Porn, Mastercard Moderation and How Bitcoin Doesn’t Fix It

As huge financial intermediaries increasingly censor online content providers, decentralized technologies de-censor them. Allie Eve Knox, a sex worker who specializes in financial-related fetishes, woke up on Oct. 15 to find that of the thousand or so videos that she has uploaded to iWantClips, a site that allows models to sell adult-oriented content, only a dozen were available for sale. The new policy comes courtesy of Mastercard, which in the name of “protecting its network” now requires sites that host porn to preview material for illegal and brand-damaging content.