Okay after talking more with the folks over at our billing company, the takeaway was that nobody is 100% clear on what exactly Mastercard wants from everyone. They're asking the same questions we are, and so are the banks apparently.

The good news is I know I won't have to require your ID just for you to upload pics and vids, unless they are explicit. Instead, now I'll have to pre-approve every single image before they go up. That includes gallery photos, forum uploads, and even user icons! I would be checking that only verified users are uploading any explicit content. It seems like overkill given Section 230 protections and how efficient our community is at flagging and removing bad content. But nobody knows how The Man will handle the niche situations out there like ours, so we're doing all we can.

So at least for now, I think moderating the content before it shows up is an acceptable alternative to requiring photo ID's from every single uploader. It'll take me a little while to set up a system for this, so for now we will still require the photo ID's [edited for clarity].

So the photo ID requirement has been taken off of the Bin (video upload) area since all scenes already go through verification. But for now on, no more xxx media anywhere at UMD unless you're verified please. I believe that content already uploaded is OK, but don't quote me on that yet.

Thanks again to the hundreds of people so far who've sent their info in, and to those who didn't cuss me out... or leave the site!! Here's the Vice article from yesterday https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvzwk3/mastercard-new-regulations-for-adult-content

Enjoy the rest of yall's weekends!
Messmaster

Post from April: https://umd.net/forums/now-we-gotta-get-photo-ids-

Well I personally appreciate you keeping everyone abreast of the situation and I know it can't be a particularly fun position for you to be in at the moment.

How the actual F are you going to do that? That is a full time unpaid job in of itself. Nevermind all the other things you have to fix or keep from breaking!

Also, I'm curious why I only keep hearing about Mastercard. Why are Visa, Discover, AMEX, PayPal etc. all strangely silent? What happens when each of them separately decides they want in on this shit and they all have completely different requirements? What defines "explicit"? WHO defines "explicit"?

Thus begins the slippery slope until we find ourselves not being able to have anything. And not because of the government even this time, but because of other private businesses flexing their liability rights.

So right now on the big clip sites this compliance stuff is a total shit show. For like a few weeks they were telling us that the content review process would only take like 2 hours...basically they now have to watch our clips first before they post them....

Well now some of us have had only like 1 clip approved in like a week.....apparently on one of the big clip sites they only approved like 50 some thing clips for release all day when over 2000 is the norm....

This shit is getting ridiculousness...

Note: Just wanted to clarify this sisn't directed at messmaster or umd...

So, like who is doing the review? What are the criteria for what is "acceptable" and what isn't?

What is sent to Mastercard? What do they do with it?

There is so much unexplained shit going on...

Hey! Leave me out of this! I'm innocent I tells ya!

I belong to a number of websites some do require a mobile or landline number for verification others Photo ID, driver licence etc.. I on some occasions have provided these as long as I know who the site belongs to, and NOT to Mark Suck-u-burg who owns FaceBook,Twitter etc, I have had many conversations over the last couple of years with MM and mod's here on UMD and will have no trouble passing my ID directly to MM himself or one of the mod's whom I know directly through conversations, if so required. As I am Australian the social media laws are different and a lot stricter than in the USA, UK or Europe and thus online ID is required just to get access to some basic online sites. This has to with Aust Gov't V's FaceBook 2020 Supreme court Action (online social media Laws). Secondary companies like MasterCard etc, follow banking laws these in some cases required online ID for transaction purposes. As for MasterCard itself, I don't think so this is big brother with MasterCard as most banks and financial services have some connection with MasterCard. I know a lot of members here on UMD are upset about this and I fully agree, why should a website with a small following of about thousand people be wanting to prove who we are, less alone provide online ID (except me and a few others) as its a discrete website. Once your online ID is approved your profile stays on file and don't need to send every time you send something etc... As for the pic's here on UMD they speak for themselves but sadly MM and others will have to look at them 1st before posting 99% here will pass the odd one may miss out.

I found this article may solve some questions.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epng3j/mastercard-now-requires-documented-consent-from-adult-sites

Thank you for the update

I miss the good old days of the internet where there was always something new around every corner. - Now it's just rules and regulations.

I wonder if you could implement a Value Transaction system instead of direct payments...

There's a Loophole around gambling in arcades for Cash where you play the game and instead of getting cash, you receive tickets. - You then exchange the tickets for Plastic Replicas of Gold Bars at the Prize Booth.

You then walk outside to the Kiosk around the Corner and Someone exchanges these Plastic Gold Bars for Actual Cash.

You're effectively playing Arcade games for Money, but in reality it's a Barter system.

Maybe that's too complex or not enough of a loophole for Mastercard to allow, but I know it's a system that's been used around the world to avoid various laws.

This sucks for all concerned.. and is making a huge amount of extra work for you (which is unfair)... meanwhile over at only fans it's a free-for-all. I don't get how this can be...

Just found out about all this, not MM's fault its just government doing it's thing, and little by little the govt takes more and power which I am no fan of.

There's those of us who'd rather not upload our personal info because we'd rather stay under the radar..

But at least we'll be able to resume uploading without ID, waiting for the approval to be done manually isn't too bad I don't mind it, but does add to MM's work load greatly I bet which does suck.

