Paying for things with a credit or debit card is how the vast majority of commerce takes place on the internet. If you don't accept card payments for your services you're effectively locked out of the economy. Since late-2021 Mastercard, the world's second largest payment processor, has implemented extremely strict regulations for "speciality merchants'' - aka sex workers and the platforms they use.
Mastercard's regulations include:
- Platforms must review all content before it goes online to ensure it satisfies Mastercard's policies.
- Ensure adult content producers verify their identity via biometric systems that Mastercard operates.
- Submit monthly reports to Mastercard listing any content flagged as violating Mastercard's policies.
- No examples or explicit instructions on content that violates the Mastercard Standards.
This has effectively turned Mastercard into the arbiters of what can and can't be done on the internet. If what you're doing isn't compliant with Mastercard's vague policies, you lose the ability to accept money from the huge amount of people using a MasterCard product. We've covered the ways financial institutions discriminate against sex work in the past, but Mastercard's actions make a bad thing even worse.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) realised the damage Mastercard’s policies are causing for sex workers and filed a complaint with Hacking//Hustling to the USA’s Federal Trade Commission, arguing that Mastercard is violating the USA's First Amendment by stifling adult content and Mastercard's policy is an unfair business practice and sex workers are harmed by it when action is taken against them by a platform to satisfy Mastercard.
While this legal battle is taking place in the USA, if the ACLU succeeds in getting the FTC to make Mastercard make its policies more friendly to sex workers, it will have ramifications for Mastercard's global policies and make them reassess how they treat sex work globally.
To learn more and support the ACLU in their fight against Mastercard's anti-sex worker policies, sign the petition, visit their website, spread the word and make a donation 👇 👇 👇
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