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OnlyFans CEO on Why Site is Banning Porn: 'The Short Answer is Banks' (cnet.com) 209

After facing criticism over the app's recent move to prohibit sexually explicit content starting in October, OnlyFans CEO Tim Stokely pointed the finger at banks for the policy change. From a report: In an interview with the Financial Times published on Tuesday, Stokely singled out a handful of banks for "unfair" treatment, saying they made it "difficult to pay our creators. The change in policy, we had no choice -- the short answer is banks," Stokely told the outlet about the move to ban pornography from OnlyFans.
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OnlyFans CEO on Why Site is Banning Porn: 'The Short Answer is Banks'

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  • by Fworg64 ( 6172828 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:03PM (#61725833)
    The name is synonymous with Uber but for stripping. No one will host their regular cooking show there. This seems like a very stupid decision, no matter the reason.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:10PM (#61725861)

      To be fair, I have a lot of sympathy. Hard-line Christian lobby groups seem to have wholly taken over policy making at the major payment providers on this front, and we saw the same thing with PornHub, basically the only viable methods of taking payment have decide that no business is allowed to deal in porn because of Christian lobbying.

      This is the result of the US Christian Taliban deciding that human bodies are scary because they still have infantile fairy tale believing brains and are succeeding in repeatedly getting Visa and Mastercard to do their bidding in pushing their hard-line prudish religious agenda for them. Religious cranks are anti-freedom illiberal shit stains on humanity

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by LenKagetsu ( 6196102 )

        It's not because bodies are "scary", it, like most religions, is about oppressing and controlling women.

        • You mean the pimps and other thugs do not control women?
          • On onlyfans the pimps may not get what they think is their fair share. So they may also drive for a shutdown.

          • It may surprise you, but no.

            Well, in countries where prostitution is legal, that is.

          • by Known Nutter ( 988758 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:55PM (#61726045)

            You mean the pimps and other thugs do not control women?

            Hint: Religious kooks and political cults can oppress and control women whether or not pimps and thugs oppress and control women. Pimps and thugs oppressing and controlling women does not make it okay for religious kooks and political cults to oppress and control women.

            I am sorry for stating the obvious, but clearly this simple concept is lost on you.

            • by mjwx ( 966435 )

              You mean the pimps and other thugs do not control women?

              Hint: Religious kooks and political cults can oppress and control women whether or not pimps and thugs oppress and control women. Pimps and thugs oppressing and controlling women does not make it okay for religious kooks and political cults to oppress and control women.

              I am sorry for stating the obvious, but clearly this simple concept is lost on you.

              Indeed, in countries where prostitution is legal and women aren't demonised, pimps tend to be cut right out of the whole messy business of selling sex, this results in a safer environment for the working girl and the John. Women are actually protected by law where as pimps and thugs are not.

              The obvious is definitely lost on the GP as you've stated, by making prostitution illegal (and decrying it's immorality) the perfect environment for pimps and thugs is created as the women in question cant even go to

          • You mean the pimps and other thugs do not control women?

            No, they don't. Prostitutes working with pimps are better paid and less likely to be victims of violence than freelancers.

            Many prostitutes choose to work with pimps. Often, they have to apply and go through an interview, just like applying for any other job.

        • So gay porn is still ok?

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Z80a ( 971949 )

          It's not about just women, it's about sex in general.
          You know, anti-masturbation devices and all that.
          The only kind of sex allowed is the one that does kids, and even this one is shameful and you should repent.

          • Banks don't have any problem with adult toys or even adult "arcades."

            It must be something other than that.

            You have to be especially stupid to think that banks are prudes, or care what you're doing. There might be other things about the business model that create problems for banks, that have nothing at all to do with your wet noddle.

        • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @06:09PM (#61726289)

          is about oppressing and controlling women

          Don't be silly. Most religions control men too, dictating where they can stick their willies, when, under which conditions, or even if they shouldn't touch them at all, the last topic of which is extensive enough to have it's own wikipedia entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          Heck for all the shit Islam heaps on women if you so much as have a wet dream your religion mandates you cleanse. You don't even get to be awake for the damn orgasm and you're already being judged as unclean you damn heathen!

