A federal judge in California ruled Friday that the credit card company Visa will remain a defendant in a child-abuse case because the company likely knew they were helping PornHub and other porn websites monetize child pornography.
From the Christian Post:
A federal judge ruled Friday that Visa likely knew it was monetizing child pornography hosted on Pornhub and other sites owned by its parent company, MindGeek, which has faced increased scrutiny amid allegations its sites host videos and photos depicting sexual abuse.
The lawsuit, Fleites v. MindGeek, was filed last Monday in the U.S. District Court Central District of California. The plaintiff, Serene Fleites, alleges that in 2014, when she was 13, Pornhub hosted a sexually explicit video of her titled "13-Year Old Brunette Shows Off For the Camera."
Visa was listed as a defendant in the lawsuit and filed a motion to be dismissed from the litigation. However, that request was denied by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney.
The details of the case, which the Washington Post report ignores but are detailed in the Christian Post story, are disgusting, disturbing, and, unfortunately, typical for the pornography industry.
And the judge basically ruled that Visa could also be sued in this case because they knew that in processing payments for the pornography sites children were being exploited in order for these companies to make money.
From the Washington Post:
In an application seeking to dismiss the charges, Visa said the people who posted the victims' underage images and those who distributed and earned money from the material caused the alleged harm — not Visa. Furthermore, the company argued, it has nothing to do with the daily operations of MindGeek's sites, of which Pornhub is the most notable.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney wrote that "Visa lent to MindGeek a much-needed tool — its payment network — with the alleged knowledge that there was a wealth of monetized child porn on MindGeek's websites."
Visa is trying to act like they had no idea that a pornography website might have some shady business happening when they agreed to process payments for them.
Michael Bowe, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, told The Post in an interview that MindGeek has "no credible denial."
"They did it, got caught, can't explain it" he said. "It's like telling your wife the naked woman in your bed is there because she lost her earring changing sheets."
The judge's ruling in the civil case is a seismic decision for the companies involved, Bowe said.
"What this means is that a prosecutor could take this complaint and charge Visa the company and individuals," he said, noting that the harm caused doesn't have to be as direct as Visa has been arguing.
Visa looks like it only backtracked, like the porn sites, when it was caught.
Visa told the court that if the plaintiffs' theory was accepted, it would "upend the financial and payment industries," a notion the judge also waved away, saying "Visa is being kept in this case because it is alleged to have continued to recognize as a merchant an immense, well known, and highly visible business that it knew used its websites to host and monetize child porn."
Here's more from the Christian Post:
Judge Carney wrote that Visa knew MindGeek's websites monetized child pornography.
"When MindGeek decides to monetize child porn, and Visa decides to continue to allow its payment network to be used for that goal despite knowledge of MindGeek's monetization of child porn, it is entirely foreseeable that victims of child porn like plaintiff will suffer the harms that plaintiff alleges," he wrote.
I am glad I don't have any Visa cards. I hope the lawsuit brings all the facts and justice to the individuals involved in this decision.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation reports that Visa has since re-established its relationship with MindGeek and other porn sites and "failed to follow the example of Mastercard in requiring that sites hosting sexually explicit material implement common-sense measures to prevent and remove illegal content..."
In a statement, NCOSE called the judge's refusal of Visa's dismissal request a "landmark ruling." The advocacy group claims it first brought evidence of child sexual abuse material and sex trafficking on Pornhub to Visa's attention in early 2020.
"Visa continued to process payments for Pornhub and other MindGeek-owned websites, even after it was aware of the widespread abuses occurring on Pornhub," NCOSE CEO Dawn Hawkins said in a statement. "It is right that Visa should be held responsible for its role in child sex trafficking on Pornhub."
If a financial giant like Visa knew it was monetizing pedophilia, sex-trafficking, and horrid abuse, it deserves to be destroyed.
Here's hoping the entire industry comes crashing down.
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