PayPal has cut off Pornhub from using its payment services.
Athough Pornhub is primarily a free porn site, a section of its site allows models (called the Model Program) to upload and monetize content using PayPal as a payment system. PayPal on Wednesday rescinded its services for reasons that are not entirely clear.
The decision is a shock to the system for the world's largest porn site, which claims the decision will not only damage the income of many thousands of it performers but also stigmatises sex work more generally.
"Following a review, we have discovered that Pornhub has made certain business payments through PayPal without seeking our permission. We have taken action to stop these transactions from occurring," a PayPal spokesperson told Vice. PayPal was not immediately available for comment when questioned on the nature of these payments by Business Insider, but a spokesperson told Gizmodo that the payments applied to the models.
"We are all devastated by PayPal's decision to stop payouts to over a hundred thousand performers who rely on them for their livelihoods," Pornhub said on a blog published Thursday with advice to performers on how to access pending payments and set up new direct debit systems. "We sincerely apologize if this causes any delays and we will have staff working around the clock to make sure all payouts are processed as fast as possible on the new payment methods," Pornhub wrote.
"Decisions like that of PayPal and other major companies do nothing but harm efforts to end discrimination and stigma towards sex workers," a Pornhub spokesperson told Vice. Vice journalist Samantha Cole noted that PayPal's acceptable use policy prohibits "certain sexually oriented materials or services," which gives the company room for manoeuvre in cases such as Pornhub. However it is unclear why PayPal would pick this moment to cut off its services, as Pornhub's monetizeable Model Program has been running for over ten years.
Pornhub added that the site will "continue to add more sex worker friendly ones and explore cryptocurrency options in the near future." Pornhub was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Business Insider.
Porn director Erika Lust told Business Insider that PayPal's decision to drop Pornhub was unsurprising. "Paypal has a long history of refusing to work with sex workers or companies within the adult industry, I myself am unable to use Paypal (alongside many other payment processors and other companies like Mailchimp, YouTube and Vimeo)," she said in an email.
Lust added that she believes Pornhub harms performers in the porn industry.
"Pornhub has completely decimated the adult industry whilst making a fortune from piracy, destroying performers' abilities to earn a fair wage, putting many people out of business and changing the way society consumes pornography. So it's ironic now to see Pornhub trying to make PayPal the enemy."
In her view the Model Program is "smoke and mirrors" designed to deflect criticisms of piracy on the site. "Instead of addressing the huge quantities of stolen content that they host, they tell performers to sign up for verified accounts, upload the videos they create, and earn a percentage of the ad revenue their videos generate to deflect from the critiques."
"Pornhub is not the victim in this story, so let's stop painting them as such. They have seen sex workers being kicked off of PayPal for years and said nothing," she added.
Do you work at PayPal or Pornhub? Contact this reporter via email at ihamilton@businessinsider.com or iahamilton@protonmail.com. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.
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