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Just last week, Visa’s CEO Alfred F. Kelly Jr. announced that Visa will no longer be able to be used to purchase advertising on Pornhub, one of the world’s largest and most influential pornographic websites.

The announcement came last week on the 4th of August, local time:

“Visa cards will not be able to be used to purchase advertising on any sites including Pornhub or other MindGeek affiliated sites.”

Visa is the second-largest card payment organization, enjoying 50 per cent of the world’s market share of card payments.

Visa’s main competitor, Mastercard, made a similar announcement on the same day as Visa’s.

“We are directing financial institutions to suspend acceptance of our products at TrafficJunky [MindGeek’s advertising wing].

New facts from last week’s court ruling made us aware of advertising revenue outside of our view that appears to provide Pornhub with indirect funding. This step will further enforce our December 2020 decision to terminate the use of our products on that site.”

Disintegrating

The dramatic news comes shortly after a range of accusations and scandals engulfed MindGeek (the parent company of Pornhub and a range of other popular porn websites), leading to the sudden resignation of top MindGeek management staff, the removal of 80 per cent of Pornhub’s content and numerous sponsors and partners withdrawing their support.

To read about earlier developments, you can view my earlier article here.

In late July, Pornhub lost all support for payment processing on its site from the major payment processing companies — MasterCard, Visa, Discover, and PayPal.

However, until last week, MindGeek-affiliated porn websites could still make money by monetising ads on its site. Due to the phenomenal daily visits to such sites, ads placed on MindGeek-affiliated sites receive billions of daily impressions. This makes them a huge potential source of income.

Child Abuse

Visa’s decision was apparently sparked by a California federal judge’s refusal to dismiss a lawsuit against both Visa and MindGeek. According to CNBC, the lawsuit accuses Visa of “knowingly facilitating the distribution of child pornography on Pornhub and other sites operated by parent company MindGeek.”

The initial Pornhub controversy blew up after a concerted campaign by anti-pornography activists. Exodus Cry, an organisation committed to fighting commercial sexual exploitation, celebrated the recent developments:

“It appears that the MindGeek exploitation empire is crumbling before our eyes.

This is a MAJOR WIN for survivors and all the allies of the #Traffickinghub movement who have relentlessly pushed to see Pornhub and their parent company, MindGeek, held accountable for profiting from the most egregious crimes imaginable.”

Exodus Cry has been at the forefront of the #Traffickinghub campaign, releasing a viral video about Pornhub in mid-2020 and promoting a petition that has received over 2.2 million signatures to date.

Praise God for the work of millions of individuals and organisations like Exodus Cry and Justice Defence Fund in tackling pornography and other forms of exploitation. Please continue to pray that the hideous and evil work of MindGeek (and other similar organisations) in entrapping and exploiting women is brought to an end.

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