A lawsuit filed by more victims of the sex trafficking operation claims that Pornhub’s moderation staff ignored reports of their abuse videos.
Sixty-one additional women are suing Pornhub’s parent company, claiming that the company failed to take down videos of their abuse as part of the sex trafficking operation Girls Do Porn. They’re suing the company and its sites for sex trafficking, racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, and human trafficking.
The complaint, filed on Tuesday, includes what it claims are internal emails obtained by the plaintiffs, represented by Holm Law Group, between Pornhub moderation staff. The emails allegedly show that Pornhub had only one moderator to review 700,000 potentially abusive videos, and that the company intentionally ignored repeated reports from victims in those videos.
The damages and restitution they seek amounts to more than $311,100,000. They demand a jury trial, and seek damages of $5 million per plaintiff, as well as restitution for all the money Aylo, the new name for Pornhub’s parent company, earned “marketing, selling and exploiting Plaintiffs’ videos in an amount that exceeds one hundred thousand dollars for each plaintiff.”
The plaintiffs are 61 more unnamed “Jane Doe” victims of Girls Do Porn, adding to the 60 that sued Pornhub in 2020 for similar claims.
Girls Do Porn was a federally-convicted sex trafficking ring that coerced young women into filming pornographic videos under the pretense of “modeling” gigs. In some cases, the women were violently abused. The operators told them that the videos would never appear online, so that their home communities wouldn’t find out, but they uploaded the footage to sites like Pornhub, where the videos went viral—and in many instances, destroyed their lives. Girls Do Porn was an official Pornhub content partner, with its videos frequently appearing on the front page, where they gathered millions of views.
read more: https://www.404media.co/girls-do-porn-victims-sue-pornhub-for-300-million/
“Fine with” is probably too far. I think they’re pointing out that, for example, your phone contains cobalt which was likely mined unethically, perhaps by a child, perhaps resulting in their death. Is therefore buying a phone inherently wrong? Not essentially. Nor is porn inherently wrong. The abusers in these scenarios are in the wrong, not necessarily the end consumer.
It could even be argued that rather than being some sort of monster for being unknowingly subjected to footage of a sexual assault, that the viewer is also now being harmed themselves.
Furthermore, I’m not familiar with the “Girls Do Porn” channel/company/whatever but it sounds to me that the concept was porn created by women. Wether sound or not logically, the intent seemed ideally to be a safer porn environment, like reduced patriarchy flavored porn. So in this case the company responsible actively preyed on people trying to find a more consensual and equitable pornography.
There is definitely a crime here, but it isn’t the horny guy cranking away in the privacy of his home.
Thank you. This is exactly the point I was making.
Its not impossible to research the porn you consume to ensure that you’re not getting off to someone being sexually abused or raped.
My cell phone is something I require to access society. I cannot work without one, I cannot be a functional adult in society without one. I go every day without masturbating to women being sexually abused, and there is no reason whatsoever someone has to do that. It’s not the same at all, and its telling that men see “Please stop masturbating knowingly to women being raped” and immediately compare doing that with unethical consumption in general. It’s not comparable. I’m sorry, there really is nothing comparable to sexually pleasing yourself to a video of a woman being sexually abused. It makes me literally sick to my stomach that so many men are clearly totally fine with doing that.
And your cell phone was, at least assuming you live in a developed country, most likely replaced before it was necessary. You, and I, and every other consumer, caused that cobalt mine to have to produce a little more, which caused another chain of human suffering. Now do something about it. Oh, you can’t because you’re one powerless voice going against some of the wealthiest corporations in the world. Make friends, fight together, and collectively something may change.
Thats all fine and well, but you don’t have to masturbate to women being sexually abused. At the very least you can vet the content you’re consuming to be as sure as you possibly can be that you’re not doing that. Otherwise, as I stated in another comment, you see masturbating to women being sexually abused as an acceptable consequence of consuming pornography.
What happens when the producers actively deceive people? You can vet all you want, these companies -gasp- lie so that they can make more money
Right, so then you inadvertently masturbating to a woman being raped is an acceptable consequence so that you can consume porn? If it wasn’t an acceptable consequence you would stop watching porn.
