How Pornhub Became The Internet’s Biggest Crime Scene - Laila Mickelwait
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Laila Mickelwait argues that Pornhub has effectively become a massive crime scene rather than a legitimate adult entertainment platform, hosting millions of videos uploaded without verifying age or consent. The site was infested with illegal content including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), rape victims' footage, and revenge porn due to its lack of moderation checks. Mickelwait details how the upload process required only an email address, allowing anyone globally to distribute criminal acts within minutes using a VPN for anonymity. This environment facilitated the "immortalization of trauma," where victims faced life sentences as their abuse was recorded, distributed endlessly via download buttons, and re-uploaded by others, creating a perpetual cycle of harm that extended beyond the initial crime scene into global distribution networks. The corporate structure behind this chaos involves MindGeek (now Alo), which owned Pornhub along with numerous sister sites like RedTube and X- Tube through a complex history of ownership changes involving tax evasion charges and money laundering scandals. The company operated under Section 230 protections, claiming to be merely a "pipeline utility" rather than responsible for user-generated content; however, Mickelwait reveals that this defense failed because the executives actively curated illegal categories like "teen," promoted non-consensual videos in search results, and ignored thousands of reports from victims pleading for help. Internal documents obtained through litigation showed moderators were reprimanded if they did not click through hundreds of videos per shift without sound, making it impossible to distinguish between consensual acts and crimes involving minors or unconscious individuals. The turning point came after high-profile investigations in 2019-2020 exposed the site's infestation with illegal content, leading PayPal and other advertisers to cut ties temporarily before quietly returning. Mickelwait launched the #TraffickingHub movement following a specific case of a missing Florida teenager found on Pornhub, prompting her to test the upload system herself in February 2020 and discover how easily crime could be uploaded without verification. The campaign gained massive traction after credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard were pressured by public outcry and lawsuits—particularly one filed against them directly—to stop processing payments for the site. Consequently, Pornhub was forced to delete approximately 91% of its content in what became known as the largest takedown in internet history, though they still retain some verified uploader videos that require further removal under new legal mandates. Looking toward the future, Mickelwait emphasizes that holding one company accountable is insufficient without systemic change across all user-generated porn platforms to prevent a shift elsewhere. She advocates for mandatory third-party age and consent verification using biometric technology like Yoti as an industry standard, arguing that financial institutions should enforce anti-online exploitation policies similar to anti-money laundering rules to instantly shut down non-compliant sites globally. The discussion also addresses emerging threats such as AI-generated deepfakes and the normalization of children sharing nude images online, noting that while some countries have criminalized depicting minors in sexual acts regardless of their actual age or consent status, US laws lag behind due to Supreme Court rulings protecting adult depictions of child-like figures. Ultimately, Mickelwait calls for a cultural shift where informed consent is understood as recognizing the permanent digital footprint one leaves online and supports her Justice Defense Fund's mission through resources like the "Takedown" book and ongoing petitions to ensure justice for survivors and safety for future generations.
Read the full video transcript
Pornhub is not a porn site. It's a crime
scene. What's that mean? It means
exactly what you just said. So, what I
discovered about 5 years ago was what
millions of people already knew. And
that all it took to upload to the
world's YouTube of porn. So, this is
userenerated porn uh the biggest porn
site in the world at the time. Actually,
it was the fifth most trafficked website
in the world at the time. I made this
discovery that all it took to upload to
Pornhub was an email address that
anybody in under 10 minutes could upload
to the site and they were not verifying
ID to make sure that these were not
children and they were not verifying
consent to make sure that these are not
rape or trafficking victims and because
of that the site had actually become
infested with videos of real sexual
crime. So we're talking about child
abuse, child sexual abuse material we
call it. This is child rape. It's also
self-generated child sexual abuse
material where children would be, you
know, filming themselves and sharing it
and then that would get uploaded to
Pornhub, which is completely illegal to
be viewing and distributing that
content. Um, to adult rape, you know,
unconscious women, completely drunk,
non-consenting
to all the way to what we used to call
revenge porn. So, this would be
imagedbased sexual abuse. So all kinds
of non-consentual content and even
copyright uh you know violations where
this is illegal content because it was
stolen material that was being uploaded
to the site. So that was the state of
Pornhub and you know they had at the
time they had 6.9 million videos that
were uploaded uh in 2019 and this was
you know my fight to hold them
accountable for these crimes started in
2020 and at that time they had 56
million pieces of content uploaded to
the site and they had actually uh 170
million visitors per day, 62 billion
visitors per year and enough content
being uploaded that it would take 169
years to watch if you put those videos
back toback. So that's how much content
was being uploaded. And mind you, this
is now anybody with an iPhone. So
anybody anywhere in the world that had a
camera could film a sex act and with no
checks whatsoever
using a VPN, even to be even more
anonymous, they could upload this
content to Pornhub and it was infested
with videos of crime.
