Pornhub has finally agreed to verify the age and consent of the people posted in all of their new videos.
Traffickinghub, founded in 2020, has campaigned relentlessly against the site on behalf of survivors of trafficking and exploitation.
The organization says the move is not nearly enough to protect minors. "Because this change takes place from today - going forward," Traffickinghub founder Laila Mickelwait said in a recent social media post. "It isn't being enacted retroactively. Meaning, all the videos uploaded to the site previously that were not verified for age and consent, are remaining on the site."
"What needs to happen is all the videos have to be removed," Mickelwait added. "Only videos that are verified to make sure that there are not underage victims in those videos, and verified to make sure there are not rape or trafficking victims or revenge-porn victims - or victims of any form of nonconsensual image-based abuse."
HUGE BREAKTHROUGH:
— Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) January 23, 2024
Today something is happening that we have been demanding for the last 4 years.
P*rnhub has finally been forced to begin verifying the age and consent of all individuals in all new sex videos uploaded to the site.
But we’re not done yet!#Traffickinghub pic.twitter.com/9T9TrduPXv
"But even if they did all of this - it's too little and it's too late," Mickelwait said. "Because they have spent 17 years globally distributing ,profiting from and shattering the lives of countless victims across the world."
Along with several survivors, Traffickinghub has sued Pornhub and its parent company, MindGeek, for their role in facilitating human trafficking, and the details of these cases are beyond horrific.
One case involves a 12-year-old victim of sex trafficking and his mother suing the companies due to the profound trauma that the boy experienced after Pornhub hosted videos of his abuse.
One exhibit in the lawsuit, seeking to show that the site does nothing to initially verify content posted and often waits until the intervention of legal services to take down illicit content, shows an error message on a now-unavailable video, stating that the video has been removed at the request of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Despite the video itself not being there, its title and tags appear to indicate that it falls under the genre of “hurtcore,” hardcore abuse performed on an unwilling, usually underage, participant.
Related: PornHub Deletes Millions Of Videos After Credit Cards Cut Ties
Though the fact that Pornhub has finally decided to do the bare minimum to protect victims is a step in the right direction, I tend to agree with the words of Mickelwait: “we’re not done yet” in taking down the evil empire of internet-facilitated sexual abuse, and for that goal to be achieved, Pornhub and other such sites must be shut down.
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This is textbook gaslighting by the media.https://t.co/OzB1IsnFGh
— MRCTV (@mrctv) January 25, 2024