MONTREAL — Last week, Pornhub announced to members of their Model Program that PayPal had suddenly decided to stop payouts and that the content producers should arrange for alternative ways of receiving their funds.
Pornhub VP Corey Price has released a statement describing the tubesite company as “devastated” by PayPal’s decision “to stop payouts to over 100,000 performers who rely on them for their livelihoods.”
“The payments PayPal is referring to are only the payments that were being made to models in our Model Program,” Price explained. “Pornhub’s growing Model Program was launched in order to empower content creators within the adult industry by providing a secure, highly visible, sex-positive space on our platform to sell and share original video content and earn a large share of the advertising revenue on their free to watch videos. Decisions like that of PayPal and other major companies do nothing but harm efforts to end discrimination and stigma towards sex workers.”
Pornhub continues to offer several alternate payment methods besides PayPal, and Price explained that they “will continue to add more sex-worker-friendly ones and explore cryptocurrency options in the near future."
PayPal has not offered a clear explanation for this sudden decision to discriminate against sex workers after honoring payments and profiting from the transactions since the inception of the model program.
A representative would only tell Vice's Motherboard that "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.”
For Pornhub’s original announcement, click here.