Why was this your job to find this?
Seems like
62 billion visits per year. One of those
62 billion visits could have sprung
somebody else into action. Why was this
you? I mean, this is one of the things
that really kind of amazes me even now
is that this was something that was
hiding in plain sight. So, this was
under everybody's noses. really anybody
could have sounded the alarm on this and
it's it's amazing that it took from 2007
to 2020 for it to get any attention that
this was actually going on and you know
I am just I am actually honored to have
the opportunity to shine a light on this
and to you know be helping the many many
many countless victims now who've had
their trauma immortalized on this site.
Uh, and so I don't know why it took this
long for it to come to light, but
there's this saying that I love and it's
it it's it's an idea whose time had come
and I think that that's actually true.
It was an idea, Trafficking Hub, which
is the movement that I started to hold
Pornhub accountable. It started with a
hashtag on social media and grew and
went viral. But I think Trafficking Hub
was an idea whose time had finally come
and enough was enough and it was time
to, you know, expose what was going on.
What's the story of Pornhub across the
years? Huge company owned by an even
bigger parent company. What's the arc of
how they ended up where they are? Sure.
Yeah. It's so interesting because you
think about Pornhub as a a solo site
often, but really what people don't know
is that Pornhub is owned by a parent
company. You know, most people in the
world have probably heard the name
Pornhub. uh you know they had spent
millions and millions of dollars to
become a household brand name for porn.
They had done things like massive PR
campaigns to save the bees and save the
whales and you know clean the oceans and
even donate to breast cancer awareness
and they had this whole arm of Pornhub
called Pornhub Cares which was like this
fil phil philanthropic arm. They're
walking New York Fashion Week. They you
know have faux commercials on Saturday
Night Live. So everybody pretty much
understood the name Pornhub. Now, if you
talk about the company that owned
Pornhub, well, that's a different story.
So, most people had never heard of the
parent company of Pornhub, which was
called MindGeek. Now, MindGeek had
essentially rolled up the global porn
industry under one huge international
multi-billion dollar corporation because
with a $362 million loan, they had uh
actually bought up most of the world's
most popular porn sites and brands. So
there was a hedge fund called Colet
Capital that had 125 secret investors
that included JP Morgan Chase that
included Cornell University and they had
loaned these hundreds of millions of
dollars to um which was manin at the
time. So I'll I'll tell you the the
history of that but um to the company to
buy up the world's most popular porn
sites and brands. So they actually owned
everything from Playboy Digital to
Pornhub and all of its sister tube
sites. So, Pornhub and its sister site.
So, that would include Red Tube, Uporn,
Gay Tube, Extreme Tube, X- Tube, Porn
MD. I mean, I could go on and on.
Massive amounts of tube sites that
operated all the same way. But MyGeek
used to be a company called Manwin. And
before Manin, it was a company called
Mansf. And there was, you know, these
men in Montreal that started Mansf in
2007. and they had purchased the website
pornhub.com for about $2,500 at a
Playboy Mansion party and they launched
Pornhub. But it was a man named Fabian
Tilman. So he's a German entrepreneur
that actually put Pornhub on the map. So
he uh you know was a a very shrewd
businessman and he had this idea that he
wanted the world to be able to access
free porn. And so he kind of took
Pornhub from you know somewhat popular
site to the brand name that it is today.
