Following a Dec. 4 opinion piece published by The New York Times accusing Pornhub of distributing videos depicting child abuse and non-consensual sexual behavior, Mastercard, Visa and Discover have announced that they are cutting ties with the porn giant.
“The use of our cards at Pornhub is being terminated,” Mastercard spokesperson Seth Eisen told The Verge last Thursday. “Our investigation over the past several days has confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site. As a result, and in accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions that connect the site to our network to terminate acceptance. In addition, we continue to investigate potential illegal content on other websites to take the appropriate action.”
Although Visa’s investigation into the allegations is not yet complete, the credit company tweeted Thursday that, in the meantime, customers will not be able to make purchases on the site: “Given the allegations of illegal activity, Visa is suspending Pornhub’s acceptance privileges pending the completion of our ongoing investigation. We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network.” MindGeek is the parent company of Pornhub.
And last Saturday, Discover told Forbes it too had terminated its card acceptance with the company.
“We require our financial institution partners to monitor for and prevent card acceptance at merchants that allow illegal or any other prohibited activities that violate our operating standards,” Discover said in a statement. “When Discover determines merchants are offering prohibited activity, we promptly terminate card acceptance through the offending merchant’s financial institution.”
Paypal previously terminated its relationship with the pornography website in November 2019.
The New York Times article credited the Traffickinghub campaign, founded by Laila Mickelwait and powered by the anti-trafficking organization Exodus Cry, for raising awareness of Pornhub’s crimes and encouraging politicians to “shut down [the] super-predator site … and hold the executives behind it accountable.”
Just last week, Sen. Josh Hawley introduced legislation that would allow victims of sexual assault, trafficking and revenge porn to sue sites like Pornhub that host such content on their platforms.
And in light of the scrutiny, the company has reportedly scrubbed its site of all unverified content. Prior to the credit companies’ announcements, the porn site hosted around 13.5 million videos. As of Monday morning, almost two-thirds of those were taken down.
Yet anti-trafficking organizations, like Exodus Cry, say the fight isn’t over.
“I’m so inspired, more than I ever have been, but it’s not enough,” Mickelwait said. “Justice means shutting this site down and holding its executives criminally accountable for what they have done, and we will stop at nothing less.”
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
In their article “Pornography: A Distortion of God’s Plan,” Answers In Genesis detail the roots of pornography and how satan uses it to deceive and imprison us. The article also goes on to explain what the Bible says about pornography and how we can be set free through Jesus Christ:
The tentacles of pornography have invaded almost every area of our lives through TV, movies, sports, music, the arts, the news media, video gaming, marketing, magazines, and the Internet. Differing degrees and aspects of pornography are everywhere. Many of these far-reaching tentacles go unnoticed and are even embraced by mainstream Americans—Christians and non-Christians alike. What once was considered unacceptable has become completely commonplace.
What is Pornography?
The word pornography is composed of two Greek words. The first is porne, meaning “harlot,” which is akin to the word pernanai, meaning “to sell.” The second word is graphein, meaning “to write.” In other words, pornography is literally “the writing of harlots.”
The Bible and Porn
The Greek word porne is used several times in the Bible. In one of these instances, the apostle Paul writes:
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
1 Corinthians 6:15–20 KJV – “What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot [porne] is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Sexual immorality covers a broad range of sinful activity in the Bible, none of which is what God originally intended for man. In the beginning, man was made in the image of God, perfect and wholesome in all ways (Genesis 1). This included sexuality within the husband and wife relationship. God created marriage before sin entered the world. Adam and Eve enjoyed all the pleasures of marital life in a perfect world (Genesis 2:18–25).
The “sexual immorality” category includes pornography because it introduces an outside person (or persons) in the man-woman marital relationship ordained by God. With pornography, although no overt act has been committed with the person in the picture, Jesus warned His disciples that whoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart (Matthew 5:27–28). Additionally, porn addiction, as it progresses, commonly does lead to a physical act with a real person.
