Following a New York Times column that shed light on underage girls who had been sexually abused or raped and have had videos of their mistreatment uploaded to Pornhub, Visa and Mastercard announced they are no longer processing payments for the adult video giant.
In an attempt to get back in the good graces of the credit card companies, Pornhub is removing most of its content.
"As part of our policy to ban unverified uploaders, we have now also suspended all previously uploaded content that was not created by content partners or members of the Model Program," according to Pornhub's announcement. "This means every piece of Pornhub content is from verified uploaders, a requirement that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter have yet to institute."
After the announcement, the number of videos hosted on PornHub dropped from 13.5 million to 4.9 million.
Previously, anyone with an account on Pornhub could upload a video.
Sex workers had pushed back on Visa and Mastercard's decision to stop processing payment, arguing it was destroying their ability to make a living.