And then he actually got in trouble for
tax evasion. So the company was sold
because originally uh the owners at
Mansf were in trouble for money money
laundering. So they had to suddenly sell
the site and they sold it to Fabian and
then Fabian got in trouble for tax
evasion and then he suddenly had to sell
the site and so he sold it to uh VPs at
his company and now they're in trouble
again. So criminally charged by the US
government and now they're trying to
sell the site again uh to a hastily
concocted private equity firm. And so
that's kind of the story of Pornhub
where you have this history where they
get in trouble with the law, they
rebrand, each time they name the company
something else and sell it and sell it
again. And this time they were
criminally charged uh for intentionally
profiting from the sex trafficking of
over a hundred women in California. So
now they sold MineGeek and now they call
it Alo. So, it's a new it's the same
company. It's the same website. And many
of the same owners and executives have
been involved from the very beginning
that are still there in Montreal today
running the site. It's kind of like a
dirty penny that keeps on getting passed
around or like a cursed a cursed penny
or something that you know the the
holder ends up in getting in hot water
in some way. And what's the
what's the story of how you found
yourself embroiled in this? I I don't
understand how somebody just sort of
stumbles upon creating a movement that
causes the biggest porn site in the
world to end up being basically shut
down. Yeah. So, I have been in the fight
for many, many years before the fight to
hold Pornhub accountable began, the
fight against sex trafficking. So I've
been involved now it's almost 20 years
that I've been involved in the fight
against sex trafficking and child sexual
exploitation. So it was in the context
of that work that I you know happened to
test the upload system for Pornhub I as
I was investigating the site because I
was really concerned by some video sorry
some news stories that I had heard at
the end of 2019. So, I was paying
attention to the headlines because this
is my work, right? And so, there was a
very concerning story that I credit to
the launch of the trafficking hub
movement. And it was about a 15-year-old
girl from Broward County, Florida, who
was missing for an entire year. And she
was finally found when her distraught
mother was tipped off by a Pornhub user
that he recognized her daughter on the
site. and she was found in 58 videos
being raped and trafficked under an
account named Daddy [ __ ] And he had
impregnated the teen girl and she was
finally rescued from his apartment when
uh surveillance footage from a 7-Eleven
was matched up with the perpetrator's
face in the Pornhub videos and they
actually found the girl and rescued her.
And then at the same time, the London
Sunday Times had done an investigation
into Pornhub. And they found dozens of
illegal videos on the site within
minutes, even children as young as three
years old. And at the time, they had
called out Hines and Unilver for
advertising on Pornhub, shamed them for
doing that. They actually apologized.
They took their ads off the site. At
that time, PayPal cut ties with Pornhub.
And it was just this really, you know,
kind of shocking moment for anybody in
the anti-trafficking and anti-child
exploitation space to finally say, "Hey,
what's actually going on here?" We're
hearing stories of children being abused
on Pornhub. Very young children, in
fact. And that is when, you know, I had
just couldn't get those stories out of
my mind. I kept thinking about them and
thinking about them. And, you know, at
the time, you see Pornhub in the
headlines all the time, you know, just
getting so much press. And I said, "How
just how in the world is this
happening?" And that's when, you know,
late one night, I was putting my own,
you know, fussy baby back to sleep in
the middle of the night on February 1st
of 2020. And I was thinking about the
story of that 15-year-old girl. And
that's when I said, "Look, I'm just
going to see what it takes to upload to
Pornhub." And I just took a video of the
rug and the dark room and the laptop
keyboard and tried it and for myself and
realized it only took 10 minutes. It
took a few clicks. No ID, no consent
form. And that's and then I started
really paying attention. So that's when
I launched the trafficking hub hashtag
on social media. I mean, I only had, you
know, a few thousand followers at the
time from all of my advocacy work that I
was doing. And I shared the trafficking
hub hashtag. And the reason why
Trafficking Hub is what came to my mind
is because anytime you monetize a an
act, a sex act that involves a minor, so
anyone under the age of 18 who's
involved in a commercial sex act, or
anybody that has been induced into a sex
act by force, fraud, or coercion, so
this is non-consensual,
uh, is a victim of trafficking when it's
monetized. Now, on Pornhub, it's free
porn, but it's not free. I mean, these
are heavily monetized porn videos and
they're monetized mostly with ads. So,
they were selling 4.6 billion ad
impressions on Pornhub every single day.
And that's how they were monetizing
these millions and millions of videos,
including child sexual abuse, rape, and
all forms of non-consensual content. So,
that's why I said, "Hey, this is a
trafficking hub. We have to hold this
company accountable." And the hashtag
just started to catch on. And then I
said, "Okay, this has to go bigger than
my tiny social media following. I'm
going to write an op-ed about it." So I
wrote an op-ed. I sent it to a few
different outlets and the Washington
Examiner is who actually decided to
publish it. And then that kind of
started to get a bit a bit of verality.
