In 2020, big things happened in online. When the pandemic hit, the influx to subscription site Onlyfans became huge and in December Pornhub, the internet's eleventh most visited site, took down 80 percent of all its material after the New York Times revealed that both rape videos and films featuring minors were on the site.
"actors worst affected"
In the documentary "The money shot", documentary creator Suzanner Hillinger depicts what happened to the actors who voluntarily posted their material on the site after the payment card giants, as a result of the scandal, stopped paid subscriptions on Pornhub.
"I felt like that side of the story hadn't been told yet," she says.
Last summer, a US court ruled that a woman who, when she was a teenager, received videos of sexual content spread on Pornhub has the right to sue Visa, which has not collaborated with Pornhub's then-parent company Mindgeek since December 2020.
"Don't stop abuse"
But Suzanne Hillinger doesn't think this has helped people who have been abused to have abuse spread online.
"There's a bill now that aims to hold sites accountable for images of child abuse – I think that's great. What happened to Pornhub and the card companies has in no way stopped child abuse material or abuse.
Sees up to 700 videos per day
In mid-March this year, Pornhub's parent company Mindgeek was bought by the limited company Ethical capital partners. Suzanne Hillinger hopes they will spend more time moderating the large number of videos uploaded. A moderator who participates anonymously in the documentary says he reviewed up to 700 videos per day — making it easy to miss illegal videos.
"One thing moderators have told us is that it's not possible to 'flag' users who have uploaded material that is not consenting – why can't you just block that type of user?," she says.