Help Shut Down Pornhub with 3 Easy Actions

The New York Times recently published an article that exposes the child sexual abuse videos that Pornhub profits from everyday. We applaud Nicholas Kristof and the New York Times for boldly printing the truth and sharing the victims’ stories.

“[Pornhub] is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags."

-Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times

The case to Shut Down Pornhub

Pornhub allows users to upload videos with minimal moderation. And because they allow users to also download videos, even posts that are removed are likely to resurface from another user who downloaded it beforehand.

Kristof reports that Pornhub “attracts 3.5 billion visits a month, more than Netflix, Yahoo or Amazon. [It] rakes in money from almost three billion ad impressions a day.”

It’s parent company, Mindgeek, is “...a private pornography conglomerate wtih more than 100 websites...If it operated in another industry, the Justice Department could be discussing an antitrust case against it.” 

Can you imagine a company in any other industry who could get away with profiting from racism, sexism, rape, child exploitation and own so much of the market share while the Justice Department just looks the other way? Why does porn get a free pass?

Related: Today’s Porn Industry: 5 Things Every Parent Needs to Know

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These are OUR kids: Why YOU should want to Shut Down Pornhub

Aside from the fact that Pornhub is profiting off this abuse, we are even more concerned for the  damage done to the victims. Nicholas Kristof’s article tells their stories and we encourage you to read them.

Why?

If you have a child around 12 or older, chances are they have heard of Pornhub at school. They might not know what it is (yet), but they have probably heard classmates mention it.

It’s important for you to know how PornHub poses a threat to your own kid. We’ve mentioned before how the porn industry targets kids as viewers, but parents also need to know how their kids can be victimized in videos uploaded to one of the most highly visited sites in the world.

In his article, Kristof shares chilling stories of real-life victims of Pornhub. These examples show how easily this could be your own kid (or a kid you know).

Kristof tells the story about Serena, who at age 14 was an ‘A student’ who had never made out with a boy. She had a crush on an older boy who asked her for a nude video. She made a mistake and sent him one. As he asked for more and more, she was “nervous but flattered.”

That’s when I started getting strange looks in school.

-Serena

That older boy shared the videos with others and they ended up getting posted to Pornhub. 

Related:  Kids at Growing Risk of “Sextortion” Warns Department of Justice

Kristof shares many more stories: 

One about a teen who went missing and her mom “...found her on Pornhub--in 58 sex videos.” 

Another story was about a teen who was sexually assaulted and videos of those sexual assaults were “...posted on Pornhub and were reported to the authorities not by the company but by a classmate who saw the videos.”

Then there’s Cali, who “...was adopted in the United States from China and then trafficked by her adoptive family and forced to appear in pornographic videos beginning when she was 9. Some videos of her being abused ended up on Pornhub and regularly reappear there.”

Pornhub became my trafficker...I’m still getting sold, even though I’m five years out of that life.

-Cali

Taylor tells how her “...boyfriend secretly made a video of her performing a sex act when she was 14, and it ended up on Pornhub.”

I went to school the next day and everybody was looking at their phones and me as I walked down the hall...they were laughing. They [Pornhub] made money off my pain and suffering.

-Taylor

And because Pornhub users can download videos directly from the website, “even if a rape video is removed at the request of the authorities, it may already be too late: The video lives on as it is shared with others or uploaded again and again.”

They’re making money off the worst moment in my life, off my body.

-Colombian Teen

It’s always going to be online...That’s my big fear of having kids, them seeing this. It’s never going to end, they’re getting so much money from our trauma.

-Nicole

When the victims who were interviewed described what happened to them after videos of their abuse surfaced on Pornhub, they talked about depression, suicide attempts, and turning to drugs. It follows them their entire lives.

That’s a recurring theme among survivors: An assault eventually ends, but Pornhub renders the suffering interminable.

-Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times

This could easily be a kid you love. And it’s so easy to speak up and make a difference.

Call to action--what YOU can do to help shut down Pornhub

The world is starting to pay attention to these atrocities that Pornhub allows. 

Here’s some of the exciting progress we’ve seen in just the last few months:

• A petition to shut down Pornhub and hold its executives accountable for aiding trafficking garnered 2.1 million signatures (and counting)
•  PayPal severed ties with Pornhub
• Thailand blocked access to Pornhub
• After the New York Times article, Mastercard is now investigating Pornhub for allegations of child abuse

Take a few minutes to do these 3 EASY things to Shut Down Pornhub:

1. Read, SHARE and comment on the New York Times article, The Children of Pornhub by Nicholas Kristof. Update 12/11/2020: Comments have now been turned off on this article.
2. Contact your elected officials and urge them investigate Pornhub and #ShutitDown and pass the EARN IT ACT (S. 3398 / H.R. 8454). The National Center on Sexual Exploitation has made it easy to do by filling out the form found here.
3. Join us and sign the petition to Shut Down Pornhub if you haven’t done so already.

With all this momentum, it’s time to get loud. Please add your voice to millions of others. Let’s protect our most vulnerable by shutting down Pornhub.

Update on shutting down Pornhub

Our friends at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), along with Exodus Cry, have worked tirelessly for months to make progress towards shutting down Pornhub.

In the week following the posting of this article, here are some key things that have happened:

• Pornhub announced some policy changes that closely align with the suggestions made by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times article referenced above. They have removed 10.6 million videos and counting from their website.
• The New York Times published a follow-up article: An Uplifting Update, on the Terrible World of Pornhub sharing many other key developments (including an update on one of the victims and some legislation that is moving forward).
• Mastercard, Visa and Discover have severed ties with Pornhub--rejecting profits made from sexual exploitation.
• Major media outlets are starting to report on the harms of porn. Check out CNN Business' interview with Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times here.

Our collective voices are being heard!

While all of this is important progress, Pornhub cannot be trusted to regulate itself. And it MUST be held accountable for the abuse it has allowed and profited from for so long.

Pornhub cannot be trusted: it has profited for years from rape, child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking, and revenge pornography. The New York Times exposed Pornhub for what it is: a profiteer of rape. Any number of ‘improvements’ will not change that fact. Pornhub must be shut down.

-National Center on Sexual Exploitation

We encourage you to read this Letter to the Editor written by Dawn Hawkins, VP and Executive Director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, in response the New York Times article, The Children of Pornhub.

And please still take actions 2 & 3 mentioned above. We need to keep this going while we have momentum!