“The use of our cards at Bournemouth has been discontinued. Over the past several days our investigation has confirmed that the illegal content of our sites violates the ban on their site,” MasterCard said in a statement. “As a result, we have advised financial institutions that connect the site to our network to stop accepting, in accordance with our policies.”
MasterCard said it was also investigating other websites for illegal content.
“Based on allegations of illegal activity, Visa is suspending BornHub’s acceptance offers pending the completion of our ongoing investigation,” Visa told CNN Business in a statement. “We are advising financial institutions serving MindJeek to stop making payments through the Visa network.” MindJeek is Bornhub’s parent company.
“We need our financial institution partners to monitor and prevent card acceptance from merchants who allow illegal or any other prohibited activity that violates our operating companies,” Discover said in a statement. “When Discover determines that merchants offer prohibited activity, we immediately stop accepting the card through the offending merchant’s financial institution.”
Bornhub responded by saying, “These actions are exceptionally disappointing.” A few days before the ban, the company announced new measures to eliminate child abuse and unconventional activity on its platform, including removing all unverified content and preventing unverified users from uploading content to its site.
“This news is crushing hundreds of thousands of models who rely on our site for their livelihood,” Bornhub said in a statement.
Several lawyers, including the National Center for Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), have called for credit card companies to stop making payments on pornhubs and other pornographic sites. The nonprofit praised the card companies’ recent move, saying it was “the right decision to sever ties with the rapist.” The panel said it had been in contact with card companies on the issue since the beginning of this year.