How Montreal-based Pornhub profits from child and revenge porn, rape, spy cam and other criminal, non-consensual sex videos
study Billy Steele / Engadget : Recommended Reading: Ted Lasso and the American decline Tweets: Gabriel Dance / @gabrieldance : facebook - the most prolific reporter of child sexual abuse imagery - will stop scanning for the illegal material in the european union should lawmakers not come to an agreement soon. it's the latest battle at the front of the online privacy war. https://www.nytimes.com/... Liz Fong-Jones / @lizthegrey : miss me with your sex-negativity and whorephobia. Yes, both YouTube and Pornhub and Vimeo and any site where videos are shared will have people who post non-consensual videos against ToS. But this is part of a systematic effort to stigmatize sex work, not to stop “trafficking”. https://twitter.com/... @edyn_blair : All of this and yet - the only people who have to submit paperwork and id verification are industry people....have the same standard across the board and maybe this shit won't happen anymore https://www.nytimes.com/... John Dickson / @johnpauldickson : Anyone who speaks of justice by day and visits Pornhub by night is a hypocrite. One day, we will view the mainstream porn industry the way we now look back on the slave trade. This @nytimes article explains why. Read at own discretion. Lord, have mercy! https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Emilio Puccio / @emiliopuccio : It is a matter of responsibility - Facebook has to do its part in fighting child sexual abuse online. It should not be a privacy war - children's rights should always prevail in the grand scheme of things. Anyway, if it's war, it is definitely not over yet! https://twitter.com/... Ej Dickson / @ejdickson : Just to be clear, both of these things can be and are true at the same time: 1) Pornhub has a lot of serious issues 2) Nicholas Kristof's column is extremely biased and he has a history of spotty reporting on the sex industry Michael Salter / @mike_salter : How did we create an internet where one of the largest websites in the world functions as a clearinghouse for child sexual abuse material? https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @ecpat : On December 21, an e-Privacy law in the #EuropeanUnion will make it illegal for tech companies to use technology to detect child sexual abuse material unless an Interim regulation is approved. ‼️🆘‼ ️🆘‼️ PROTECT CHILD RIGHTS - SIGN THE PETITION! https://www.change.org/... https://twitter.com/... Nicholas Kristof / @nickkristof : One of the most disgusting things I saw on Pornhub were videos of rapes of unconscious women. The rapists would touch the eyeballs of the women to show that they were completely unresponsive. Imagine the humiliation of those women when Pornhub shares the videos with the world. Josh Sternberg / @joshsternberg : One study this year by a digital marketing company concluded that Pornhub was the technology company with the third greatest-impact on society in the 21st century, after Facebook and Google but ahead of Microsoft, Apple and Amazon. https://www.nytimes.com/... Cliff Levy / @cliffordlevy : NEW: Pornhub is infested with rape videos, @NickKristof writes. 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. https://www.nytimes.com/... Josh Hawley / @hawleymo : Tremendous reporting by @NickKristof on the exploitation that occurs on sites like Pornhub. It's time for it to end. I will introduce legislation to create a federal right to sue for every person coerced or trafficked or exploited by sites like Pornhub https://www.nytimes.com/... Ruth / @bouledenerfs_ : This is a *horrifying* read https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimes : In Opinion “Pornhub prides itself on being the cheery, winking face of naughty,” @NickKristof writes. “Yet there's another side of the company: Its site is infested with rape videos.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Nicholas Kristof / @nickkristof : Great to see the discussion today in Canada about that country hosting Pornhub and allowing it to inflict rape videos on the world. Child sexual abuse is hard to talk about, but once the conversation starts we're halfway to a solution. I hope Canada confronts the issue. https://twitter.com/... Janice Turner / @victoriapeckham : Pornhub profits from rape, assault, asphyxiation, secret film of underage girls. It is racist, overlooking rape porn if the girl is BAME & probably too poor to sue. Genuine question to BLM & #metoo-supporting young feminists. Why are you silent about porn? https://www.nytimes.com/... Nicholas Kristof / @nickkristof : Solutions are difficult and complicated. I don't have perfect ways to solve the problem of online child sexual abuse. But I do outline steps that would help. These survivors risked so much to tell their stories; I hope you'll read and share and speak up: https://www.nytimes.com/... Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : 1) The intentional use of online platforms to abuse both adults and children causes vastly more measurable harm to others than the nebulous privacy harms EU regulators obsess over. 2) 99% of the reduction of harm comes from proactive platform measures, not law enforcement. https://twitter.com/... Ncmec / @missingkids : “The grooming of children for sexual purposes is always about a child on the verge of or in the midst of abuse,” said John Shehan, a VP at NCMEC. SIGN THE PETITION that has already garnered over 30,000 signatures: https://www.change.org/... https://www.nytimes.com/... Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : 3) Preventing such harm is almost always voluntary. Platforms that do not take voluntary, proactive steps often become horrible cesspools. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://www.nytimes.com/... Nicholas Kristof / @nickkristof : I've spent the last few months reporting this piece about Pornhub. What most people don't realize is that it's infested with rape videos. I talked to child trafficking survivors whose rape videos the company had distributed and monetized. Unconscionable: https://www.nytimes.com/... Nicholas A. Christakis / @nachristakis : So much sadness and awful violence, complemented by humanity and nuance, in this deeply reported piece by @NickKristof. The unforgiving nature of the internet, sometimes capturing people's worse moment, is something we will continue to have to address as a society. https://twitter.com/... Ncmec / @missingkids : “The grooming of children for sexual purposes is always about a child on the verge of or in the midst of abuse,” said John Shehan, a VP at NCMEC, the U.S. federal clearinghouse that works with tech companies and law enforcement agencies around the world. https://www.nytimes.com/... Sameer Hinduja / @hinduja : I'm concerned that Parler could become a haven for child porn - it's exploding in popularity, there's no age verification, there's a TON of sexual images/videos, and they rely *solely* on user reports (instead of AI and preemptive detection systems). https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Adam Satariano / @satariano : NEW: Privacy rules barring companies from monitoring electronic communications in Europe have entangled the hunt for child sexual abuse online. Facebook says it will stop most searches for the illegal content if the new policy takes effect. w/@gabrieldance https://www.nytimes.com/... Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis : Europe's privacy fundamentalism gets in the way of other social priorities, as I've long said.... E.U. Privacy Rule Would Rein In the Hunt for Online Child Sexual Abuse https://www.nytimes.com/... Matthew Sheffield / @mattsheffield : I'm just loving the idea that Parler's “no censorship” policies are making sex workers and porn sites flock to it: https://www.chron.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The New York Times investigation lands on a paper trail already partly public: VICE's February test showed Pornhub's flagging systems could be defeated by light editing, meaning the site's moderation claims were porous months before this report. Days later, the Financial Times pulled back the curtain on MindGeek itself — the secretive Montreal owner behind $460M in 2018 revenue and 115M+ daily visitors — giving the scandal a named corporate structure rather than just a brand.
First-order effects
- Sen. Josh Hawley says he will introduce legislation creating a federal right to sue sites like Pornhub for coercion, trafficking, or exploitation — converting MindGeek's exposure from reputational to legal.
- The report directly contradicts Pornhub's own safety claims, putting its advertising and payment relationships under scrutiny at the same moment its ownership and finances become public via the FT.
Second-order effects
- Any US push toward mandated detection collides with Europe: an EU e-Privacy rule would restrict scanning for child sexual abuse material without an interim regulation, and Facebook says it will stop scanning entirely if it takes effect — so the same week US lawmakers demand more moderation, EU law threatens to make less legally possible.
- Rival user-generated video platforms inherit the liability template: if a right-to-sue model passes for Pornhub, every site hosting third-party uploads faces the same coercion-and-consent standard.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward statutory liability replacing voluntary takedown for user-generated content — enforcement power shifting from platforms' own trust teams to victims and regulators armed with litigation rights.
- Privacy law and child-safety mandates are set on a collision course: the Facebook-EU standoff previews a structural fight over whether platforms can be simultaneously required to detect abuse material and forbidden from scanning for it.
The trend: User-generated video platforms are moving from self-policed moderation toward externally enforced liability, with US litigation rights and EU privacy rules pulling detection policy in opposite directions.