Accused of harboring child pornography, Pornhub in turmoil

A porn actress at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas in January 2018 -

Dropped by Mastercard and Visa, criticized in Canada where it is based ... Pornhub, one of the most popular porn sites on the planet, finds itself in turmoil.

The platform is accused of hosting child pornography and rape videos.

At the origin of this new scandal, the publication of an article in the

affirming that the site offered illegal content, and questioning the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

"Why is Canada hosting a company that distributes rape videos to the world?

», Asked its author, Nicholas Kristof.

Among the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year, "many show child abuse and unwanted violence," according to the American daily.

"No tolerance" for content showing child sexual abuse

The first repercussions did not take long: Mastercard and Visa announced Thursday that their credit cards could no longer be used immediately to make payments on Pornhub.

“It's still a major decision,” explains Simon Corneau, professor in the department of sexology at the University of Quebec in Montreal, referring to potential “loss of income” for the porn site.

"People might also choose not to check out Pornhub to send a message."

Even if it is a mainly free site, "it is sure that it hurts Pornhub", estimates Julie Miville-Dechêne, independent senator of Quebec who tabled in September a bill aiming to protect the young people against exposure to pornography.

Pornhub, based physically in Montreal and fiscally in Luxembourg, has refuted the

accusations

 The group ensures in particular that it has "no tolerance" for content showing child sexual abuse and says it has developed tools to "identify and eradicate" this kind of videos.

Pornhub claims to have a lot less on its site than traditional social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

A series of measures to fight against illegal content

The announcement of the two financial giants Mastercard and Visa comes after the pornographic site announced a series of measures to fight against illegal content.

From now on, only “correctly identified” users will be able to post content and video downloads will be reserved for paid users.

“We'll see,” comments Julie Miville-Dechêne, who points out that the number of videos deleted by the site is unknown.

"The difficulty is that until now there has been no transparency in this company, so it would take a little more to be confident."

“Uploading videos is done with pretty minimal verification,” she says.

“Even if Pornhub makes a video disappear, it can reappear in the second, it is redistributed everywhere else”.

Pointed out for several years

Twenty Canadian parliamentarians sent an open letter to the Minister of Justice at the end of November asking the government to take "swift" action against Pornhub and its parent company, MindGeek, based in Montreal.

“Over the past two years, MindGeek has drawn attention to her internationally due to the actual exploitation of women and minors,” they pointed out.

The regulation of illegal content by Pornhub, which recorded 42 billion visits in 2019, has been singled out for several years.

In 2019, several large groups, including Unilever and Kraft Heinz, had already distanced themselves from the site after an article in the British newspaper

which explained that they had found illegal content on the platform, including child pornography videos.

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• By the Web

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