Visa knew about Pornhub’s child porn, judge says, and now must face trial

In December 2020, a New York Times op-ed declared that Pornhub had a child porn problem. Subsequently, Visa temporarily suspended all business with Pornhub and other sites hosted by Pornhub owner MindGeek.

At that time, a MindGeek employee confidentially claimed that this was MindGeek's worst fear—losing one of its major payment processors—and, therefore, it was unsurprising when MindGeek responded to increased pressure from Visa and other companies by immediately deleting 80 percent of its hosted content, approximately 10 million unverified videos. According to a California court, much of that was likely child porn.

After that, Visa seemed to think that the matter was resolved and continued doing business with MindGeek, claiming it has no control over MindGeek's content. Now, a lawsuit from a plaintiff named Serena Fleites (a Pornhub child sex-trafficking victim since the age of 13) and 34 other plaintiffs alleges that Visa has become a willing co-conspirator in alleged child sex trafficking on MindGeek sites, and a judge has agreed that they're not just speculating. It's a real possibility that Visa could be liable.