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Comment by puglr | Hacker News Reader

It is notable that the first item in their list is objectively false:

> You’ve probably heard how Pornhub can’t accept credit cards anymore.

That was only temporarily true due to illegal UGC. It lasted less than a month. Once pornhub removed their unverified UGC they were allowed to take credit cards again, or at least Visa.

One would think that given the nature of this post, they ought to have their facts straight.

Credit cards aren't anti-porn. They are anti-unmoderated UGC porn, for obvious reasons.

It's understandable that this does present a problem for sites like Tumblr. But the way it is presented is misleading at best and in part based on a false premise.

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The fact check here is important, but saying that it was just "due to illegal UGC" downplays the fact that there are lots of platforms with oodles of "illegal" UGC, but it's the porn companies that have gotten the brunt of CC companies' ire. The increasing scrutiny specifically on porn (some of which is due to SESTA/FOSTA, as another poster pointed out) has had a chilling effect on sex work across the whole web.

Also, while true that CC companies aren't anti-porn in a strict sense, credit cards really do not get along very well with sex work or porn in general. They'll reluctantly take their money, but it's a very strained relationship, with high fees in part due to the high number of chargebacks, and in part because no one is going to go to bat politically for porn sites.

It's arguable whether the CC companies are "anti-porn", but they are definitely not "pro-porn".

> Once pornhub removed their unverified UGC

The age of people being able to freely share content with each other is dead I see.

Child porn is the ultimate justification for increasing authoritarianism these days, particularly out of the US.

Child porn is the ultimate justification for increasing authoritarianism these days, particularly out of the US.

Porn shared of participants without their consent is also a big one.

In general, it’s a good idea to expand an acronym at least once if you’re going to use it a bunch.

What is UGC porn?

User Generated Content. Turns out you can't reliably verify age or consent (both to the act, and posting it on the internet) from just a .mp4, whodathought?

I know lots of people don't like this but because how perverse the incentives are and how rampant the abuse establishing a chain of custody for porn should be the absolute minimum.

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