Adult content giant Pornhub is in turmoil over claims it turned a blind eye to videos of child abuse, rape and revenge porn, leading Mastercard and Visa to cut payments to the site as lawmakers in Canada, where it is based, seek to hold it accountable.
Pressure has been mounting on the company since the publication of an expose by New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof, who said it is profiting from abusive content, and appealed to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-proclaimed women’s advocate, to crack down.
“Why does Canada host a company that inflicts rape videos on the world?” said Kristof, who shared the harrowing stories of women who attempted suicide over videos posted without their consent as teenagers.
Photo: AFP
The Times report brought to a head a controversy already simmering in Canada over such content, where 20 lawmakers last month urged the Canadian minister of justice in an open letter to take swift action against Pornhub and parent company MindGeek.
The growing public backlash has seen more than 2 million people back a petition to shut it down, and led Mastercard to block payments to Pornhub on Thursday.
Visa quickly followed suit, pending a probe into the Times claim that of the 6.8 million new videos posted each year on the site, “many” depict “child abuse and nonconsensual violence,” including scenes of incest and women being asphyxiated in plastic bags.
Because Pornhub users can download videos directly from the site, images of abuse could be endlessly reposted elsewhere on the Internet, the Times said.
Simon Corneau, a professor in the sexology department of the University of Quebec in Montreal, said the decisions by Visa and Mastercard were a “major” blow to Pornhub’s bottom line.
Pornhub pointed to changes it made following the report: banning unverified users from uploading videos to the site, banning free downloads and increasing content moderation.
The credit card firms’ ban was “crushing for the hundreds of thousands of models who rely on our platform for their livelihoods,” it said.
“A great deal depends on how responsibly Pornhub implements these, and it hasn’t earned my trust at all, but these seem significant,” Kristof said.
Based in Canada, but registered in Luxembourg, Pornhub had 42 billion visits last year.
Free to access, it generates revenues through advertising as well as paid subscriptions for premium content.
The company is not new to controversy. Last year, several groups, including Unilever and Kraft Heinz distanced themselves from Pornhub after an article in Britain’s Sunday Times identified videos with sexual content involving children.
Canadian Senator Julie Miville-Dechene, who in September proposed legislation aimed at preventing children from being exposed to pornography, said there was “minimal verification” of video uploads on Pornhub.
“Even if Pornhub takes down a video, it can reappear elsewhere online and spread,” she said.
Miville-Dechene said she would take a wait and see attitude toward Pornhub’s latest measures.
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