      • Bullshit. There is no Christian lobby and, even if there were, they hold no power. It's a Boogeyman. Mention their name and all you weirdos start sleeping with the lights on. The CEO is lying. They probably got busted for child pornography. If banks block porn payments, how are there 1 billion porn sites all making money out there?
        • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

          The CEO is lying. They probably got busted for child pornography.

          I would think there would be bigger things happening than banning pornography on their platform if that were the case.
          Unless you think that by banning pornography they are then banning child pornography, when the latter is assumed to be banned everywhere all the time anyway.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Right, because none of these political groups [wikipedia.org] have lobbyists. Crawl back under whatever rock you came out from.

        • Yeah, they probably don't have the proper documentation to allow pornography (basically, model releases and proof the the person consents). That seems reasonable to me.

        • by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @06:21AM (#61727707)
          Only it does not call itself by that name. Search for stuff with "family" and "live" or "right to live" "anti abortion" "conservative values" etc... E.g. the US anti porn movement is nearly solely filled with conservative christian. Same for anti gay, anti lgbt, or anti trans. See also "private school" voucher pushed hard because they favorize religious schools and similar initiatives. They never say explicitly they are christian, but scratch the surface and they cite christian value, are all mostly christian, and refer to the bible for moral justification. That is why for example there is many version of trying to suppress porn or make it difficult, while there is not much done for suppressing pedophilic abuse in religious institutions.
        • There is no Christian lobby

          What the fuck are you smoking [wikipedia.org], and how do I make sure I don't get any by mistake?

          and, even if there were, they hold no power

          Riiiight, that's how we got six catholics on the supreme court. Tell us another one.

      • by SkonkersBeDonkers ( 6780818 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:41PM (#61725973)

        I'll agree that Christian groups are a big part of it, but lefties aren't wild about porn either. And in truth there is a lot of abuse that goes on it, like for every ready and willing actress there are loads that are forced into it, if not directly, then indirectly, i.e., addictions to feed.

        That being said, I think driving porn underground is the worst idea. Prohibition on something lots of people want never works. Some of the same people that lobbied for alcohol prohibition reversed course a few years later and lobbied for repeal when they saw how it took a problem and just made it so much worse. I mean I think laws against actual prostitution even do that. At least when things are legal they can be regulated.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          Onlyfans, from what I understand, is typically people selling their own naked pictures directly to people who want them. It's not like in the 80s when you had to deal with a porn studio (and associated shady characters) to get your content filmed and distributed, and they dictated the terms to you.

          What I don't understand is how Christian groups, if it's true, have gotten such a tight grip on these credit card companies that they're turning the money down. There's zero chance the guys calling the shots at th

          • It's both the far right Christians and the far left feminist that don't think any women should be allowed to do porn.

            Both are wrong but both support this kind of bullshit.

          • by Junta ( 36770 )

            Or that the pornhub incident has spooked payment processors to demand more traditional regulation of content to avoid a repeat with other sites, and the expenses associated with doing so made OnlyFans to decide to try to avoid it entirely.

            Note that OnlyFans is nominally direct performer to customer, but they won't know if the performer is over 18 and that the performer is a willing participant and not being trafficked by a third party who is taking all the OnlyFans money. To demonstrate they made an earnest

        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          It's nothing to do with the Christian lobby or lefties.

          The big problem is the banks know pornography leads to higher than average amount of chargebacks. For obvious reasons - the bill shows up and the husband has to defend the charge on the bill to NothingButSex and such to his wife. Of course, he'll deny actually buying the stuff and the wife then calls the credit card company to dispute the charge.

          Chargebacks aren't cheap to process as it's mostly a manual process - the place goes through their records an

          • by RegistrationIsDumb83 ( 6517138 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @07:26PM (#61726537)
            Actually, the whole "porn is high risk because chargebacks" is a myth. Porn got classified as "high risk" due to certain people in the government enacting Operation Choke Point [wikipedia.org], an illegal government operation to quash industries the administration didn't like under unfair, targeted financial regulation. It got shut down, but commercial companies are still allowed to treat porn as high risk (even though it has low chargebacks).

            Put more directly, a ton of porn is based on subscription payments. The same customers will subscribe for months, or years. These are adults with jobs buying discretionary purchases -- they don't waste time on chargebacks, especially not for content creators they care enough to shell money out for. Do a charge back on your favorite site and get banned? No, that's not happening.

