Two senators are teaming up to crack down on sexually exploitative content on pornography sites.
On Friday, Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse and Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley announced the Stop Internet Sexual Exploitation Act, a piece of legislation that requires pornography sites to verify the identities of those who upload content and consent forms from every person participating in a pornographic video.
“Human dignity matters. A decent society has an obligation to fight sexual exploitation and human trafficking,” Sasse wrote in a statement. “For years, Pornhub and its parent company Mindgeek monetized rape, abuse, and child exploitation. While these suit-wearing traffickers got rich, their victims have lived with the pain and fear. That has to end now. Our bill is aimed squarely at the monsters who profit from rape. Washington ought to be able to come together to combat human trafficking and make this right.”
“The posting of intimate photos and videos without participants’ consent is a massive invasion of privacy that drives shame, humiliation, and potentially suicide,” Merkley said in a statement. “While some online platforms have recently announced steps to change some practices, much more needs to be done. We must ensure that not another single life of a child, man, or woman is destroyed by these sites.”
The bill also creates “a private right of action against an uploader who posts a pornographic image without the consent of an individual in the image,” according to the announcement, and it directs the Federal Trade Commission to enforce any violations. The Justice Department would also be required to “create a database of individuals who have indicated that they do not consent to the posting of videos in which they appear.”
The announcement continued: “Platforms would then be required to check the database before new content could be uploaded, and any failure to do so would result in a civil penalty to the platform, with proceeds going toward services for victims.”
Pornhub removed millions of videos from the pornography platform after a bombshell column in the New York Times accused the site of monetizing videos depicting rape and sexual assault.
Last week, Visa and Mastercard announced they would terminate their business relationships with the site after the allegations emerged, both forewarning that they would do so after conducting their own investigations. Now, the site said it’s taking steps to prevent illegal material from appearing on the platform.
“As part of our policy to ban unverified uploaders, we have now also suspended all previously uploaded content that was not created by content partners or members of the Model Program,” the pornography site wrote in an announcement. “This means every piece of Pornhub content is from verified uploaders, a requirement that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter have yet to institute.”
In the announcement, Pornhub acknowledged that the independent, third-party Internet Watch Foundation “reported 118 incidents” of child sexual abuse material on its site, but it asserted that it is being targeted because it is an “adult content platform.”
Pornhub contained approximately 13.5 million videos on its site, but the number dropped to 4.7 million as of 9 a.m. on Monday, according to Motherboard. The number briefly rose to 7.2 million, so it remains unclear how many videos were removed in the process.
Flagged videos on the site display a message that tells users that the video is “flagged for verification in accordance with our trust and safety policy.”
