Progress in our joint global campaign but still a long way to go to bring Pornhub to justice
After a year-long international campaign and in the wake of Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Nick Kristof’s piece published in the New York Times exposing Pornhub’s facilitating and monetising videos of child rape, the campaign to shut down Pornhub has seen significant progress:
- Pornhub has announced it has removed the download button and will only allow uploads from verified users, and has reportedly removed 10.6 million videos not uploaded by verified users.
- Both Mastercard and Visa have since blocked the use of their cards on the website.
- Canadian MPs (where Pornhub/Mindgeek’s primary headquarters is located) have called for executives at Pornhub to stand before parliament where they will ask them if they intend to make reparations.
Earlier this year, Collective Shout was a signatory on an international letter calling on Mastercard to stop processing payments for the pornography industry "given its extensive promotion of nonconsensual content—including child sexual abuse, sex trafficking videos, rape, and more—and of content eroticising sexual violence, incest, and racism", citing child rape videos and sex trafficking on Pornhub.
These are all important steps forward, but there is still a long way to go in the fight against Pornhub.
Pornhub just announced huge changes: a.) allow uploads only from verified users; b.) no downloads; c.) improvements in moderation. Initial take: A great deal depends on how responsibly Pornhub implements these, and it hasn't earned my trust at all, but these seem significant.
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) December 8, 2020
Pornhub’s changes today are too little too late. They have knowingly destroyed lives for profit for too many years. Justice for victims means prosecution to the full extent of the law. Pornhub should be shut down, the CEO/COO put in prison and restitution given to all victims.
— Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) December 9, 2020
The only reason Pornhub has made any changes is because of the fearless campaigning efforts of @LailaMickelwait @ExodusCry @ncose @CollectiveShout and others who called them out. Without these voices, Pornhub would have continued monetising child rape videos. Don’t forget this. https://t.co/Ny50EJbURl
— Caitlin Roper (@caitlin_roper) December 14, 2020
Pornhub cannot be trusted: it has profited for years from rape, child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking, and revenge pornography.
— National Center on Sexual Exploitation (@ncose) December 9, 2020
The @nytimes exposed Pornhub for what it is: a profiteer of rape.#ShutItDownhttps://t.co/YqWXrATgbi
Movement Director Melinda Tankard Reist spoke to Eternity News about the latest developments in the campaign.
“Pornhub is a crime scene,” she said. “The New York Times report put a giant spotlight on this criminal enterprise that has been causing so much devastation. It should be called Rapehub.”
“For some time, we’ve been exposing the rape videos, the videos of child sexual abuse, the videos that aid trafficking, the videos that are not consensual, that all appear on Pornhub. Child survivors of abuse, who have been exploited on this platform, have fought for a long time to have footage of their abuse taken down. But they have been ignored. Until now.”
Tankard Reist says the pressure is building for Pornhub to be shut down completely.
“This is not a site that can be made ‘better’. It can’t be ‘fixed’ The content that we’re talking about is not an aberration. It’s not a glitch or a bug. Child sexual abuse is a feature of what Pornhub offers to millions of consumers around the world. And companies like Visa and Mastercard have profited from that abuse.
“We will continue to chip away. The announcements from Visa and Mastercard is a big ‘chip’.”
In a Facebook post, Gail Dines, Founder and Director of Culture Reframed and author of Pornland: How Porn is Hijacking our Sexuality Gail Dines pointed out that despite Pornhub's claim to have removed all video content from unverified users, the "teen" porn category remained, alongside incest-themed porn, choking, suffocation, hanging and other videos depicting the sexualised abuse and torture of women. Simply removing videos from unverified users doesn't mitigate Pornhub profiting from sexualising the abuse of women and inciting violence against them.
149,840: The number of videos on Pornhub labeled as "teen"
— ECPAT-USA (@ecpatusa) December 14, 2020
71,608: The number of videos on Pornhub related to incest
2,462: The number of videos on Pornhub related to torture
A blog post on Pornhub's website indicates these changes are not evidence of taking responsibility or acting ethically. The post names NCOSE and Exodus Cry, blaming the #Traffickinghub campaign for compelling them to take these actions and claiming, “It is clear we are being targeted not because of our policies and how we compare to our peers, but because we are an adult-content platform.” An adult-content platform that hosted videos of toddlers being raped, women being abused and tortured.
Stay tuned for more updates on the #Traffickinghub campaign.
See also:
'The Children of Pornhub: Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?' – New York Times
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