            You know what does have a lot of chargebacks? Fortnight. All of those microtransaction games for kids are rife with kids stealing the parent's credit card and charging thousands of dollars in v-bucks. But they're not "high risk" because... well, because it has nothing to do with actual risk. High risk is just a way for politicians to fight against legal adult porn, and for credit card companies to extract more revenue from merchants. Everyone wins! But the merchants and customers who indirectly pay for this racket.

      • by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @05:25PM (#61726135) Journal

        The RICO lawsuit against Visa, Mastercard, and Pornhub is by Brown Rudnick.
        https://financialpost.com/fp-f... [financialpost.com]

        Brown Rudnick has a PAC, the Brown Rudnick PAC. They give 86% of the money to Democrats.

        Brown Rudnick saying that Visa and Mastercard are guilty of RICO violations for processing payments on sites with user-generated content, because some of the models are intimates or coerced, and some may even be underage.

        It's Brown Rudnick, donor to Democrats, who are coming after them for processing payments on these sites.

        But ya know, if it makes you feel good to make up shit about a bogeyman who hasn't existed at all since 1987, keep at it.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

          But ya know, if it makes you feel good to make up shit about a bogeyman who hasn't existed at all since 1987, keep at it.

          How is he making shit up? Did the Christians change their stance at any point? Do Christians not lobby democrats too? Do you have some evidence that the executives at Brown Rudnick are not themselves biased by values engrained through Christianity?

          Individual people don't go after pornography due for shits and giggles. Hating pornography is a learned behaviour. Can you name a non-religious source that has an engrained hatred of pornography to the point of teaching that masturbation is a sin?

          None of what you

          • No, Christian right groups do not finance Democrat candidates who expouse "murdering babies" (in their words). Brown Rudnick filed these cases. Brown Rudnick is not the Christian right.

        • This is one of those times where bothsidesism is perfectly justified.

          The Christian Right through Exodus Cry wants to ban basically everything to do with sex online. They scoop up donation dollars and pressure companies like Visa and Mastercard to stop dealing with pornography companies.

          You're pointing to a Democratic donor pursuing this case. I believe that 100%.

          FOSTA/CESTA was a complete fucking nightmare, and both sides voted for it. There's a puritanical strain that runs through the left in the guise of feminism, where they somehow believe that women choosing to do sex work are inherently oppressed. (These are the same people on the left that want to rip niqabs off of Muslim women; their feminism only extends as far as the white Christian views they were raised with, even if they claim no religion of their own.)

          Liberals and Conservatives both are interested in raising money off of this kind of controversy. They claim it's about protecting women and children but it's mostly about hating sex, women and queer people.

        • by fazig ( 2909523 )
          Even from a Libertarian point of view it is a difficult situation.

          While I firmly support the right for these kinds of businesses to operate for a profit, as long as everything happens is out of the own volition of all participants, there appears to be still plenty of potential of abuse going on there due to the lack of transparency.
          For example you can't really see what's going on behind of the camera. There might be some pimp out of your view that coerces the 'models' to do what they do by illegal means.
        • Wow, Brown Rudnick PAC is really making sure those Democrats win big: This is for the 2018 electoral cycle. [opensecrets.org]
          They donated a cool $25,000.
          I checked 2020, but they raised $0 then. They did however manage to spend $155 so presumably someone went to lunch.
          • You're suggesting that someone who goes through the trouble to form a PAC to contribute an extra $25,000 to Democrats must be a right-wing Christian?

      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        I suspect the puritanical sentiment of hard-line christian groups has nothing to do with it. They probably would love to, but we've seen the banks/payment processors ignore them for decades, and no reason for that to change now.

        I suspect the impetus for the change was when Pornhub ended up sued for profiting from rape, child porn, and trafficking. That presented a problem by extension for all the payment processors they used.

