Don’t be fooled by Pornhub’s latest publicity stunt.
The company’s vice president announced in a thinly veiled PR pitch this week that Pornhub would donate 50,000 surgical masks to health professionals and first responders in New York, and — get this! — make its premium content free for all users amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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That “premium content” just so happens to include videos documenting the rape and sexual exploitation of minors. Just a few months ago, a missing 15-year-old girl was restored to her family after investigators tracked down her sex trafficker using the 58 videos he had uploaded to Pornhub.
Pornhub also gave a platform to Michael Pratt, the federally indicted owner of GirlsDoPorn, who coerced and manipulated dozens of women into sending him sexually explicit content. This is a man who fled the United States after being charged with producing child pornography and trafficking minors.
One young woman, Rose, has spoken out against Pornhub for allowing her rapists to upload videos titled “passed out teen” and “teen crying and getting slapped around” and refusing to take them down. She was only 14 years old.
These are just a few examples that prove Pornhub is complicit in and maybe even responsible for sexual abuse, rape, and trafficking. The website is a well-known magnet for sex traffickers and abusers because the website has no age or ID verification requirement to upload a pornographic video. And it routinely fails to verify the consent of “performers,” many of whom are victims. This is not liberation. It’s sexual exploitation.
The people who hosted rape and child exploitation videos and shut out victims are now exploiting the pandemic crisis to clean up their public image. They are now claiming that, by making this content free, they are making a contribution to society. Don’t let them get away with it. Before you go to watch this smut, know that it might have been obtained through fraud or violence against an underaged girl. We have cases already where we know it was.
Moreover, what are we to make of this surgical mask donation? The nation is currently suffering a shortage of masks. It isn’t a question of lacking the $30,000 or $40,000 it might cost to buy such a number, but of lacking the masks themselves. Unless Pornhub has been hoarding them in a warehouse somewhere, how is it they are donating 50,000 of them? Pornhub did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
But never mind that. At best, this is nothing more than a distraction. This is a company that reduces women to search terms and sells images of their bodies for profit. No amount of community service could undo the damage Pornhub has wrought, and its executives’ latest deception should not be accepted or tolerated.
(Update: A member of Porhnub’s communications team said the masks the company reportedly donated to New York’s hospitals originated from a medical supply sourcing company based in the city).