I didn’t say it was acceptable. Frankly it’s abhorrent, but it’s the nature of consuming to do abhorrent things for short term personal gain. Do your best to consume ethically, knowing you WILL fail, and fight it as beat as you can.
You keep saying masturbating to women being raped, and that it’s not the same as using a cellphone 1. That’s not what people are doing, but nuance is hard.
Answer this question directly please. Is a child dying an acceptable outcome of owning a phone?
Or don’t consume, which is also an option.
No I need a cell phone to get a home, to get a job, to work a job, and therefore to survive. No one needs porn to survive.
And no a child dying isn’t an acceptable outcome of owning a phone, but me surviving is. I’m not going to become homeless in the name of ethical consumption. It wouldn’t change anything if I did, and I’d be able to do less to advocate for workers rights if I did so.
However, masturbating to women being sexually abused is not necessary for survival. You don’t have to do that. And me using a cell phone is, again, not the same as watching women being raped for sexual pleasure. The fact that you see it as the same is telling of how you see women.
To reiterate, you know that you’re watching a woman being raped and deriving sexual pleasure from that. You see this as acceptable, because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to watch porn. If you didn’t see that as acceptable you wouldn’t watch porn. Which, again, is a thing you do not need to do.
We can keep doing the shit slinging all day my friend. It gets no one anywhere. Or you can have an actual conversation without trying to accuse people who are trying their best. Your choice.
Libraries exist mate. They have all the stuff you need to get a home and job publicly available.
Your convenience is worth more than a kids life, got it.
Again, the porn is not the problem. There is nothing inherently wrong with making or watching porn. The predators are the problem.
Two things to consider:
One, I guarantee you have watched and will watch again, a major Hollywood movie featuring victims of abuse by directors, producers, other actors. Even child victims. Hollywood is widely recognized for being a dark and evil place with imbalances of power and open secrets about exploitation. But watching movies is not inherently evil. The best you can do is be deliberate in your choices and try your best to not support the bad guys.
Two, where does the moral imperative end? Ok, so you’ve decided that entertainment in the form a sexual performance is fundamentally different than movies/tv/theater/music. You abstain from participating because you believe it is unethical. Do you then believe in censorship? Surely if it is categorically wrong it should be made illegal? Better safe than sorry. But who gets to control the terms of censorship? What about the woman of color who is making enough doing porn to empower themselves in a society that is essentially constructed to deprive them of power? Is it right to take away that power due, ironically, to the actions of the same type of bad guy that limits their power in the first place?
Prohibition does not work. Not for drugs, not for alcohol, not for porn, and of the three I listed it is arguably the healthiest pastime. The solution is openness and oversight. Stop forcing porn talent to exist in some walled off dim corner of the internet. Eliminate the stigma. Give me that new Netflix Original porn with credits and funding. But it still wont be perfect. But that still doesn’t make it fundamentally wrong.
Some regulation for the porn industry would be nice, how about auditors and some method of government vetting to ensure the rights of sex workers in general.
I will not consume it for many reasons, I’m a woman and porn is written and filmed to be exploitative of bodies like mine. Thats not and never is going to appeal to me. Erotica exists, drawings exist, forms of ethical sexuality exist from which I can consume.
Note that porn itself is not some godly byproduct of open-minded sexual liberation. A large portion of it is sadistic fantasy of abusing women, and I strongly question the long term impact of exposing teenage boys to content depicting women being victimized - even in a consensual context. What are the long term ramifications of hyper sexualizing women in pornography? What is the effect with regards to perception of women, with regards to the proliferation of misogyny?
And why is porn so infantile, so pseudo-pedophilic? Why all the teen shit? Why all the jailbait shit, the barely legal and so on. Am I supposed to ignore this, and pretend that the existence of this industry has no tangible impact on my life? Am I supposed to believe that the porn industry played no part in creating my rapist, in creating a culture whereby raping women is seen as desirable by men who do not empathize with women?
I think banning ogranized commercial pornography and instituting universal basic income would pretty readily solve this problem, even for the sex workers who can now choose to produce their own pornography for non-financial non-survival reasons if they want to. Anything less than that doesn’t adequately address the way this industry exploits women, both within the industry and outside of it.
