Following journalistic investigation, Pornhub removes millions of videos of sexual abuse, child pornography and revenge

Pornhub.com, one of the most visited porn portals in the world, removed between Sunday and today, Tuesday, millions of videos after announcing drastic changes in its usage policies after that an investigative report in The New York Times revealed the availability of content that captures violations, child sexual abuse, child pornography, videos captured without consent and revenge pornography.

As indicated the Motherboard portal from Vice.com, Pornhub had, last Sunday afternoon, 13.5 million videos, most posted by unverified users. However, as of 5:00 pm today, Tuesday, the portal reported 2.9 million videos available, almost all other verified companies. This represents a reduction of almost 76 percent of the material or more than two-thirds of its content.

Pornhub, which is part of the empire of MindGeek, an umbrella company based in Luxembourg (to pay the lowest possible amount of taxes) but which is managed from Montreal, Canada, announces the changes in response to the report from Nicholas Kristof, who found thousands of examples of questionable content and who also interviewed victims of sexual abuse whose videos continue to appear on the portal.

Kristof’s article sparked vigorous reactions from both politicians in Canada and the United States as groups fighting the abuse and sexual exploitation of women and children. Following Kristof’s revelations, Visa and Mastercard announced last week that they would no longer process subscription or model payments; PayPal also stopped processing payments for Pornhub in 2019.

Since its founding in 2007 until last Sunday, Pornhub has received monetary compensation for videos of sexual abuse and exploitation posted by its users. According to the SEMrush.com portal, Pornhub was the seventh most visited portal in the United States in October with 1.4 billion views; the SimilarWeb service reported over 3 billion visits in six months.

Between ad impressions, subscriptions, and deals with other porn-producing houses, Pornhub generates revenue of more than $ 300 million annually.

The portal, according to two entries of block, removed the ability to download videos, suspended content posted by users of unverified accounts in which their content is “reviewed,” and pledged to increase the number of moderators who verified the content of videos before to be released on the portal.

In addition, they will use Google and Microsoft technology that will automatically remove known images of child pornography and child abuse., as well as the Vobile platform that analyzes the content of a video for similarities to unauthorized material and prevent it from being republished.

At this time, only verified users and companies can post videos to the portal. Pornhub will also implement an alert system by which over 40 nonprofit organizations could warn about content that could violate usage policies. An alliance was also revealed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (Ncmec) to authorize reports, and a transparency report detailing their international moderation efforts will be published in 2021.

The legislatures of the United States and Canada are taking action

The New York Times reported last Thursday that U.S. Senators Josh Hawley, Maggie Hassan, Joni Ernst and Thom Tillis introduced bipartisan legislation that would make it easier for rape victims to require porn companies to profit from sexually abusive videos.

For his part, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently said he continued to work with law enforcement agencies and order to eliminate sexual abuse and exploitation, though without specifically mentioning the Pornhub case.

At the same time, several MPs and senators are asking Justice Minister David Lametti to take action against Pornhub and MindGeek, whose founders, Feras Antoon, David Tassillo and Fabian Thylmann, are Canadians. According to deputies, Trudeau ignored a letter sent in March denouncing the practices of Pornhub and MindGeek.

Trudeau finally announced today that his administration would present a similar bill to the U.S. Senate and would force companies to remove illegal content.