And so people were reading it. They were
horrified as to what was going on. And
then one of my followers just said,
"Hey, you need to start a petition and
if you don't start one, I'll start it."
So I said, "Okay, I'll do it." And so I
started the trafficking hub petition to
shut down Pornhub and hold its
executives accountable for enabling
trafficking. And that started to go
viral. And today we have 2.3 million
signatures on the petition from every
country in the world. Uh we've had 600
organizations involved. Hundreds of
survivors have come forward. At one
point survivors were coming forward to
me on a daily basis saying I was
exploited on Pornhub. My videos are
still on Pornhub. I was a child. I can't
get the videos down. Please help me. I'm
in conscious in this video. You know,
all of these things. Um, and we're able
to connect them with lawyers. And then,
you know, since then, thousands of media
articles have been written on this
exposing the criminality of Pornhub. And
one of the most important things that we
did throughout this campaign to hold
them accountable was go after the credit
card companies. So we knew that the
Achilles heel of Pornhub was a credit
card companies because you know without
credit card companies you don't have a
very profitable online business. Uh and
actually the former owner of Pornhub
reached out to me in the midst of you
know this viral uh campaign and he said
listen if you really want to get Pornhub
you have to go after the credit card
companies. And that's what we did. And
eventually, you know, enough pressure
through litigation, through lawsuits,
through public pressure, through the
articles that were being written about
this, especially the children of Pornhub
by the New York Times. The credit card
companies finally cut off Pornhub and
they were forced to delete 91% of the
entire website.
Why did credit card companies cutting
them off result in them deleting
content? Did that mean that credit card
companies would reactivate payments? So,
they were hoping that would be the case.
So they understood that their site was
completely infested with crime. They
didn't know what was consensual and what
was not consensual. They didn't know who
was 16 and who was 18. They were just
guessing. So you know one of the things
that we understood was that their
moderation system was a joke. So we had
moderators who came forward and they
exposed the inner workings of how they
were take you know trying to vet the
content and basically what was the what
was the what was the process? So it was
10 people in Cyprus. So imagine this. So
10 people who were in charge of millions
of videos. Now it wasn't just Pornhub.
Remember I described my geek, right?
They were in charge of vetting all of
the porn tube sites. So again, porn, Red
Tube, Tube, X Tube, all of them. 10
people per shift. And they were just
clicking through. They were expected
like they were actually reprimanded if
they didn't click through at least 700
videos per eight hour shift. But some of
the more experienced moderators were
clicking through you know 2,000
videos per 8 hour shift with the sound
off. And you know they were told like
essentially the moderator said our job
was not to make sure that illegal
content wasn't getting on the site. It
was our job was to just make sure that
as much content could go through as
possible. So, think about that. And so,
so that's how the site was just they
they actually had no idea
how many of these videos were rough sex
and how many of them were rape. So, the
only thing they could do Am I right in
saying that the two main uh issues here,
one is consent and the other is age? Are
those sort of the two buckets? Both.
Yeah. It's because age again like a
pediatrician can't even guess on a
consistent basis who's 16 and who's 18,
right? I mean, they had very young
children on the site. One of the stories
that just it's probably one of the worst
that I've heard is of a 12-year-old boy
from Alabama who was drugged and
overpowered and raped by a man named
Rocky Sha Franklin. and Franklin filmed
23 of the assault videos and he uploaded
those videos to Pornhub and the police
went after uh you know the the site to
take those videos down when they found
out and they were ignored multiple times
for 7 months those videos stayed up even
though police were demanding that they
come down getting hundreds of thousands
of views monetized views mind you making
money for the owners of Pornhub but so
there's 12y olds on this site 3 to six
year olds on this site but Most of the
victims that came forward were underage
teens. So they were young teens and
teens who were under 18. And again,
that's because, you know, like they were
just obviously not vetting the videos at
all, but even if they were looking at a
video, there's no way they could tell
who was 15 and who was 18. So yeah. So
you're right in saying it's underage
issues and then it's consent issues,
right? Because also they how in the
world could they tell if a video was
non-consensually uploaded but
consensually recorded? There's literally
no way they could tell. So the only
choice they had at that point when the
credit card companies cut them off was
in a in an attempt to woo back the
credit card companies, they said, "We
have to delete all of the unverified
content off our site." And so today they
have actually taken down 91% of Pornhub.