The lie is the same one used in the Garden: Satan is suggesting that God is keeping something good from us. Usually it begins with thoughts somewhat innocent-sounding, such as “Women are beautiful; why shouldn’t I be able to admire a beautiful woman?” However, porn, like all addictions, tends to progress toward a destructive end from these seemingly “innocent” beginnings. But God’s original design for human sexuality was within the boundaries of marriage, and it far surpasses anything that Satan could offer.
Why is pornography so enticing?
In the same way that Adam was tempted to eat the forbidden fruit in Genesis 3, so men and women today are tempted to sin by looking at pornography. The enticement may look attractive at the beginning, but, as James states,
James 1:14-17 KJV – “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
As with Adam and Eve’s temptation, Satan subtly disguises his distortion of God’s plan for human sexuality. For one thing, pornography can be hard to define. Some of it is perfectly acceptable within today’s society (although that doesn’t make it right according to biblical standards). For example, think about what you watched on TV last night. Were there any images that introduced an outside person(s) into erotic thoughts (where only your spouse should be)? What about the billboard along the highway? Were there any images in the catalog you received that caused you to think about another person (not your spouse) lustfully?
Once a person becomes climatized to this type of “acceptable” pornography, it’s an easy step to the next level. Thanks to the Internet, hard-core pornography is readily available within the privacy of a home at little cost, effort, or chance of detection.
Pornography is a sin designed to draw people away from God, entrapping them in the slavery of their own desires. Over time, pornography will become addictive and intensify, drawing its victims into deeper and darker depths of depravity. For more information about the addictive characteristics of pornography and how to tell if you are already addicted, please see www.christiananswers.net/love/home.html.
The Solution
As Adam and Eve discovered, death always follows sin (Genesis 2:16–17, 3:19–24, Romans 3:23). In the case of porn, this could mean the death of a marriage and family, or the loss of self-respect, friendships, or bodily health. Ultimately, the result is separation from God.
The Bible provides help for all sinners, regardless of their level of entrapment. Some members of the Corinthian church had problems with sexual immorality. In 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, Paul lists some sinful lifestyles that these people had embraced before they became Christians. Then in verse 11, he adds “And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” [emphasis ours]. This demonstrates a definite turning away from the sinful lifestyle due to a change of heart, a healing work done by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit worked in the lives of these early Christians and empowered them to begin changing as their sinful burdens were released by the power of God’s forgiveness for their sins. The Corinthians were washed, sanctified, and justified through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ when He died on the cross and bore the punishment for sin. For more information about the redemptive work of Christ, and how you can receive Christ as your personal Savior, please read about the Good News of Salvation.
The Corinthians had to demonstrate repentance for their sinful practices through change, as we also need to do today. This involves action. In Ephesians 4:22–24, Paul exhorts the church to “put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and . . . put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
The phrase “put on” in these verses is the Greek word enduo, which means to clothe. In other words, Paul is exhorting these Christians to throw away the old deeds of the flesh and “put on” the new man; just as a person would throw away useless, dirty rags and replace them with new, clean clothing. Through God’s forgiveness and grace, these new, clean clothes are readily available.
So, how does one apply these verses to everyday life? We can choose what we allow to influence our hearts and our daily thoughts. Would we watch a particular TV show, or look at a certain website if Christ were in the room with us? Does what we see draw us closer to Christ, and strengthen our relationship with Him? The answers to these questions should help us to direct our daily choices with wisdom. Taking a stand against pornography will mean separation from the mainstream cultural views and activities of our society. Ultimately, pornography is an issue of the heart, and a barrier to our relationship with God (2 Corinthians 5:9–11).
We need to walk by faith, believing that God’s way is the best plan for our lives. The alternative is to walk by sight, which is a dangerously misleading path to travel, especially in the area of pornography (2 Corinthians 5:7).
