ClaimsBill Ackman

“I just learned that @discovercard is still providing payment services to MindGeek despite @Visa and @Mastercard’s suspension. This needs to stop now!”

Bill Ackman, writing on X 4 August 2022 Post by @BillAckman on X, 2022-08-04 (X)

Factual Other

Discover was still providing payment services to MindGeek as of 4 August 2022, despite Visa and Mastercard suspending theirs.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

What would count as true or false

Judged as of 2022-08-04. True if, at that date, Visa and Mastercard had suspended card acceptance for MindGeek (or its ad business or sites such as Pornhub) and Discover cards could still be used to pay MindGeek sites, or Discover had not stopped processing for MindGeek. Evidence would be news reports, statements by Discover or MindGeek, or a later Discover announcement that it was suspending MindGeek after that date. Mostly true if both points hold but a detail is off, for example the Visa or Mastercard suspension covered only part of MindGeek's business. Mostly false if Discover had in fact already stopped processing for MindGeek's main sites and only marginal acceptance remained, or if Visa and Mastercard had not both suspended. False if Discover had already fully stopped providing payment services to MindGeek before 2022-08-04.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (8)

  1. E1 Mastercard, Visa cut payment services to Pornhub over non-consensual video concerns Axios · 11 December 2020

    “has terminated Discover card acceptance at Pornhub.com. We require our financial institution partners to monitor for and prevent card acceptance at merchants that allow illegal or any other prohibited activities”

  2. E2 Mastercard, Visa and Discover cut ties with Pornhub following allegations of child abuse | CNN Business CNN Business · 14 December 2020

    “Discover (DFS) has also cut payment services with Pornhub.”

  3. E3 Visa and Mastercard suspend payments for ad purchases on Pornhub and MindGeek amid controversy CNBC · 4 August 2022

    “Mastercard told CNBC it's directing financial institutions to suspend acceptance of its products at TrafficJunky following the court ruling.”

  4. E4 We do not tolerate using network for illegal activity Visa · 8 April 2022

    “Despite what you may have read in recent days, you cannot use your Visa card on Pornhub.”

  5. E5 Visa, Mastercard Cut Off Ability to Buy Pornhub Ads After Court Ruling in Child Porn Case Variety · 4 August 2022

    “Visa and Mastercard said they are suspending payment privileges of TrafficJunky, the advertising arm of online porn network operator MindGeek.”

  6. E6 Visa and Mastercard suspend ad payments on Pornhub after lawsuit, pressure from Bill Ackman Yahoo Finance · 4 August 2022

    “However, the payments processors continued to allow card payments for ad purchases.”

  7. E7 Collective Shout joins global campaign to 'Dismantle Pornhub' - Updated: WIN! Roku bans porn sites Collective Shout · 2 April 2021

    “More recently, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and Discover stopped processing payments to Pornhub.”

  8. E8 Traffickinghub: A Timeline of Pornhub's Rapid Decline Exodus Cry · 7 September 2022

    “Visa, Mastercard, and Discover all immediately cut ties with the site.”

Reasoning

E1 and E2 report that Discover stopped card acceptance at Pornhub.com in December 2020. E3, E5 and E6 report that on 4 August 2022 Visa and Mastercard suspended payments to TrafficJunky, MindGeek's advertising arm, which appears to be the business the claim concerns. None of the evidence says whether Discover was still processing payments for TrafficJunky or other MindGeek businesses on that date. The 2020 Pornhub.com cutoff does not show that Discover had stopped all payment services to MindGeek, so the claim can be neither confirmed nor refuted.

Cite this claim

Bill Ackman, “Discover was still providing payment services to MindGeek as of 4 August 2022, despite Visa and Mastercard suspending theirs.” (said 4 August 2022). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_88cfa7c3d1e4, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_88cfa7c3d1e4

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Bill Ackman, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

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  2. Resolved false Factual 2 August 2022
    “Remarkable that @Visa has yet to respond.”

    As of 2 August 2022, Visa had not responded publicly to the allegations about facilitating child trafficking on MindGeek/PornHub sites.

  3. Resolved true Factual 5 July 2022
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  4. Mostly true Factual 10 December 2020
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  5. Resolved false Factual 1 October 2026
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All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.