So, they took down over 50 million
images and videos in what Financial
Times has called probably the biggest
takedown of content in internet history
and they still have to delete more. So,
they're going to delete more next month.
So, by June 30, they're going to have to
take even more content off the site. And
that's because the content that they
left on the site, they left verified
uploaders. Okay? So listen, the verified
uploader doesn't take take care of the
problem. So they had some videos on the
site that they had actually verified who
the uploader was. And the Rocky Shay
Franklin, who I just told you about, he
was a verified uploader, but that didn't
mean he wasn't uploading victims in his
videos. So they're going to have to take
down a lot of the remaining content in
the next month. Um, so we'll see how
much that ends up happen. How much do
you think will be left?
I mean, it's it's hard to say. Uh, you
know, as of September of 2024, they've
been forced to start verifying the age
and consent of people who are in the
videos. So, the individuals in the
videos for the new content being
uploaded. And that's because they've
been sued. So, they've been sued now by
nearly 300 victims in 27 lawsuits. And
that includes class actions on behalf of
tens of thousands of child victims.
These are certified class action
lawsuits. They have one in Alabama, one
in California, and they're just getting
I mean they could have potentially
billions of dollars in damages for
what's happened to these victims. And
you know to the damages sometimes people
think of it and they kind of minimize it
as oh this is just online. And these are
just you kind of think of it as pixels
on the screen and the the actual victim
is not humanized in the way that they
really should be. But I think one of the
things that we have to think about is
the trauma that they face when these
videos are uploaded online because it's
one thing to be raped or abused as a
child, but then when that's recorded and
then it's distributed to the world and
it's distributed with a download button.
So they had a download button on every
single video on that site. So anybody
could then download onto their device
the worst moment of that victim's life
and then re-upload it again and again
and again forever that they just have to
then engage in this sadistic game of
whack-a-ole where they're constantly in
fear of who's going to upload their
video to the internet now. And they call
it the immortalization of their trauma.
They say, you know, one victim said, "My
abuser put me in a mental prison, but
Pornhub gave me a life sentence." And
so, the severity of this, when you think
about the lawsuits and this going to
trial and the facts being put before a
jury, I mean, this could be massive,
massive damages.
It's I mean, horrifying. But
we there's sort of two big buckets again
of crimes that are happening. one being
the actual incident, presuming that
somebody isn't of age, didn't consent
during the act, didn't consent to the
recording, didn't consent to the
distribution. Uh, and then you've got
the actual distribution on Pornhub's
side. I get the sense that
a lot of the
and sort of hatred and vitriol and stuff
that's directed at Pornhub is also it's
like Pornhub are a conduit for who did
the uh the crime to and a lot of the
times we can't who is this person how do
we find them where are they
investigation so on and so forth uh very
difficult to do I know sometimes people
wear masks or purposely blur faces or
you know do things that mean that you
can't see who the potential perpetrator
is. Uh so yeah, Pornhub uh
are definitely going to feel an awful
lot of wrath from everyone. Yeah. And I
mean to your point, there is there's
multiple levels of perpetration in this
issue and what's happening. And for
sure, you know, the the person who
actually did that abuse, who filmed it,
they have to be held accountable 100%. I
mean, we want to see accountability
across the board. When it comes to
Pornhub, I mean, the facts that have
been uncovered in Legal Discovery, I
mean, Nick Kristoff of the New York
Times, I mean, he wrote a scathing
expose in 2020 called The Children of
Pornhub that featured the story of one
particular victim. Her name was Serena.
I'll just share her story because it's
an important story. Um, she was a young
teen, so she was 13 years old and she
was from Bakersfield, California. An
innocent teen. I mean, she never even
kissed a boy before. She was a straight
A student. She had a crush on a boy
older than her, and he coerced her and
convinced her to send him some nude
images and videos of herself, which she
did, and she shared those um with him.
And then he shared them with classmates,
and they got uploaded to Pornhub where
they got millions and millions of views,
and she would beg for those videos to
come down, and she would be ignored
because they only had one person. So
they we uncovered through the legal
discovery process that out of a out of a
employees that they had 1,800 working uh
for Pornhub and MyGeek and they employed
one person to be reviewing videos
flagged by users as containing uh rape
uh child abuse or other terms of service
violations. So they had one person they
had a backlog of 706,000
flagged videos. So, uh, they also had a
policy where they wouldn't even put a
video in line for review unless it had
over 15 flags. So, a victim could
actually flag their video 15 times and
it would never even have been put in
line for review. So, Serena would beg
for them to come down. If she would get
a hold of anybody, they would hassle her
and say, "Prove that you're a victim.