        In recognition of the enhanced risk, I suspect the payment processors are demanding

      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        This has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with modern political left and its direction. Christianity has never been less popular than today in recent memory, and fundamentalist Christianity has been all but purged from top echelons of power. There are now several Western nations where merely quoting the Bible will get you prosecuted for hate speech. Including mine, where a party leader and former minister of interior is currently on trial for hate speech for merely quoting the Bible. The

      • by kick6 ( 1081615 )

        This is the result of the US Christian Taliban deciding that human bodies are scary because they still have infantile fairy tale believing brains and are succeeding in repeatedly getting Visa and Mastercard to do their bidding in pushing their hard-line prudish religious agenda for them. Religious cranks are anti-freedom illiberal shit stains on humanity

        It's hypocritical to me that you don't seem to care when payment processors are banning people you don't like, but as soon as you can blame it on "the other" it's a problem.

        • by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @07:40PM (#61726581)

          This is the result of the US Christian Taliban deciding that human bodies are scary because they still have infantile fairy tale believing brains and are succeeding in repeatedly getting Visa and Mastercard to do their bidding in pushing their hard-line prudish religious agenda for them. Religious cranks are anti-freedom illiberal shit stains on humanity

          It's hypocritical to me that you don't seem to care when payment processors are banning people you don't like, but as soon as you can blame it on "the other" it's a problem.

          I hate this trend. Banks and payment processors should be prevented by law from interfering in your business operations. If your business is engaged in illegal activity then call the police. This is a bad road we are on.

      • To be fair, I have a lot of sympathy. Hard-line Christian lobby groups seem to have wholly taken over policy making at the major payment providers on this front, and we saw the same thing with PornHub, basically the only viable methods of taking payment have decide that no business is allowed to deal in porn because of Christian lobbying.

        This is the result of the US Christian Taliban deciding that human bodies are scary because they still have infantile fairy tale believing brains and are succeeding in repeatedly getting Visa and Mastercard to do their bidding in pushing their hard-line prudish religious agenda for them. Religious cranks are anti-freedom illiberal shit stains on humanity

        Are those the same hard-right Christian lobbying groups pushing financial institutions to divest and decapitalize fossil fuel related projects?

    • I mean it sounds like there's no winning unless you full on start your own payment processing company like pornhub did. Either lose the only thing that makes anyone want to give you money, or lose the ability to take money. It's like if mcdonnalds had to chose between having a grill, or having registers
      • Or start your own bank. People transfer money to your new "bank", and they dish thte money out there.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, not only stripping, quite a bit more. This bone-headed move will kill the platform. I doubt they will be able to survive more than a couple of years now.

  • Lawyers.

    Fucking lawyers.

    • by registrations_suck ( 1075251 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:08PM (#61725849)

      Different porn site.

      • I'm usually not kinkshaming, but there are perversions that even I consider despicable.

        • I'm usually not kinkshaming, but there are perversions that even I consider despicable.

          Don't yuck someone else's yum. Oh, wait... you were talking about lawyers. Well, moving right along then...

    • Re:The Long Answer (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Krishnoid ( 984597 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:08PM (#61725853) Journal
      And probably the US Department of Justice [vice.com], more specifically.
      • Interesting. There's a similar thing happening in Europe, though the motivation may be different. Banks here have always been somewhat reluctant to do business with prostitutes and the porn industry, but recently some governments are really cracking down on what (they call) money laundering and tax evation. Banks have been tasked with keeping an eye out for suspicious behaviour from clients, and some have been slapped with hefty fines for "not doing enough" in a few cases where money laundering or crimi
        • "I'm rolling around in it. Could I have it in single dollar bills?"

        • Scared enough, until the dollar figures get important enough to look the other way [rollingstone.com] -- and not get in long-term trouble over it.
          • 'Too big to fail' versus 'too small to win', it's all about the rich people. At least Biden admitted the USA never wanted to help the Afghani people. I'm starting to think militarization of the police and legalized robbery of US citizenry (AKA civil forfeiture) is part of the ruling-class delusion that peace comes out of the barrel of a gun: Given the homicide rate in the USA, that is the peak of self-deluding hypocrisy.
      • Yeah that was a if issue a few years ago, during Obama's presidency.

        The current cases are RICO cases brought by Brown Rudnick.
        That would be the same Brown Rudnick that runs the Brown Rudnick PAC, which gives 86% of the money to Democrat candidates.

        https://financialpost.com/fp-f... [financialpost.com]

  • by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:09PM (#61725855)

    Could make a ton of money.

