Pornhub removes all unverified videos from its platform

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Pornhub has removed all content uploaded by unverified users from its platform – about 80 per cent of its total videos – in the wake of allegations that it hosts child abuse content.  

More than 10 million videos have been removed as part of the Canadian-owned pornography site’s purge, according to figures on its homepage, following allegations it was ‘infested’ with videos of rape and underage sex. 

There were 13.5 million videos on Pornhub on Sunday evening, as noted by Motherboard, but as of Tuesday lunchtime the total stood at just 2.9 million.

Last week, Pornhub banned unverified users from posting new content, following the allegations by the New York Times that it hosted child sexual abuse material.

This week, Pornhub has gone a step further by removing all previously uploaded content that was not created by official content partners or users signed up to its Model Program initiative (who earn ad revenue from their videos). 

Since its launch in 2007, any Pornhub user signed up to the site had been able to upload their own content.  

Pornhub has said in a statement that it has ‘no tolerance’ for content that shows sexual abuse of children and denied it knowingly allows such images. 

‘Any assertion that we allow CSAM [child sexual abuse material] is irresponsible and flagrantly untrue,’ it said. 

Mastercard and Visa halted payments on Pornhub last week following the allegations. 

Pornhub is the 10th most visited website in the world, according to figures from web analytics company SimilarWeb. 

The site is owned by parent company MindGeek, a privately held pornography conglomerate based in Montreal, Canada.

MindGeek also owns other popular adult video portals, including YouPorn and RedTube.

‘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,’ Pornhub said in a blog post dated Monday, December 14.

‘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.’

Some time in 2021, Pornhub will implement a verification process so that ‘any user can upload content upon successful completion of identification protocol’.

Pornhub will also be releasing its first transparency report in 2021, outlining the results of moderation from the previous year.  

Pornhub also said that two groups that have ‘spearheaded the campaign against our company’ – the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (formerly known as Morality in Media) and Exodus Cry/TraffickingHub. 

‘These are organisations dedicated to abolishing pornography, banning material they claim is obscene, and shutting down commercial sex work,’ Pornhub said in the blog post. 

‘These are the same forces that have spent 50 years demonising Playboy, the National Endowment for the Arts, sex education, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, and even the American Library Association.

‘It is clear that Pornhub is being targeted not because of our policies and how we compare to our peers, but because we are an adult content platform.’  

Pornhub did not address in the blog post how these two groups are related to Nicholas Kristof’s report in the New York Times, however.

The column, published on December 4, asserted that among the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year, a majority ‘probably involve consenting adults, but many depict child abuse and non-consensual violence’. 

‘[The] site is infested with rape videos,’ Kristof said in the article.

‘It monetises child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags.’

Kristof’s report highlighted a number of young girls who appeared in videos uploaded to Pornhub without their consent. 

Even after the videos were flagged and removed, downloaded copies continued to circulate, often with severe personal consequences, he said. 

‘Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are,’ Kristof said of the site, which had 42 billion site visits last year. 

‘The issue is not pornography but rape. Let’s agree that promoting assaults on children or on anyone without consent is unconscionable.’ 

Pornhub, the report said, also let users download the videos in question directly from its site, which permits anyone to repost the clips repeatedly and without limit. 

In response on December 8, Pornhub released a statement pledging to take ‘major steps to further protect our community’. 

‘Going forward, we will only allow properly identified users to upload content. We have banned downloads,’ the site said. 

As part of changes implemented last week, videos can’t be downloaded or exported from the site by users, other than through paid downloads, which are triggered through the company’s verified system. 

Pornhub also pledged to increase moderation of content currently on the platform through its newly established ‘Red Team’.

Red Team is being tasked with ‘proactively sweeping content already uploaded for potential violations and identifying any breakdowns in the moderation process’.

Its human moderators manually review ‘every single upload,’ as well as automated detection technologies, Pornhub said.  

Shortly, after the New York Times report was published, billionaire investor Bill Ackman called on Mastercard and Visa to temporarily withhold payments to Pornhub.   

Ackman also suggested it should be made illegal for porn sites to post videos before they are reviewed by a monitor, and until the ages and consent of participants have been validated.

By December 10, Mastercard and Visa had both taken the decision to block their customers from using the credit cards to make purchases on Pornhub, as a result of the New York Times report. 

Mastercard took the decision after its own investigation confirmed violations of standards prohibiting unlawful conduct on the site.  

Mastercard said it also investigating other websites for potential illegal content.

Visa said it was suspending use of its cards on Pornhub even though its own investigation was incomplete.

‘Given the allegations of illegal activity, Visa is suspending Pornhub’s acceptance privileges pending the completion of our ongoing investigation,’ Visa tweeted. 

Pornhub, in a statement, called the actions ‘exceptionally disappointing’.

This news is crushing for the hundreds of thousands of models who rely on our platform for their livelihoods,’ Pornhub said.

Dawn Hawkins, senior vice president and executive director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said her organisation had met with Visa and Mastercard earlier this year to ask them to stop processing payments for Pornhub.

‘We are grateful that both companies will make these significant changes,’ she said. 

Kristof’s column also drew reactions from politicians including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said his government was working with police and security officials to address the issues it raised.

In the US, Senator Josh Hawley said he will introduce legislation to create a federal right to sue for every person ‘coerced or trafficked or exploited by sites like Pornhub’.