Tuesday 2 August 2022 08:09 PM Billionaire investor Bill Ackman slams Visa for failing to ban payments on ... trends now
Visa may have facilitated child pornography from being distributed by providing payment services to Pornhub and other sites operated by parent company MindGeek, a judge has ruled.
Last week, US District Court Judge Cormac Carney in California denied Visa's request to be dismissed from a case where 34 women who said that Pornhub had hosted videos of them being sexually assaulted or abused as children without their consent.
Carney found that the plaintiff had credibly alleged that 'Visa knew that MindGeek's websites were teeming with monetized child porn.'
'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,' wrote Carney in his decision.
The lead plaintiff said that in 2014, when she was 13, her boyfriend uploaded a sexually explicit video of her to Pornhub without her knowledge or consent.
The video was titled '13-Year Old Brunette Shows Off For the Camera' and garnered 400,000 views before the girl learned of it, according to court filings.
On Tuesday, billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman slammed Visa for failing to ban payments to the site.
'Visa's conduct here is inexcusable, likely to cause the company incalculable financial and reputational damage,' Ackman said in a tweet following a key court ruling in the case.
The suit was filed by 34 women who said that Pornhub had hosted videos of them being sexually assaulted or abused as children without their consent
Billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman has slammed Visa for failing to ban payments on Pornhub, amid a lawsuit accusing the pornography website of hosting child porn
Both Visa and Mastercard came under public scrutiny in December 2020 when the case came to light, and billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman pressured the companies to stop providing their services.
Ackman textet Mastercard CEO Ajay Bunga a link to a story, saying: 'Amex, VISA and Mastercard should immediately withhold payments or withdraw until this is fix. PayPal has already done so.'
American Express does not provide payment services to porn sites. Both Mastercard and Visa cut ties to Pornhub as a result, but less than 24 hours later the site claimed it had scrubbed 10 million videos. Visa later reinstated its services.
The suit against Pornhub and Visa alleges that the
