Pornhub will now begin verifying the age and consent of all individuals featured in sex videos uploaded to its site after years of lawsuits alleging that the pornography website profits from material depicting sexual abuse, sometimes of underage boys and girls.
The porn site and its parent company Aylo have faced numerous accusations of profiting from videos in which the individuals’ consent is unknown and for failing to determine the ages of those seen in the videos.
According to an email obtained last Thursday by 404 Media, Pornhub will require proof of consent from all individuals featured in videos. The pornography website implemented the new policy on Tuesday.
“On January 23, 2024, in addition to providing approved Co-Performer IDs, we will also require proof of consent, such as Signed Release Forms, when a new Co-Performer is added onto a Model account,” the email stated.
According to Pornhub, this is a “requirement to approve and publish videos,” and the goal is to “foster a safer platform for all community members who upload content and engage with it.”
In a video posted on X Tuesday, Laila Mickelwait, founder of Traffickinghub, asserted that Pornhub does not deserve any credit for updating its standards. She noted that the change results from hundreds of lawsuits and the loss of major business partners.
“Even to this day, the site is still full of videos that are unverified,” Mickelwait said. “Because this change takes place from today, going forward. However, it isn’t being enacted retroactively, meaning all of the videos that have been uploaded to the site previously that were not verified for age or consent are remaining on the site.”
The Traffickinghub founder called for the removal of all videos where the consent or age of those depicted has not been verified. She further insisted that this is the only way Pornhub can ensure that it’s not hosting illegal videos on its site.
“But even if they do all of this, it’s too little, and it’s too late,” Mickelwait asserted. “Because they have spent 17 years globally distributing, profiting from, and shattering the lives of countless victims across the world.”
Despite the recent changes, the anti-sexual exploitation advocate declared that Pornhub must be “held accountable to the full extent of the law,” and Mickelwait called for the pornography website to be shut down.
Pornhub gained considerable media attention following a December 2020 New York Times article accusing the pornography website of hosting child sex abuse content. The article prompted Pornhub to implement new standards and remove millions of videos, 118 of which contained confirmed instances of child sex abuse.
In December, Pornhub’s parent company admitted in federal court that it profited from sex trafficking. As a result, Aylo agreed to pay the U.S. government $1.8 million and compensate victims, in addition to consenting to three years of monitoring.
Aylo was accused of knowingly hosting videos that depicted sexual abuse and of engaging in an unlawful monetary transaction with the websites GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys. The two websites were shut down after the Department of Justice charged them with sex trafficking crimes.
The prosecution argued that Aylo “should have known” the girls and young women featured in these videos had not given their consent after they filed a civil lawsuit in 2017. Multiple women contacted the Pornhub parent company in 2016 and 2017 to report that they had been lied to and defrauded into filming content for GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys, and that the videos were posted on Pornhub without their consent.
According to prosecutors, Aylo only ended its partnership with GirlsDoPorn in 2019 and removed all the content in question in December 2020.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
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