UPDATE: Anti-human trafficking organization responds to Pornhub's claims
(KUTV) — (UPDATE 3/16/20 8:24 p.m.) -- Laila Mickelwait, Director of Abolition for Exodus Cry -- an organization that says it helps victims of human trafficking -- issued this response to Pornhub's statement (which you can read below this statement), saying the pornography company is leveling "false accusations" against her.
Mickelwait's statement reads (WARNING: statement contains adult language and subject matter):
In recent days, after being confronted by hundreds of thousands of people around the globe regarding Pornhub/MindGeek’s complicity in the mass sex trafficking and exploitation of women and girls, the company has sought to gaslight and deflect from the crimes they have committed by making false accusations against those who initiated the petition against them which includes a large coalition of over 75 of the world’s leading child protection and anti-trafficking organizations.
The accusations that the Pornhub/MindGeek executives are making in retaliation for exposing them to the global public are factually and categorically false and an obvious and nefarious attempt to distract from the evidence that this company is enabling and profiting from the worst kinds of sexual abuse—including sex trafficking, rape, and the exploitation of women and children—and that they must be held accountable for their actions.
Pornhub however is clearly profiting off of, enabling and promoting the worst kind of racism, hatred, abuse and exploitation of minorities, children, women and the LGBT community, especially youth. Take for example a small sample of recent titles on their site,"Daddy Came Home Frustrated and Abused a Boy to Crying", "Schoolboy Takes A Huge Black C**k", "Black Dude Used As A Boy Toy Gets His B***hole G*ped by 3 Big Raw Thugs", "Daddy F**ed Young Teen Boy Virgin First Time". Then remember, that as a matter of fact and as a practice, Pornhub does not check the age or consent of the millions of people in the videos it cashes in on-- and that is why it is infested with videos of real rape and sex trafficking.
(UPDATE 3:59 p.m.) -- Pornhub responded to 2News' request for a statement.
A Pornhub spokesperson provided the following:
The petition is not only factually wrong and intentionally misleading, it was created and is promoted by a radical right-wing fundamentalist group in the United States—a group who’s founders have long vilified and attacked LGBTQ communities and women’s rights groups, aligned themselves with hate groups, and espoused extremist and despicable language.
Pornhub has a steadfast commitment to eradicating and fighting any and all illegal content on the internet, including non-consensual content and under-age material. Any suggestion otherwise is categorically and factually inaccurate. Pornhub has actively worked to put in place state-of-the-art, comprehensive safeguards across its platform to combat and remove all unauthorized content that breaches the platform's policies. This includes a robust system for flagging, reviewing and removing all illegal material, age-verification tools, and employing an extensive team of human moderators dedicated to manually reviewing all uploads to the site.
Furthermore, the platform utilizes a variety of digital fingerprinting solutions. These include but are not limited to CSAI Match, YouTube’s proprietary technology for combating Child Sexual Abuse Imagery content online; Microsoft's PhotoDNA, a technology that aids in finding and removing known images of child exploitation; and Vobile, a state-of-the-art fingerprinting software that scans any new uploads for potential matches to unauthorized materials to protect against any banned video being re-uploaded to the platform.
Original story from March 7 below.
(KUTV) -- A petition circulating online wants to shut down the pornography website Pornhub over alleged violations of aiding both adult and child sex trafficking.
So far, the petition titled "Shut Down Pornhub and Hold Its Executives Accountable for Aiding Trafficking" has more than 380,000 signatures of its half-million goal.
The Change.org petition cites the recent case of 58 videos discovered of the rape a missing 15-year-old girl on Pornhub. The girl says she was forced to get an abortion during her time away from her family. That case led to the arrest of Florida man Christopher Johnson.
The petition also cites another case, stating:
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.
We've embedded that federal indictment below:
The petition cites how easy it is to upload pornography to Pornhub:
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.
Also cited by the petition as a reason to shut down Pornhub is its acceptance and promotion of "teen" pornography [WARNING: descriptions contained below are graphic]:
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 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 executives behind it accountable.
The petition is supported by Traffickinghub.com, a site devoted to shutting down Pornhub.
2News reached out to both Pornhub and Traffickinghub.com but did not immediately hear back.
If successful, the petition would be delivered to the following:
- U.S. Department of Justice
- U.S. State Department
- FBI
- President Trump
- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
- Quebec Minister of Justice Sonia LeBel
- Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R - NJ)
- Rep. Ann Wagner (R - MO)
- Sen. Marco Rubio (R - FL)
- Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D - NH)
- Sen. Josh Hawley (R - MO)
- Rep. Carolyn Maloney (R - NY)
- David Lametti
- Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General David Lametti
- Sen. Rob Portman (R - OH)
- Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel
