Executive "mega-pimps" must be held accountable for facilitating sex trafficking
A petition has been launched by Laila Mickelwait, Director for Abolition, Exodus Cry.
**Click here to sign the petition**
The petition reads:
Shut Down Pornhub and Hold Its Executives Accountable for Aiding Trafficking
In the last few months, there have been several shocking cases of sex trafficking and child rape films that were hosted on Pornhub. A 15-year-old girl who had been missing for a year was finally found after her mother was tipped off that her daughter was being featured in videos on the site — 58 such videos of her rape and sexual abuse were discovered on Pornhub.
Her trafficker, who was seen in the videos raping the child, was identified using surveillance footage of him at a 7-Eleven where he was spotted with his victim. He is now facing a felony charge.
Also in recent news was the case of 22 women who were deceived and coerced by Michael Pratt, owner of GirlsDoPorn, into performing sex acts on film that were subsequently uploaded to Pornhub. These women sued GirlsDoPorn and won a $12.7 million lawsuit against the company. According to a federal indictment, Pratt and his co-conspirators produced filmed child rape and sexual abuse content and trafficked a minor. Pratt reportedly fled the United States for New Zealand and is currently wanted on a federal warrant.
But there are other individuals complicit in these crimes who should also be wanted by law enforcement — CEO Ferris Antoon and COO David Tassillo of Mindgeek, the Canadian-based company that owns Pornhub.
You see, Pornhub is complicit in the trafficking of these women and minors and probably thousands more like them.
Pornhub is generating millions in advertising and membership revenue with 42 billion visits and 6 million videos uploaded per year. Yet it intentionally, and as a policy, has no system in place to verify reliably the age or consent of those featured in the pornographic content it hosts and profits from.
In fact, all that is needed to upload pornography onto Pornhub is an email address. No government-issued ID is required, not even to become “verified” with its trusty blue checkmark that makes everything seem a-OK.
I know this, because I tried it.
It took me under 10 minutes to create a user account and upload blank test content to the site, which went live instantly. I could have then gone on to become Pornhub-verified, and all I would need to do is send a photo of myself holding a paper with my username. That’s it.
It is no surprise that Pornhub admitted to verifying the trafficked 15-year-old girl who was sexually abused in 58 videos on its site. The official Twitter account for Pornhub wrote in response to the breaking story that the 15-year-old girl had been a verified member. After quickly realizing it had just admitted to assisting in her being trafficked, the account deleted the tweets, but the evidence of the admission was cached and still exists.
One of the most-searched terms on Pornhub is “teen” pornography, in fact it has been a top ten search term on the site for six consecutive years. The search will result in videos that are constantly being added faster than any individual could watch them. Many feature girls who look 13 years old at best — girls with braces, pigtails, flat chests, no makeup, extremely young faces, holding teddy bears and licking lollipops, all while being aggressively penetrated. A quick search for the word “teen” turns up titles such as “Young Girl Tricked,” “Innocent Brace Faced Tiny Teen F---ed,” “Tiny Petite Thai Teen,” “Teen Little Girl First Time,” on and on ad infinitum.
Pornhub intentionally and as a policy, has no reliable system in place to verify that those in the videos it hosts are not trafficked children being raped on film in order to line the pockets of its executives.
What all of this means is that at this very moment, there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of videos of underage sex trafficking victims on Pornhub. We already have evidence, and it is just the tip of the iceberg.
It’s time to shut down super-predator site Pornhub and hold the executive megapimps behind it accountable.
Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) is the director of abolition for Exodus Cry, as well as founder and president of New Reality International.
***Click here to sign the petition***
See also:
Making porn fashionable: New York Fashion Week Pornhub partnership a slap in the face for women
FLORIDA MAN ARRESTED AFTER 58 PORN VIDEOS, PHOTOS LINK HIM TO MISSING UNDERAGE TEEN GIRL
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