Mastercard: Sex Work is Work. End Your Unjust Policy.

Mastercard put into effect a new policy regulating adult content sellers that makes it extremely hard for sex workers to earn a living online. It must be stopped.

The policy itself imposes strict and invasive requirements on adult content websites using Mastercard’s financial services – including pre-approval of all content before publication, forbidding certain search terms, and monitoring the age and identity verification process for all performers.

The stated intent of this is to prevent child sexual abuse material and other non-consensual content. But the policy only applies to websites that host adult content – when all available evidence indicates that these problems proliferate across all kinds of sites.

In reality, all Mastercard’s policy actually does is make it harder for platforms to host adult content – destabilizing the websites that sex workers use to make a living.

Sex workers’ livelihoods shouldn’t depend on the whims of corporations. Numerous banks and companies already single out sex workers – forcing them to pay higher fees and interest rates. And public platforms like PayPal and Venmo continue to boot sex workers off their platforms with little due process.

Laws and policies like these – that criminalize and stigmatize sex work – make sex workers more vulnerable to abuse by clients, law enforcement, and others who target and harass sex workers or those perceived as sex workers, particularly trans women of color.

Mastercard’s latest actions are only a continuation of this history of discrimination and it must be stopped: Sign this petition telling Mastercard to reverse its discriminatory policy now.