Minor point - this time it's got very little to do with governments. This is entirely being driven by the credit card associations (Mastercard in the lead but all the others closely following), and is a direct reaction to the expose in 2019 about the amount of totally illegal content being uploaded to large adult tube sites with seemingly nothing being done by the sites themselves to do anything about it. One case I read of was a rape video, of an underage girl (so child abuse), being uploaded again and again no matter how many takedown notices were sent, and even the girl (now a woman) herself contacting site owners directly had no effect. They could have done verified uploaders only, they could have done video checksums to auto-ban any attempt to reupload a removed video. But that would have got in the way of profits so nothing was done. Not to mention the horrific piracy levels of legitimage content from pay sites, including WAM producers, being ripped off.

Eventually the tide of horror started to affect the reputations of the companies providing billing services for those sites, and this is the result - Mastercard and Visa pulled the plug on PH, and then started investigating the adult industry in general. And of course the Christian fundamentalists and other anti-porn prudes who'd like to outlaw the sex industry entirely, got on board to really push the agenda.

But the blame for all of this lies squarely with the big tube sites that knowingly hosted completely illegal content, and profited from it, and did nothing meaningful or effective to stop it. And it's the smaller, much more responsible sites like UMD, that have always operated strict and effective moderation policies that suffer. It sucks. But for once, politicians aren't directly to blame.

Thanks for the update - not an easy path to tread, but I totally get the need to balance between liberty and abuse, even if the required methods seem a bit blunt in places. I will certainly stick with this site as I have always sensed that it's looked after by people who care. Unlike certain other omnipotent mainstream ones that allow so much hate crime without the threat of the transaction platforms pulling the plug on them!

It's like George Carlin once said. If you want to fix the drug problem don't kill the dealers. They are happy to do it themselves. When one of those white collar bankers gets in trouble for laundering the money, that is when the issue will stop.

FJB

Has nothing to do with it, really. Let's not waste energy on that.

Messmaster

Yeah, While I'm not all that fond of Justin Bieber, James Blunt, Jeb Bush, or Jim Bakker...

I'm all for John Belushi, Jim Belushi, Jack Black, Jon Bernthal, Josh Brolin, James Brolin, Jason Bateman, Justine Bateman, Jessica Biel, Johnathan Brandis, John Bonham, Johann S. Bach, James L. Brooks, James Brown, Jennifer Beals, Julie Bowen, John Barrowman, Jordana Brewster, Jacqueline Bisset, Jonathan Banks, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jay Baruchel, Jim Broadbent, Julie Benz, Jolene Blalock. John Boyega, Jason Biggs, Jo Brand, Jim Backus, Jack Benny, Jillian Bell, Jim Beaver, Jamie Bamber, Joe Besser, Jason Behr, John Billingsley, & Jim Butcher.

But what about James Bond? And which one?

Thank you Derek.

Moving as quickly as I can on a new photo verification process for the user galleries so you don't need to send in ID (unless explicit). Gotta start enqueuing stuff that used to be done in realtime, like the wall blast and notifying followers and all page updates... and gotta make a process for me to quickly view and approve. I think I can get it done by mid-week and then take off the photo ID restriction. After that I'll add other areas into the approval process. Sorry TMI but just trying to keep yall in the loop.

Oh and again, thanks for everybody who has sent in ID so far. But to everybody else... please stop sending in random pictures of, like, your feet! We need a real state-issued ID LOL

MM

I want to be surprised by this and yet

Gahhh some peoples' kids

NEVER Be sorry for TMI. At least you are getting feet pics.

And we all know, the only thing worse than a politician, is a CEO.

Also, feet!? Come one guys, y'all got wiki feet and well...Twitter for that!

The fact that your so flexible and willing to go through all these hoops for this site is a true labor of love.
Some sites have done "peer review" where other members help with photo checks and what not. Perhaps that is something you could do if you ever feel over extended.
Always appreciate this place!
One suggestion- Can recent pics be modified to only be pics that have been approved? It's a little weird looking at all the blank photos lol

Thanks to Messmaster for sorting the issue in question.
I would think that anybody uploading pics should bear in mind the time of day/night in Philadelphia if they don't like them to be pending for too long.

Thanks for the props. Things are definitely being developed so mods can help if they want to, but that's a ways off. As for the blank pending pics, I put them there to cut down on the confusion. If nothing shows up after people upload stuff, they'll head straight to my inbox. Maybe I need a more explanatory icon.... had to renew my subscription to Photoshop to make the drippy clock, so I can make another one! LOL

So the approval system is in place for gallery photos right now and I'm working out the bugs. After that I'll tackle the user icons... I'm having to require photo ID's on them right now until I get the approval process in place for them. That'll take me a little longer because you don't want the gray placeholder replacing your live icon until the new one is approved, so it'll have to go in a temp spot until we approve and swap them out. Should be done by Friday and then I can take the photo ID requirement off the user icons.


That's assuming I have any type of sleep schedule. Half the time I'm nocturnal, half the time I'm diurnal, and half the time I just take naps sporadically.

Peace,
Messmaster

Wait, shouldn't the new Mastercard rules only apply to the site's payment gateway, i.e. the UMD Store and the users who are selling content there? Why do these new rules have jurisdiction across the entire UMD, including the forums, which is a non-monetized component of the site? What am I missing here?

Because as far as the card associations are concerned, any site that both takes payments and allows user uploaded content is covered in its entirety. Plus when you think about the underlying issue - large tube sites doing nothing effective to stop illegal content, some of which was available "free" - it's the only effective measure. Also of course there's UMD Premium, which gives longer archive access and makes the existing content, including forum uploads, easier to search and navigate. Bear in mind serving free images and video has huge bandwidth costs which have to be paid for, the monetized areas of the site subsidise the rest, so it really is one combined entity, not separate areas.

This is the argument I tried to make.

MM