Women sue Pornhub for MindGeek's porn

NewsOn6.com, June 23, 2021; Seth Auberon, Crystal Q., Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Pornhub and parent company sued by 34 women over trafficking videos (businessinsider.com)

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Kraft Heinz’s Devour ad on Pornhub (WSJ)

In a new lawsuit, more than 30 women accuse Pornhub of profiting from videos posted without their consent.

"Isabella" says she was in high school and only 17 when her boyfriend coerced her into making a nude [sex] video.

She says she forgot about it until she was in college and received a text from a close friend: "I didn't know you did porn." She learned a link to that video had been anonymously posted on Pornhub without her knowledge or consent. 

"Immediately, I knew it was me. I mean, my face, my outfit — immediately," she said. "My heart dropped into my stomach."

I'm gonna be rich! Wait, Pornhub doesn't pay?! I'm underage! I don't consent to filming!

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MindGeek.com on Wikipedia

Isabella, who is using a pseudonym to protect her identity, says Pornhub did not try to contact her to confirm her age or to ask whether the video had been consensual. 

CBS News spoke with four of the 34 women, including Isabella, who have joined a lawsuit against MindGeek, the company behind Pornhub and dozens of the world's most popular pornography websites.

The civil suit, filed Thursday, accuses the company of running a "criminal enterprise." Pornhub markets itself as a mainstream site for adult content and says it yields 130 million users each day — more than Netflix or Amazon.

Take it down, Pornhub! I didn't consent.

But the women suing the company have accused it of exploiting them for profit, hosting and promoting graphic videos of rape, revenge porn, and even videos that depict child sexual abuse.

Isabella said more than 200,000 people ultimately watched the video — "including everybody at my college, pretty much," she said. 

"The view count on the video will forever haunt my dreams," she said. "Just knowing that that many people saw it really messed me up."

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Pornhub sees big spike (adweek.com)

After learning how many people had seen her video on Pornhub, she said she battled with a sense of shame and worthlessness and had to transfer schools.

She couldn't look in a mirror for six months and drew into isolation, she said, fearful that people at her new school would recognize her. 

And she struggled with the feeling that she'd brought this on herself. "It's taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I am a victim of something," she said.

The lawsuit alleges that Pornhub's business model is built around funneling online traffic to videos like Isabella's. The lawsuit states:

"This case is not about porn. It's about rape."

Wait, just one more video then it'll be enough.

MindGeek owns and operates more than 100 pornographic websites, and its brands include Pornhub, RedTube, YouPorn, and Xtube.

MindGeek also owns porn production companies that create content, but for years, a majority of the content on Pornhub was uploaded by un-verified users.

MindGeek operates some paid-subscription sites, but Pornhub is free for anyone to access and earns money through advertising revenue and optional, premium subscriptions. More

• Former Pornhub moderators describe lax rules while being ordered to watch up to 1,200 porn videos per day: "Our job was to find weird excuses to keep videos on our sites"