You do understand that abusers can lie about what they’re doing, right? And that victims of abuse will often not come out in fear of retaliation from the abuser. You’re saying that the viewer should be required to prove that something doesn’t exist. It’s an impossible task.
You can do the best you can, check actresses pages check out studios research film crew. You can do a lot to try and determine whether the content you’re consuming was consensually filmed or not.
Can you ever be 100% sure? No, you can’t. And that’s why I do not watch it and never will.
Research on stuff you consume is a good habit, but most people don’t make time to check every source, even on things they use daily like a phone (or people would all buy Fairphones).
I think most sane people do not like to masturbate to something when they believe it actually causes harm. That’s why this is a news item, porn for most people is not about abuse and they are not fine with it (although I agree much content is often extremely aggressive). As for many it’s supposed to be a window of letting sexual frustration out; porn is about sex, which is one of the core drive factors of most existing species and one of the main reasons we exist today. Not everyone feels as strongly about it, but one cannot deny the human urges surrounding it.
For many people porn in general can fulfill a need, and therefore it’s quite easy for them to overlook the dark side of porn out of habit, just like eating animals is culturally acceptable to most, as well as buying the latest phone every two years while child labour is likely involved. People get their dopamine hit by different things and may look away from questionable parts. I’d figure that includes us, perhaps on different subjects.
I think we should all critically look at our own behaviour. We’re all bad and hypocrites in my perspective, but not on purpose per se. Most discussion in this topic I see is about some people trying to admit they’re confused and defending their past behaviour without wanting to give it all up and others that claim to have the moral highground while ignoring any nuance.
I think it’s good to look at ourselves and our own shortcomings. Everyone has different flaws, some might be equally morally questionable. Let’s acknowledge that and share our views. And together make sure that we strongly form a bond on that practices like in this news post will not happen again. This is a lot easier if we can understand the consumers of porn related services and work together to weed out the dark while acknowledging existing needs.
I still take great issue with the equivalence of deriving sexual pleasure from watching women being sexually abused, inadvertently or not, and me using a cell phone. As I’ve said elsewhere in this thread, my cell phone I own to access society. It serves a purpose beyond child labor. I’m not deriving sexual pleasure from watching child labor or unethical companies operating. In the case of watching porn of a woman being raped and masturbating to it, the rape is the commodity you’re consuming. The rape is the thing that you’re getting off to.
So, if we are openly aware that these videos exist and that you will come across them while masturbating to porn - then you have accepted that you will masturbate to a woman being raped. It is acceptable that that happens so that you can continue to masturbate to porn. You do not have to watch porn. Porn has only existed for the last 130 years based on our present knowledge of early works. That means that only for the last 130 years have sex acts being performed on women been recorded, and thusly only for the last 130 years has deriving pleasure from a woman being raped in a video format been a possibility. The entirety of human history this has not existed and we have all gotten off just fine, many people continue to get off just fine today no porn involved. Watching porn is a choice, it is a want and not a need. You have to accept that you will get off to sexual abuse at some point in order to continue to consume it. That shouldn’t be acceptable to anyone who has any actual empathy for women. In essence the least that someone could say is they will go as far out of their way as possible to only consume content they are absolutely certain is not depicting sexual abuse. If you’re not researching the actors you watch, the studio that produced it, the film crew that worked on it, then you’re openly accepting that youre going to get off to porn depicting sexual abuse and that it’s okay for that to happen and not worth going to every length possible to ensure it doesn’t.
It’s just telling again and again that men see “inadvertently masturbating to a woman being raped” as equivalent in some manner to “using a cell phone who’s resources were gathered unethically”. And somehow the nuance that owning a cell phone for other reasons is not the same as consuming rape porn. It isn’t, no matter how hard you try to frame it that way it isn’t and never will be. Just to reiterate, so that we hopefully don’t go in circles on the same point again, in the example of the cell phone the child labor or unethical business practices is not what I am consuming. In the example of accidentally getting off to a woman being raped the rape itself is what is being consumed, a direct video of that sexual abuse is the commodity that is being consumed.
