Pornhub Parent Company Called before Ethics Committee for Child Pornography, Rape, Sex Trafficking
In Canada, marketing and IT company MindGeek, which owns Pornhub, Brazzers, and other large porn websites, is being called before an ethics committee for profiting off of child pornography, rape, and sex trafficking.
The hearing comes after a woman requested a nude video of her be taken down that was recorded when she was in the 7th grade. The woman testified that she contacted the company multiple times asking for the video to be taken down. She says it took Pornhub over a week to respond and it was finally removed several weeks later, only to show up again on the platform.
One of the investigators who had been working on the file on Pornhub for years, Arnold Viersen, asserted at the hearing that “It should not be up to children and victims to request to have their content removed.”
His comments were joined by an American lawyer, Michael Bowe, who alleged he was aware of “hundreds of accounts” from children and non-consenting adults who had images of them uploaded to Pornhub. “Everyone can agree that a company should not be commercializing and monetizing rape, child abuse, and trafficked content,” he stated.
Some may claim it is impossible for MindGeek to know which videos are underage or non-consensual. However, in many cases it is clear-cut, as the title itself blatantly states the content includes underage people, sex trafficking or other illegal activities. In the case of the woman who requested her video be removed, the video was labeled “13-year-old brunette shows off for the camera.”
Pornhub has many other such video titles, making it easy for the company to remove these videos. Additionally, MindGeek removed many of these such videos in December when allegations became widespread of such examples, proving they have the technology and ability to police such content.
Quebec MP Jacques Gourde summed up the situation in his words at the hearing saying, “You [MindGeek] are not protecting our Canadian teenagers who get caught in this situation where their lives are turned upside down. If you have just a modicum of ethics, use it.”
Photo courtesy: Tianyi Ma/Unsplash
John Paluska has been a contributor for Christian Headlines since 2016 and is the founder of The Daily Fodder, a news outlet he relaunched in 2019 as a response to the constant distribution of fake news.
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