Eight years ago, a 13-year-old American girl was pressured by her then-boyfriend to allow herself to be recorded in a sexually explicit video, which she later uploaded to one of the largest porn video portals in the world, pornhubwith a title that left no doubt about its status as child pornography: “13-Year Old Brunette Shows Off For the Camera” (’13-year-old brunette flashes herself in front of the camera’).
The video was viewed “millions of times” both on Pornhub as in other pornographic content portals of the same company (MindGeek), to which it was uploaded again even after the young woman, Serena Fleites, filled out a content removal request in which warned of his status as a minor and demonstrated —providing photos— to be the protagonist of the video.
According to his lawyers, that video – which in 2020 it was still available in the MindGeek portals—destroyed Serena’s life:
“While MindGeek profited from that child pornography, Plaintiff remained intermittently homeless or living in her car, addicted to heroin, depressed and suicidal, and without the support of her family.”
VISA turns on the faucet even if others handle the hose, says the judge
But that lawsuit, filed last June in a California court by Serena and 33 other anonymous plaintiffs, was not directed solely against MindGeek and its CEO Feras Antoon (who, by the way, resigned along with another manager after the existence of of the same), but also against VISA, provider of the monetization system for the pornographic video portal. Lawyers for the financial services company immediately filed a motion to exclude the company from the lawsuit.
Now, District Judge Cormac Carney has ruled—on that motion, not on the lawsuit as a whole—and it has dismissed, so VISA will finally have to sit in the dock, alongside MindGeekin a case related to child pornography.
The judge agrees with VISA’s attorneys in part by acknowledging that the defendants “have no basis to assert that VISA directly participated in the sex trafficking activities that prejudiced them.” However, in the eyes of the judge, there is sufficient evidence that VISA participated in a ‘criminal conspiracy’ with the rest of the defendants to justify their being prosecuted together:
“Here we have VISA, checking the valve and insisting that they can’t be blamed for leaking water, just because someone else is holding the hose. […] When MindGeek decides to monetize child pornography, and VISA decides to continue to allow their payment network to be used for that purpose, despite MindGeek’s knowledge of child pornography monetization, it is entirely predictable that victims of child pornography as the plaintiff suffer the damages alleged by the latter”.
‘Not with you, bug’… as long as the press watches
Bill Ackman, an investor-activist at the hedge fund Pershing Square Holdings, posted a thread on Twitter praising the judge’s decision: “VISA’s conduct here is inexcusable, and it is likely to cause the company untold financial and reputational damage“.
According to Ackman, when the news of what happened with Serena Fleites broke in the NYT, he himself contacted the CEOs of VISA and Mastercard, to express his concern… which resulted in both companies canceling the prosecution. payments to MindGeek websites.
Thus, they managed that in “a day or so, MindGeek removed some 10 million illegal videos, 80% of its content.” Nevertheless, once the media noise had passed, both companies reactivated B2B payments for the purchase of ads on MindGeek sites, as well as for subscriptions to ‘premium’ content — activities that add up to about 90% of the company’s revenue, according to Ackman.
In a statement, a company spokesperson reacted to the judge’s ruling as follows:
“VISA condemns sex trafficking, sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse materials as repugnant to our values and purpose as a company. This pre-trial ruling is disappointing and misrepresents VISA’s role, policies and practices.” “VISA will not tolerate the use of our network for illegal activities. We continue to believe that VISA is an inappropriate defendant in this case.”
Via | Variety
Image | Based on promotional material from Netflix’s ‘Cuties’