Judge Says Visa Knew It Was Allegedly Enabling Site To Host Child Porn

U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney allowed Visa to remain a defendant in a lawsuit charging the company with conspiracy in circulating child sexual abuse materials July 29, according to court materials.

Rape and child abuse survivors and victims of porn revenge are suing MindGeek, the company that runs PornHub, for allegedly circulating child sex abuse materials, according to the lawsuit. Carney suggested that Visa holds some responsibility for knowingly profiting off of child pornography.

Visa is MindGeek’s payment processor and, according to Carney, was responsible for facilitating MindGeek’s business, including the monetization of child pornography.

“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,” Carney wrote.

The individuals who posted the videos were responsible for the harm done, not the company itself, Visa said, according to The Washington Post. Visa also condemned child exploitation and said it doesn’t tolerate the use of its network for illegal activities in a comment to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

MindGeek’s merchant privileges were suspended by Visa after a 2020 New York Times report revealed that its website, PornHub, was hosting thousands of videos of rape and sexual exploitation. Visa ultimately restored services to MindGeek for paid advertising on all of its websites, according to the lawsuit.

“Visa likes to pretend they’re in a different universe,” Michael Bowe, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs told The Washington Post. “Our claim alleges they were co-conspirators.”

A MindGeek spokesman emphasized that the case has not been tried yet and that this is not a ruling on the merit of the allegations.

“When the court can actually consider the facts, we are confident the plaintiff’s claims will be dismissed for lack of merit,” he said. “MindGeek has zero tolerance for the posting of illegal content on its platforms, and has instituted the most comprehensive safeguards in user-generated platform history.”