    There are/were a bunch of sites who supported "Porn" who had their business models screwed by these banks and credit companies.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:16PM (#61725887)
      When people in business say Banks they don't just mean money going into bank accounts they also mean credit cards. Credit card companies don't like porn because of high rates of transaction disputes. It can get to the point where you're not making any money and that's not worth the hassle.

      Add to that that it brings extra scrutiny to your bank because every single prosecutor is looking at you thinking that if they could take you down for facilitating the creation of porn it would be a great thing to rile up their base of voters with if they want to run for attorney general.

      As usual it's got more to do with politics and money than anything else.
    • The problem arises when your new bank can only accept cash deposits because no other bank will deal with them.
  • This thread explains it: https://twitter.com/PostCultRe... [twitter.com] TLDR: Christian Evangelicals campaigning against freedom of expression, just as they always have.
    • by RegistrationIsDumb83 ( 6517138 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:20PM (#61725903)
      Also, this article is good if you want a deep dive on Exodus Cry / Morality in Media and how they tried to take down pornhub: https://www.xbiz.com/news/2565... [xbiz.com]
      • by thomst ( 1640045 )

        RegistrationIsDumb83 suggested:

        Also, this article is good if you want a deep dive on Exodus Cry / Morality in Media and how they tried to take down pornhub: https://www.xbiz.com/news/2565... [xbiz.com]

        Very long, very well-researched article on the history of anti-sex-work political activism in the U.S. - and a substantially-overdue expose of professional pearl-clutcher Nicolas Kristof's NYT-washing of right-wing, anti-sex, political lobbying organizations' talking points, especially their deliberate conflation of sex work and sex slavery. It'll take you half an hour to read, and it'll be half an hour well-invested. You'll finish it much better-informed than you began it.

        And

  • by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:16PM (#61725891) Journal

    Seems like they could capitalize on the existing infrastructure and name, and PornHub with their own payment processing solution in place could handle that part of it?

  • "The Short Answer is Banks"

    Now there's some irony for you...the very entity that was specifically responsible for some of the most immoral and unethical actions that ultimately created some of the most crippling damage to society the world over, has the fucking balls to complain about porn.

    I guess they only like one kind of "money shot", but it still doesn't make them right. Given the porn industry, it just makes them ignorant and hypocritical. Like every other two-faced asshole industry pretending to have morals or ethics.

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      It's less about complaining about porn on moral grounds, its about being the target of RICO lawsuits stemming from pornhub activity.

      A financial institution being caught up in RICO cases is very very very bad for business.

      I suspect they laid out procedural requirements for staying in their current business to OnlyFans, and OnlyFans decided those requirements were infeasible given their business model.

  • Financial institutions have long held censorship power over their 'users', yet we don't see legislators clamoring against such actions like they do with social media institutions.

    Though given that government already has indirect control over banks via various financial regulations, would censorship by financial institutions really be a form of government censorship. In countries that supposedly prevent government censorship, is this a backdoor way for governments to get around blatant censorship?

  • A Cause of Action for Interference with a Commercial Contract, Extortion, and Terrorism lies against the Banks, if and only if this so-called OnlyFans is telling the truth and can prove it. Since there is no litigation, I would assume that the claims are untrue and that the Banks had nothing whatsoever to do with this move and that OnlyFans is playing the Blame Game in order to divert attention from the Truth -- they are scumbuckets who know that their clients will not sue and they are intent on stealing e

  • It says he singled out a handful of banks but TFL in TFA leads to a paywall Who are the "handfull of banks" that he singled out?
  • Would've been cyberpunk AF to switch to payment in cryptocurrencies only and continue running the service as-is

    (But actually it's a very good thing they won't) [bbc.co.uk]

  • "Sorry guys, the banks have told us that they won't fund our porn."

    • by nyet ( 19118 )

      Are you unclear on what it is, exactly, that a payment processor does?

      Hint: they don't "fund" you.

  • The simps posting in defense of OnlyFans and "sex workers" are fucking hysterical. Christ guys, you can still probably pay for a woman to talk to you. Settle down and relax, you thirsty little fucks.

    No, the OnlyFans announcement was pre-emptive because they got busted hard: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58... [bbc.com]

    Basically, the place is filled with child porn, bestiality, incest and other illegal content and their attitude to the hosting of illegal content is a little... 'progressive'. There are also clear i

    • by Anonymous Coward

      That's a disturbing amount of projection on your part.