Prove that you are underage in this
video." And if she eventually got it
down again, it would just get uploaded
again. So this sent her on a spiral of
despair. She ended up dropping out of
school because she was being bullied.
She got addicted to drugs to try to numb
the pain. She ended up trying to kill
herself multiple times. Uh this is very
common among victims of image-based
sexual abuse. So the suicide ideiation
rate for these victims is about 50%. Uh
and then she ended up homeless living
out of a car. 50%. Yes. 50% have
suicidal ideiation. So they think about
it. So they think that ending their life
might be better than enduring the pain
of constantly having their trauma um on
the internet. And so that was, you know,
the trajectory of Serena. But if you
think about the intentionality, so going
back to like who's responsible in in
this this situation, right? We have the
the individual perpetrator, but then the
executives making the decisions, the
intentional policy decisions. And we
know they're intentional because we've
uncovered email exchanges and messages
and you know all of the communications
and policies that they had put in place
uh to enable this abuse to happen. So I
mean even all the way from having a VPN
where they offer a VPN to people. So
they weren't just checking they weren't
not checking ID and consent they were
allowing you to anonymously upload but
then you could also access the site with
a VPN. So law enforcement need an IP
address in order to locate a
perpetrator. Like that's how you
actually locate a device. So if you use
a VPN, well then you're masking your
location, but not only that, like they
were not reporting child sexual abuse
that they were aware of to authorities
for 13 years until we finally held their
feet to the fire and exposed them. So
it's actually mandatory in Canada where
they have headquarters to report when
you know about child sexual abuse. You
have to report it to authorities and
they were not reporting. They were not
reporting for 13 years even though they
were aware of children who were being
abused on the site. And so then you
think about that, it's like how many
perpetrators could have been apprehended
and how many children could have been
saved from years of abuse if they were
actually reporting the videos to
authorities like they should have been,
but they were hiding it from the public.
How damning are the internal documents?
How did you get a how does anyone get a
hold of the emails of a company? What's
the the story of getting behind the
scenes? Yeah. So, one of the amazing
tools through civil litigation is being
able to get behind your opponent's uh
communications, exchanges, emails, text
messages,
uh internal all kinds of internal policy
documents. So, as a litigation, as a
civil litigation progresses, they have
this period of what they call discovery.
And basically, they can compel the
company and they have compelled the
company to release
documents and tr it's hard for lawyers
like they they do not give this stuff up
easily. They put up a fight but these
are amazing attorneys that are
representing these victims and they've
been able to get this information
messages. Now an amazing thing happened
a few weeks ago and this was the basis
of Nick Kristoff's recent article. So, I
told you about the Children of Pornhub,
but actually he just released a
follow-up and it was because the court
in Alabama um for the the child
trafficking class action lawsuit
accidentally. So, the court accidentally
released thousands of pages of internal
documents and communications and
messages and emails that were supposed
to be sealed. So, they had actually
accidentally unsealed all of this
information. So now we have I mean it's
an amazing amount of information
depositions where they actually deposed
under oath. It's a crime if they
actually tell a lie in these
depositions. The managers, the
employees, the executives, the owners,
and we have all like, you know, in one
deposition is like a 500page deposition.
And all of this put together, the
question becomes, how in the world are
Pornhub's executives not in prison? And
I honestly think after this release of
this evidence, they will go to prison. I
I feel confident that we will see this
company properly criminally prosecuted.
Why aren't they in prison? Sounds to me
like relatively open and shut case.
There's already been investigations.
This weird lily padding thing where
something goes wrong and then it's we're
rebranded over here and then we rebrand
a little bit more and there's a tiny
exact change but most of the people that
behind the scenes all stay the same. It
kind of doesn't really matter who's been
switched in and switched out.
Is it just taking a long time? I guess
it's only been 5 years to do this. It's
a big investigation. Is it is it just
the kind of slow lumbering behemoth that
is legislation happening? What's going
on? I mean, there is this saying that,
you know, the wheels of justice turn
slowly, right? And I think that's true.
