Pornhub: Judge rules Visa can be sued in abuse claim

Image source, Getty Images

A US court has ruled that an abuse survivor can file a lawsuit against Visa.

Serena Fleites is said to have been pressured by her boyfriend to make an explicit video which he uploaded to PornHub.

Ms Fleites claims that Visa colluded with MindGeek to make money from videos of her abuse.

Visa wanted to be taken out of the case.

Ms Fleites' story was featured in the New York Times article The Children of PornHub, which prompted MindGeek to make changes to its policies and practices.

The allegations are summarized in the pre- trial ruling.

Ms Fleites discovered that the video had 400,000 views when she discovered it.

She claims to have contacted Mind Geek pretending to be her mother to tell them that the video was child pornography. It was taken away a few weeks later.

The re-uploads of the video was viewed by over 2 million people.

It is alleged that MindGeek made money from these re-uploads.

Ms Fleites said her life had spiralled out of control after she was introduced to heroin by an older man.

She made more explicit videos at this man's request, some of which were uploaded to PornHub.

While MindGeek profited from the child porn featuring Cormac, he was intermittently homeless or living in her car, addicted to heroin, depressed and suicidal.

The court has not yet ruled on the truth of the allegations, and is required to assume all of the allegations are true, according to MindGeek.

The company said it was confident the claims would be dismissed for lack of merit.

The Judge ruled that there was a strong possibility that Visa's network was involved in at least some advertisement transactions related to the videos.

Visa argued that the "allegation that Visa recognized MindGeek as an authorized merchant and processed payment to its websites does not mean that Visa agreed to participate in sex traffickers of any kind".

According to the judge's account of its position, it argued that a commercial relationship does not constitute a conspiracy.

"The Court can comfortably infer that Visa intended to help MindGeek monetize child porn from the very fact that Visa continued to provide MindGeek the means to do so and knew MindGeek was doing so."

The tool used to complete a crime is alleged to have been provided by Visa.

Visa condemns sex trafficking, sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse material, according to a spokesman for the company.

Visa's role and policies are mischaracterized in the pre- trial ruling. Visa will not allow its network to be used for illegal activity. We don't believe that Visa is a good person to be in this case.

The CEO and COO resigned last month.

The company's policies were examined in an article in the New Yorker.

Mind Geek said that it has.

• zero tolerance for the posting of illegal content on its platforms
• banned uploads from anyone who has not submitted government-issued ID that passes third-party verification
• eliminated the ability to download free content
• integrated several technological platform and content moderation tools
• instituted digital fingerprinting of all videos found to be in violation of our Non-Consensual Content and CSAM Policies to help protect against removed videos being reposted
• expanded its moderation workforce and processes

Any insinuation that the company doesn't take the elimination of illegal material seriously is categorically false.