I understand that you are frustrated, but in my opinion you are using a lot of black/white arguments. Let’s try to work this out, as I think definition differences and perspective are confusing things.
A. I’m not saying porn is the only way out, I’m saying it’s an outlet of existing (sexual) urges. Watching porn is as necessary as eating meat, both are not needed to survive and have not been accessible to people in the past per se. It’s an urge you can act on, purely for pleasure. Just like toying with one’s new iPhone can be considered a pleasure, while we might want to look for a more sustainable alternative that is not build on workforce abuse of all ages. But indeed, not all phones are bad, there is nuance and most people will need one. Just like not all food is bad, but we’ve got some pretty nasty stuff done to our fellow-earthlings. But there is nuance.
B. Porn can be consensual stimulating graphic imagery, for example in the form of a couple sharing part of their love life, a photoshoot of a nude model, but it can also be found in ancient paintings and has been common in books as old as time itself as texts (figuratively speaking). This distinction is important in the argument.
Perhaps we need to define the term porn better; as I understand it you mean the non-consensual form of real people in sexual situations in media.
And if I understand you correctly, you say that if you look at any of the forms of porn I’ve described above than you are masturbating to rape. But that’s strong generalizing in my opinion.
What I do get though, is the part when what you find online is questionable and you can’t see the difference. I’d say let’s rule out all the porn that does not have an approval certificate of actual consent by an official authority.
C. 130 years ago iPhones did not exist either, the context made them useful, but I think I get what you mean with that argument. Just to keep things in balance, perhaps the amount of sexual abuse was higher as well then, as there was less of an outlet for sexual frustration / less regulation. I don’t think we can get factual records on that, as sex has always been a bit of a taboo subject. What I’m sure of though is that sexual imagery has been around for far longer than 130 years.
D. In my opinion the Fairphone alternative (fairtrade, relatively expensive, sustainable) to an iPhone now (forced -child- labor, relatively cheap, marketed as 2 year object) is on an abstract level like the nuance discussion between consensual porn and nonconsensual. Most people do not know the difference even after some research. It is both extremely hurtful for real people, downright sadistic even, hurtful for the environment and just surfing in a wave of lustful dopamine. In both cases most people do not care enough to pay a bit extra, even do research.
In both cases people might throw the subjects under the bus because they do not see the relevance, while they’re both supported by extreme human suffering in the bad scenario. They do not want to see similarities between suffering if it does not support their story.
And I say yes, there is pain, and it is gutwrechingly terrible. So are humans, I despise all of us for existing. But the truth is just that we are bad at looking at our own flaws and good at pointing out others. We still want things to change? We must work together and that starts with nuance.
I acknowledge the downsides of porn, I do not ask of you to acknowledge an upside, only hope to instill a bit of nuance in the definitions we’re talking about.
I think that’s where most of this triggers emotions and confusion.
Again, I’m not cumming over the child labor that made my phone. Whenever you inadvertently jerk off to porn that depicts sexual abuse you are deriving sexual pleasure from watching someone be raped. There is no comparison here that is adequate. That is what you are doing. Besides literally in person jacking off to a woman being raped in front of you, there is no adequate comparison.
Sexual imagery has been around forever and I am not attacking sexual imagery. I am saying that jacking off to a drawing has a 0 percent chance of being a video recording of an actual real woman being raped.
No matter how you slice it you have to be okay with the chance that you’re doing that to watch porn. On some level every person who watches it has accepted that, or else they don’t even think about whether or not what they’re watching is consensual. I couldn’t tell you which is worse here.
Its not some hypothetical either if you’ve consumed porn regularly for years then you’ve pretty well definitely done that at some point. The mere thought that I could be witnessing that kills any and all desire to engage with it, and I would say it should for anyone. The fact that it doesn’t means, as I said, a form of acceptance that you may be doing that. Which isn’t okay like its not okay to do that.
There may be slight evidence that porn mitigates some kinds of violent offenses, but not nearly as much as having an egalitarian society that instills the concept of consent from birth in all people would.
Thank you for your patience with me. I think I understand you better now, as I sense you might have added some additional perspectives to my views. I’ll let it simmer in my mind a bit. Thanks again.