From https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/business/dealbook/pornhub... (unlocked article)

> “If Visa was aware that there was a substantial amount of child porn on MindGeek’s sites, which the Court must accept as true at this stage of the proceedings, then it was aware that it was processing the monetization of child porn, moving money from advertisers to MindGeek for advertisements playing alongside child porn like Plaintiff’s videos,” Judge Carney wrote.

> Judge Carney: “When the Court couples MindGeek’s expansive content removal with allegations that former MindGeek employees have reported a general anxiety at the company that Visa might pull the plug, it does not strike the Court as fatally speculative to say that Visa — with knowledge of what was being monetized and authority to withhold the means of monetization — bears direct responsibility (along with MindGeek) for MindGeek’s monetization of child porn, and in turn the monetization of Plaintiff’s videos.”

That article and case are about child sexual abuse material. Steam is not distributing child sexual abuse material.

No one is arguing that Visa/MC should be forced into processing illegal transactions.

That content is illegal in Australia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_Australia#Illeg...

Part of the issue is that Steam wasn't properly enforcing rule 6.

    6. Content that violates the laws of any jurisdiction in which it will be available.

Some of that content was violating the laws for what was available in Australia.

And since they weren't doing that, the payment processors were getting pressure and in turn putting pressure on Steam.

So now we've got rule 15.

    15. Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.

That should be the responsibility of the storefront, and there should be publicly actionable ways to force them to comply. Payment processors reaching extra judiciary agreements is not the way to go.

Then it should have only been removed from the Australian storefront, rather than the payment processors forcing its removal worldwide.

Wherever a good or service is legal, a global duopoly of payment processors should be forced to process payments for it.

Yes. The article does quote the complainants saying that they tried contacting steam and only after getting no response for months contacted the payment providers. Steam could have delisted in Austria but didn't.

"That content is illegal in Australia."

So why wouldn't the Australian government go after Steam? If you're a legitimate company legally operating in a locale, then it would be reasonable to assume they are following the law if the local authorities are not taking action.

How is this even a counter argument?

Was anyone ever arguing that child porn is not illegal? And from the Judge's statement, Visa and Mastercard were aware it was there and also aware it was illegal

So.. what are you even trying to say here?

Make an argument, don't just blindly post paragraphs like that is supposed to discredit what I'm saying

And just to clarify for certain: what I am saying is that when Visa and MasterCard became aware of the child porn they should have taken action at that time

This is clearly about them failing to do so

Anytime that someone is going to get sued for monetizing something that is illegal somewhere, the payment processor is likely to get pulled in also as part of the lawsuit. It's been shown that the payment processor can't say "we just move money from one customer to another" and absolve themselves of liability in the court case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_Australia#Illeg...

While some of that content may be legal in the US, it isn't everywhere else in the world. As such, they're going to be in the situation of Collective Shout saying "when we sue {company} for hosting that content, we're going to sue you too for allowing {company} to monetize it through your system."

Payment processors have lost that court case before and are likely rather risk adverse to be brought into another one.

Maybe Payment Processors shouldn't be a nearly global duopoly then

How is the duopoly relevant here? If there were 10,000 global processors, would be they be less likely to be sued?

No, they wouldn't all be global

They can follow their regional laws and whatever

If we're not going to have a global law we shouldn't have global companies and global payment processing

yes. odds are 9997/10000 would be thrown out if you tried to add them to a lawsuit.

Yes. Like any other lawsuit. They try to sue anyone tangentially related to the case. That is more a quirk/issue with the American legal system more than anything.

>While some of that content may be legal in the US, it isn't everywhere else in the world.

Okay, then they deal with it in the other parts of the world. We wouldn't have much of the internet available if companies had to comply worldwide with every local law.

"If Visa was aware that there was a substantial amount of child porn on MindGeek’s sites,"

It would be reasonable for anyone to believe that a registered business that is a major operator is following the law. If they are not, then why hadn't the government intervened? As a user when you go to pornhub or any other site with the legal footnote about age, you have the reasonable expectation that you aren't going to get child porn.

"substantial" is doing a massive heavy lifting here as well. I don't really buy that somehow Pornhub has more CSAM than Youtube, Facebook, or Twitter. They were targeted for ideaological reasons.

But in this case the advocate group Collective Shout was exercising the laws of God, not the laws of court