      Should we call the police now before you hurt any kids or animals?

      I'll give you a hint: all those things you're talking about have been found on EVERY site that hosts user generated content, be that Facebook, YouTube, or Wordpress. If you hadn't noticed, the whole internet is a "hive of scum and villainy" as you put it, and the only reason we know that is because so much of it is accessible anywhere; the fact is it unfortunately reflects the real world.

      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        The point is that on most of those sites, a report causes pretty immediate takedown because terms of service are straightforward.

        On a nominally adult site, illegal and legal content can look *identical*, and thus takedowns may not happen. Until the subjects of the material come forward and declare the content was illegal (they didn't consent, they were underage, etc). At which point the videos are in circulation and posted and reposted ad nauseum throughout the various sites. Then payment processors can ge

  • by Xicor ( 2738029 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @05:07PM (#61726081)

    Why is it that they didn't immediately look towards crypto as the solution to their banks problem?

    • PornHub has, but that didn't replace all the customers they've lost. Remember, the more hoops someone has to jump through to buy your products, the less likely they're to do it.

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      For one, despite the craze, relatively fewer people use crypto so their paying user base may diminish.

      For another, the reasons the banks are reluctant (they don't want to get RICOed if/when OnlyFans gets hit) are also reasons OnlyFans themselves would have a large, legitimate fear.

    • Why is it that they didn't immediately look towards crypto as the solution to their banks problem?

      Because despite the fantasy world the crypto nuts live in 99.99% of the world's population doesn't use it making it an incredibly pointless payment form to accept. You *will* lose customers this way.

  • Banking is an industry which is highly regulated, highly consolidated, and highly interconnected. It is an industry in which business is increasingly conducted remotely. It is also essential to functioning in modern society. Segments of it (such as creating a new credit card such as Visa or MasterCard) are effectively impenetrable to new entrants due to the network effect yet are critical to the free flow of business.

    As much as I dislike regulation, perhaps it's time to prohibit banking institutions from di

    • In a political climate where CESTA/FOSTA can exist, there is no hope for banking regulation that bars discriminating against porn and sex work. They know perfectly well that these retrograde laws put sex workers at risk, but because that mostly means women and queer people, they can't bring themselves to give two shits about it.

      It didn't even help with the supposed goal of eliminating trafficking, it just drove it underground, and they knew it would, because law enforcement agencies told them that eliminati

    • A problem with digital payments is that one needs permission to execute the transaction.

      Considering the vast amounts of public money that is firehosed at Wall Street via the central bank on a monthly basis [brookings.edu], with no strings attached [google.com], perhaps they should attach some strings. I remember there was talk about treating ISPs as public utilities - perhaps payment networks and banks should be treated the same way.

      On the other hand, there is the concept of regulatory capture, and vast amounts go from the printer to W [opensecrets.org]

  • There's an observation that the Supreme Court takes into consideration, which is that The People should not have to give up their fundamental rights as a cost of participating in modern conveniences.

    So you can't use IR to spy through walls without a warrant. Or police dogs to sniff on porches for drug without one. Or moving your "papers", as mentioned in the 4th Amendment, into online worlds managed by companies.

    So, too, here. Our money is valid "for all debts, public and private." It says so right on

    • Same as Facebook locking accounts (refusing service) for arbitrary reasons ... see ? Not as fun for you ...

    • Valid for all debts, public and private, means you can't be charged with fraud if somebody offers you two goats for four sheep, and you counter offer with five green pieces of paper.

      Nobody is obligated to take cash currency. You can tender it as an offer, and they can accept or refuse, the same way they can tender the offer of 'a can of soup for $1.98' and you're not obligated to buy it.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @06:12PM (#61726297)

    Ditch the credit card companies and start taking in (and paying out) in some form of crypto instead.

    Even better, set up in a jurisdiction not subject to laws like SESTA/FOSTA (laws passed ostensibly to target sex trafficking but which are being used to go after sex work more generally)

  • If this guy was smart, he would have started his own kink-friendly bank.

    That is what real geniuses do - when some idiot refuses to treat your business fairly, you go into direct competition with them.

    We need a bank that will not discriminate against legal but discouraged activities.

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