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[@ChrisWillx] How Pornhub Became The Internet’s Biggest Crime Scene - Laila Mickelwait

· 6 min read
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@ChrisWillx - "How Pornhub Became The Internet’s Biggest Crime Scene - Laila Mickelwait"

Link: https://youtu.be/f-yM5ejNlz0

Short Summary​

Number One Action Item/Takeaway: Advocate for mandatory age and consent verification policies on all user-generated porn sites, ideally enforced through financial institutions like credit card companies.

Executive Summary: Pornhub has profited immensely by allowing the upload and distribution of non-consensual content, including child sexual abuse material, demonstrating a knowing intentionality to ignore the exploitation occurring on its platform. To prevent future abuse and make the internet safer, mandatory age and consent verification policies, coupled with financial institution pressure, are needed to deter similar behavior from other sites.

Key Quotes​

Here are five direct quotes extracted from the provided YouTube video transcript that represent particularly valuable insights, interesting data points, surprising statements, or strong opinions:

  1. "Pornhub is not a porn site. It's a crime scene." - This is a very strong and attention-grabbing statement that immediately sets the tone for the discussion.

  2. "One victim said, 'My abuser put me in a mental prison, but Pornhub gave me a life sentence.'" - This quote powerfully illustrates the long-term psychological damage and trauma inflicted upon victims whose abuse videos are circulated online.

  3. "And the reason why Trafficking Hub is what came to my mind is because anytime you monetize a an act, a sex act that involves a minor, so anyone under the age of 18 who's involved in a commercial sex act, or anybody that has been induced into a sex act by force, fraud, or coercion, so this is non-consensual, uh, is a victim of trafficking when it's monetized." - This quote clearly defines the legal and moral justification for labelling Pornhub as a "trafficking hub."

  4. "So, the Communications Decency Act that essentially created a loophole for sites that uh allow users, right, to upload things. And so, they say that they're not responsible for things that other people uploaded. Basically, they consider themselves to be like a neutral party. They're, you know, they're just the telephone. They're the wires of the telephone and they're not responsible for what people are saying. Um, that's not the case with Pornhub. So ah so Pornhub has actually tried to argue section 230." - This statement highlights a legal loophole that Pornhub attempted to use to evade legal responsibility and how the company was ultimately unsuccessful in doing so, due to active creation and curation.

  5. "I get messages all the time from especially men who say, 'I was addicted to the free porn tube sites when I was even, you know, even 6 years old, 8, 10, and they've been addicted ever since.'" - This testimonial speaks to the long-term consequences of early exposure to pornography, highlighting the risk of addiction and its potential impact on shaping individuals' understanding of sex.

Detailed Summary​

Here's a detailed summary of the YouTube video transcript in bullet points, excluding advertisements:

Key Topics:

  • The exploitative nature of Pornhub's user-generated content model.
  • The prevalence of illegal and non-consensual content on Pornhub.
  • The lack of verification for age and consent on Pornhub.
  • The speaker's journey in discovering and combating the issues on Pornhub.
  • The history and structure of Pornhub and its parent company, MindGeek (now Alo).
  • The legal and financial battles against Pornhub.
  • The importance of deterrence in preventing future online exploitation.
  • The potential for age and consent verification to address the problem.
  • The debate around restricting access to porn for underage users.
  • The emerging issues of AI-generated porn and its potential for harm.

Arguments and Information:

  • Pornhub is described as a "crime scene" due to the large amount of child abuse, rape, and non-consensual content hosted on the platform.
  • Anyone could upload content to Pornhub with just an email address, leading to rampant abuse.
  • Pornhub had millions of videos and billions of visitors, making it a major platform for the distribution of illegal material.
  • The speaker's investigation began after learning about a 15-year-old girl who was found being raped and trafficked in Pornhub videos.
  • The "Trafficking Hub" movement was started to expose Pornhub's role in enabling trafficking and exploitation.
  • MindGeek, the parent company, acquired numerous porn sites, creating a massive online pornography empire.
  • The business has a history of rebranding after scandals and legal trouble
  • Pornhub profited from the illegal content through advertising, selling billions of ad impressions daily.
  • Credit card companies were identified as the "Achilles heel" of Pornhub, as cutting off their services would significantly impact the company's profitability.
  • Pornhub's moderation system was inadequate, with a small team responsible for reviewing millions of videos and moderators incentized to review content quickly regardless of the content.
  • Age and consent are two major issues, with no real way for moderators to discern whether individuals are underage or consenting.
  • A 12-year-old boy was drugged and raped, and the videos were uploaded to Pornhub. Despite police requests, Pornhub did not remove the content for seven months.
  • The speaker highlights the devastating impact on victims, some of whom experience suicidal thoughts and long-term trauma.
  • Pornhub executives intentionally made policy decisions to enable abuse and ignored reports of illegal content.
  • Email exchanges and internal documents show the intentionality of the leadership to knowingly enable illegal content
  • Civil litigation has uncovered damaging internal communications and policies that demonstrate Pornhub's complicity.
  • The court accidentally released thousands of pages of emails, communications, and messages.
  • Pornhub has lost legal protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act because they were creating, curating, and recommending content, so were not considered a neutral platform.
  • The former owner of Pornhub provided information and the secret majority shareholder.
  • Bill Ackman helped convince credit card companies to cut ties with Pornhub.
  • Visa lost a motion to dismiss in a lawsuit.
  • Porn performers assisted and shared internal knowledge and struggled to protect their own content on the site.
  • They've engaged in dirty tricks such as online smear campaigns and doxing.
  • In response to legal pressure, Pornhub has deleted a significant portion of its content, including over 50 million images and videos and is required to take down more content in the future.
  • Credit card companies could set up anti-online exploitation policies.
  • AI porn is a new concern with potential dangers.
  • AI tools exist to help prevent minors from using their phones to upload nude images.
  • Countries have differing laws around depicting children in pornography even when they are of legal age.
  • Aura, a security app, analyzes users phones and reports it to parents.
  • Thorne surveyed children and found that one in seven 9 to 12 year olds had shared nude photos of themselves.
  • User-generated content subscription websites like OnlyFans have also been found to host harmful content.
  • Age verification tools can verify government ID and verify liveliness to ensure the person being photographed is real time.