Pornhub removes Girls Do Porn, months after a lawsuit by 22 women and days after the channel's owners and staff were charged with federal sex trafficking counts
Context & Ripple Effects
The removal caps a three-month arc: in July, VICE detailed the lawsuit by 22 women alleging Girls Do Porn posted videos without proper consent, leading to doxxing and harassment. Days before this removal, federal prosecutors escalated the matter by charging the channel's owners and staff with sex trafficking — turning a civil dispute into a criminal one Pornhub could no longer host.
First-order effects
- Girls Do Porn — described in the related coverage as one of Pornhub's popular channels — disappears from the platform along with its catalog, and Pornhub severs its most legally toxic content relationship while the owners and staff face federal counts.
Second-order effects
- The removal puts Pornhub's broader moderation under scrutiny: an investigation months later found that even light editing allowed Girls Do Porn videos to be re-uploaded despite claimed flagging systems, and by December 2020 the platform banned downloads and unverified uploads after a NYT report alleged it hosted rape and underage material.
Third-order effects
- The legal exposure compounds over time: in 2023 Pornhub operator Aylo admitted to profiting for years from porn depicting sex trafficking victims, accepting a $1.8M+ fine and a monitor, and in 2026 agreed to pay $120M to settle class actions alleging it profited from child abuse material — a trajectory from channel takedown to corporate criminal and civil liability.
The trend: User-generated video platforms are shifting from reactive takedowns of flagged channels to enforced identity verification and direct legal liability for the provenance of the content they monetize.