa's arguments in the second case can't be dismissed without having to defend themselves in the lawsuit. The bar for a dismissal is very high. But the judge hasn't decided anything at all about whether Visa actually is liable for anything. Or MindGeek for that matter. Nothings really be argued yet. But discovery is forthcoming and the judge wants to see what Visa knew.

Conspiracy is also a pretty difficult thing to prove - did Visa conspire with PayPal and Amazon to ship me defective and dangerous workout videos that hurt my self esteem? They certainly "conspired" to profit from helping the vendor to sell me those items.