Now You Can’t Use Your MasterCard to View Child Pornography

* There are two announcements at the end of this article.

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There’s another huge victory in the fight against child pornography and non-consensual (i.e. rape) pornographic videos on the Internet. MasterCard stepped up to the plate!

My feeling is that MasterCard (and let us hope Visa, as well) has been working on sanctions against porn sites since December when a New York Times article (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html) was instrumental in forcing Pornhub to delete around 10 million videos from its site. https://fightthenewdrug.org/new-york-times-op-ed-exposed-pornhub/

An article by Bloomberg News https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-14/mastercard-rewrites-rules-for-banks-backing-pornography-sellers spells out the conditions under which Mastercard will conduct business with banks.

Banks have long stated they do not accept charges for illegal transactions. This is fine, but if it is widely known that they do not enforce these regulations, consumers feel free to charge anything they care to.

MasterCard has updated the requirements it sets for banks to process payments for sellers of pornography, making them much more specific. Websites must have “clear, unambiguous and documented consent” for adult content and they must require that websites document the age and verify the identity of anyone appearing on-screen as well as those uploading the content.

If they cannot produce this documentation, they must take down posted material and the banks will not allow charges for the use of their site.

I wrote about the link between ritual abuse and child pornography earlier https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2020/11/21/great-good-news-pornhub/. There is good news about Thailand’s moved to hurt pornography sites in the pocketbook and protect children from exploitation in the sex tourism business.

Canada is another hot spot of activism. I want to share with you three projects of an organization called The Canadian Centre for Child Protection. The Centre supports both survivors and families, male and female survivors. adult, teen, pre-teen, and younger survivors. It has a large referral network and free downloadable books for adults and children.

Ongoing projects include:

Cybertip.Ca receives 10,000 tips a month about child sexual abuse on the Internet. These are forwarded to the appropriate child welfare agency or law enforcement agency. Cybertip.ca

Project Arachnid, an automated web crawler, searches child pornography sites identified through Cybertip, notifies offending websites, and demands removal of that material. It has also used data from images obtained through Cybertip to design criteria for images of child sexual abuse on other sites. https://projectarachnid.ca/en/

Statistics from their website: 127 billion images processed – 39 million images triggered for analyst review – 7.5 million notices sent to providers – 85% of these notices relate to victims who are not known to have been identified by the police.

The Centre’s International Survivors’ Survey reports the findings from data submitted by 150 adult survivors from around the world. A summary and the complete data are available on the site to download in pdf form. I read highlights of the summary and it took me over an hour! The complete report is 385 pages. I think I will bookmark it and work through it slowly in therapy –  if I have the courage. https://protectchildren.ca/en/resources-research/survivors-survey-results/

The survey remains open if you are interested in adding your voice. You don’t have to complete it in one sitting and you can skip questions.

I feel happy at the developments but totally drained after writing this.

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* Look at the June 8th post for an invitation to an online poetry reading, “Ritual Abuse Survivors Read Their Poems of Suffering and Healing,” on Saturday, July 10.

* The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) Regional Conference (in-person ): “Changing Landscapes: Transforming the Way We Understand and Treat Complex Trauma.”
October 1 -2, 2021
Central YMCA of Toronto, Canada
Presenters: Christine Forner, D Michael Coy, Colin A Ross, and Peter Maves.
Information: https://www.isst-d.org/training-and-conferences/upcoming-conferences/toronto-regional-conference/

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Upcoming Holidays

June
6/20 Fathers’ Day
6/21 Summer solstice
6/23 Midsummer’s Eve
6/24 (?) St John’s Day
6/24 Full Moon

July
7/4 Independence Day
7/23 Full Moon
7/25 St. James’ Day/Festival of the Horned God
7/27 Grand Climax

August
8/1 Lammas/Lughnasadh
8/13 Friday the 13th
8/15 (?) Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8/22 Full Moon
8/24 (?) St. Bartholomew’s Day

Dates Important to Nazi and Neo-Nazi groups
7/18 Tisha B’Av (Jewish Day of Mourning)
7/29 Hitler proclaimed leader of the Nazi party

(NOTE: Not all groups meet on Jewish holidays. Some groups also mark Candlemas, Beltane, Lammas, Halloween, the solstices, and the equinoxes.)

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Additional information:

 Fathers’ Day: https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2020/06/20/ritual-abuse-and-fathers-day/

 Summer Solstice (corrected text) https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/well-this-is-embarrassing/

 Lammas https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/category/lamas/

 and https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/august-ritual-dates/ 

Feast of the Beast/Bride of Satan: Part 1 https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/the-feast-of-the-beast/

Feast of the Beast/Bride of Satan: Part 2 https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/feast-of-the-beast-part-ii/

Fall Equinox https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/the-fall-equinox/

Halloween {personal) https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2016/10/11/halloween/ 

Halloween (background) https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/samhainhalloween/

Thanksgiving https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/thanksgiving/

Yule/Winter Solstice https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/yulewinter-solstice/ 

Candlemas https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/candlemas/

Valentine’s Day https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/valentines-day/

Spring Equinox https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/the-spring-equinox/

Easter: personal. (for background, see Spring Equinox)  https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/easter-blues/

Walpurgisnacht/May Eve: https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/walpurgisnacht/

Beltane: https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/beltane/

Mothers’ Day: https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2016/04/26/mothers-day/