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Comment by krn | Hacker News Reader

I have two completely different takes on this.

On one hand, if a business generating almost $500M in revenue per year[1] is doing something illegal, it shouldn't be allowed to operate. Simple as that. If it is allowed to operate, then it should have access to the same payment methods as any other business.

On another hand, if I belonged to a group of people who believe that such companies shouldn't exist[2] and had no way of getting them banned completely, that's exactly what I would try to do: force their biggest business partners to cut ties with them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek

[2] https://exoduscry.com/

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> On one hand, if a business generating almost $500M in revenue per year[1] is doing something illegal, it shouldn't be allowed to operate. Simple as that. If it is allowed to operate, then it should have access to the same payment methods as any other business

I suspect if all businesses were held to this standard perfectly, there would be no businesses operating that generated $500M in revenue per year. Every business at that scale is doing something illegal somewhere. Not saying I agree with the state of things, but it seems businesses have decided occasional penalties for getting caught things illegal in jurisdictions that are capable of compelling them to pay the fine, are part of doing business.

> I suspect if all businesses were held to this standard perfectly, there would be no businesses operating that generated $500M in revenue per year.

If this standard were held perfectly and everyone knew it would be applied to them, businesses wanting to generate more revenue would adapt accordingly. Obviously violators of this standard exist today _because_ this standard is not enforced (i.e. laws without any "teeth" are not sufficiently motivating).

“ If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”

If this standard was applied perfectly, every company under the threshold would be trying to shut its large competitors down with moles to sabotage them with a single documented illegal act.

If this standard was applied perfectly, large competitors would actually follow the laws... just like large businesses do today with laws that are actually enforced (MUCH more so than small businesses especially)... and why do you think they wouldn't be the ones trying to sabotage the upstart competitors? That's historically much more likely (although I'm sure it would in fact happen in both directions).

Moreover, is that bad? Is punishing people when they do something illegal bad?

What did Visa do that was illegal?

I find it quite odd that payment providers are being singled out. They aren’t going after the cloud provider, or the other services helping this company run their operations.

> if I belonged to a group of people who believe that such companies shouldn’t exist..

This seems to be the only plausible explanation. Going after them by exploiting a legal technicality (hacking the law). I don’t know if I feel any better about this approach, than I do about the original allegation.

Perhaps, it’s the part of me seeking some order in this world, holding out for a more pure form of justice. An ideal that doesn’t exist in reality.

Deep-pocket jurisprudence

Payment processors are vital monolithic parts of the society, and is being weaponized, and that’s not good. That’s the framing and the rough course of thinking I have been having about this type of events.

> a business generating almost $500M in revenue per year[1] is doing something illegal

But this is like going after McDonald's because some drug dealers use their parking lots to conduct business.

If, say, 20% of parking lots has used for drug activities, McDonald’s would get a problem.

I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that 100% of McDonalds parking lots have been used for drug activity. At least once a week. 20% of them, probably once per day. And McDonalds is aware of this.

No, this is different because in your example you can't show McDonald's has an increase in revenue due to those drug dealers selling in their parking lots.

Well, it has, because since you drove all the way to McDonald's to buy your drugs you might eat there as well.

There's no clear way to show McDonald's encourages the use of its parking lot for drug dealings in order to generate foot traffic to their restaurants. What you're saying is conjecture. It may be true, but not relevant legally as McDonald's essentially has plausible deniability until they address it with any written, internal or external, policy.

Is Visa encouraging crimes Pornhub is alleged to have committed?

I personally disagree, but the answer to this question is the crux of the case. Visa is allegedly a co-conspirator because by choosing to providing a platform, Visa also benefits from the traffic generated by CSAM on Pornhub. Visa doesn't directly encourage or control what is uploaded to Pornhub, and no one is suggesting it does in a legal context either. But, Visa knowingly choose to continue working with Mindgeek properties after a NYT op-ed came out highlighting the CSAM available on the platform. There's no "alleged" with respect to Pornhub, it did host CSAM and it did make money from advertisements, and according to the case filing, also had internal software to tag and promote CSAM algorithmically. Visa profited by providing a merchant platform to the advertising arm of Mindgeek despite knowing CSAM existed.

I don't agree with the overall precedent that would be set, but it's hard to argue when Visa chose to stop working with certain parts of Mindgeek showing they knew CSAM existed. Visa made itself a moderator of content by deciding who it does and doesn't work with based on the kind of content they serve and that decision exposed them up to the consequences of Mindgeek's actions.

Payment processors are in a difficult position but I believe they should be treated like a utility, similar to electricity. If net neutrality was solidified in the US, Visa could potentially argue that it treats all data in a similar way and then the lack of moderation and Pornhub/Mindgeek alone would be at fault. But by by choosing what should and shouldn't be allowed on the platform of its customers, Visa becomes a responsible for when its customers break the law using its platform.

Is pornhub actively sourcing child porn?

And if they're taking drugs, they're probably hungrier than they would be if they didn't.

More like going after McDonald's/Visa because their franchisees/PornHub are letting people deal drugs/child porn in the building/website (because it brings paying customers/ad revenue into their place of business) and McDonald's/Visa knew about it...

(I don't necessarily agree with the allegation, but that is the allegation.)

I think a payment processor has some – but not much – responsibility for the transactions they enable.

But you're right in that if a thing is illegal, it should be targeted directly and not by making private companies responsible for defining and enforcing "law".

Do you think there could be situations where they should deny processing payments over moral/political/ideological objections?

I would were I to manage a payment company.

I'd want to, but not at the expense of people's freedoms, same as how I wouldn't censor things I didn't like if I were a bookseller or an ISP. If I thought they were involved in something illegal I'd turn the info over to the cops to investigate (I'm not HSBC!), but I'd just have to accept that people are going to do things I don't care for. There are plenty of companies I don't do business with now because I can't support them or what they stand for, but I have that luxury because I don't run a company that is (for some reason) allowed to insert itself in between people's private lawful transactions. I've got no business dictating what other people can or can't spend their money on.

It is one thing to choose to deny payment processing of your own free will, and entirely another to be extorted by the courts into doing so. If Pornhub is acting illegally, it should be shut down. If it isn't, neither payment processors nor anyone else should face legal jeopardy for doing business with a legally operating company.

Yes, that's what anybody would try. And it's up to the government to cut that crap up and punish the people that are harassing innocent third parties due to a personal crusade.

Absent punishment, everybody will just drag all bystanders (from around any scene, there is somebody that disagrees with anything) into a court.

> the people that are harassing innocent third parties due to a personal crusade.

> Absent punishment, everybody will just drag all bystanders (from around any scene, there is somebody that disagrees with anything) into a court.

What a great description of the dysfunction of the US judicial system.

1) For years PH used to do the stuff that should totally, unequivocally never be allowed. Then they did a 180, some damage control and a spring cleaning. You can argue that what PH does now should be allowed, but then one of its victims lawyers up and brings up something from dark past in which PH is totally implicated. Now what?

2) Visa, like any other business, must be allowed to use own judgement when deciding whom it's dealing with. They are no saint, though, because they probably noticed that they were dealing with PH (given its size) long enough ago and ignored what was going on there.

But it isn't doing something illegal, their users do. They profit from it, but we are back to the problem that platform providers are responsible for user content. Now just if financial transactions are involved luckily.

Not a pornhub fan, but I believe there are far more exploitative companies out there.

If you belonged to a group of people who believe that such companies shouldn't exist, then you should lobby for it to be outlawed, not try to rule by (small!) minority.

So are the internet providers then, and the electricity companies.

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