I think the wheels of justice turn
slowly, but they turn. And I think
especially if we keep the pressure on,
they turn. I think that when we focus on
something, when we give it attention and
when there's a public outcry about
something, then like the squeaky, what's
it, the squeaky wheel gets the oil or
whatever those the saying is. But yeah,
if you if we can continue to put
pressure on those in power to do their
job, uh then I think that we will see it
happen. And uh and so I think that's a
matter of time. There was a company
called Back Page and the fight to hold
them accountable for child trafficking
on that website. I think that was a
10-year fight. So, we're at 5 years now
from really starting to shine a light on
this. And I really believe that if we
can keep it up, that's public pressure
coupled with civil litigation to
continue to hit these companies where it
hurts in their bank accounts that we
will see the outcome of justice really
being served. And why is that important?
I think, you know, why is it important
to hold Pornhub and its parent company
accountable? You know, people might say,
"Well, this is just one of so many
different sites. This is just one
website." That's true, but there is
something that is real and it's called
deterrence. And one of the most
important things that we can do to
prevent abuse is to deter future
abusers. Because at the end of the day,
this is a risk benefit calculation for
what I call corporate traffickers.
And this is about money for them. and
they're just saying, you know, is what's
going to happen to me the cost of doing
business or is it worse than that? Like,
will I face real and serious
consequences? And when they understand
that they will face real and serious
consequences, they'll make different
decisions. They don't have to distribute
illegal content on that site. They can,
although it's expensive and it's not
easy, they can make the decisions to
prevent that to to put in those safety
policies and they have to be forced to
do it. And so what we're seeing right
now is the power of deterrence. Like
right now it Pornhub's biggest
competitors are proactively seeing
what's happening on Pornhub and they're
actually taking down illegal content
from their sites. They're changing the
way that the upload process works with
fear of being hit with the same kind of
litigation. Right. Okay. Exactly. I I
think yeah, the obvious question is
Pornhub and even Alo, X-Mind Geek aren't
the only adult website in the world. So,
you shut this thing down and it goes
elsewhere. And I know that you're
pushing for Pornhub itself to be shut
down entirely as opposed to just meeting
the standards of moderation that you
would be happy with. Is this
because taking down Pornhub would be a
very loud shot across the bow for
everybody else? And then presumably
moving forward you want what kind of
moderation
why shutdown not moderation exclusively
on Pornhub and then what does a
what does a healthy porn moderation
process look like? Yeah, those are great
questions. From the beginning, the call
to action has been to shut down Pornhub.
And I absolutely mean that. I didn't say
it lightly when we started. And that is
because the level of harm that has been
done by this company to so many victims
since 2007 with impunity, with
intentionality on purpose for profit, is
absolutely unacceptable. The only just
outcome is for the site to be shut down,
for reparations to be paid to all
victims, significant reparations, and
for there to be criminal prosecution.
And that's what justice served looks
like. And justice is important because
that's how victims can heal, when they
see that what happened to them was
recognized and it was paid for. And so
that's that's important. It's also
important, like I said, to be a
deterrent to future abusers. So, they
understand that there will be
consequences if they act in the same
way. And in that way, we're going to
help other websites not act in the same
way that Pornhub has. But it again, it's
not enough to hold one company
accountable. And don't forget, holding
Pornhub accountable is also holding
probably most of the world's most
popular tube sites accountable because
they're all owned by the same company.
Um, but going forward, we need policy to
make sure that this doesn't happen in
the future. And that's why I am a strong
advocate for age and consent
verification policies because the crux
of the problem here was unfettered un uh
unmonitored uploading on userenerated
sites, right? And so the solution is
pretty simple. It's verifying the age,
ID, and consent, documented consent of
every person in every video on every
website that per terms of service allows
user generated porn and this can be done
at scale. So, we have the technology to
be able to do this at scale. How do you
how do you do it? What's what's the
technology do? Yeah. So, there's there's
numerous companies that do this. One of
them that Pornhub is currently being
forced to use is called Yoti. And what
they do is they do a biometric scan
coupled with verification of
governmentissued ID uh in order to
verify that the person in the video it
includes a livveness scan. Um and so
there's aliveness.
Yeah. So you you move when you're doing
the the scan of your face. Yeah. So you
can make sure that you're not just
putting somebody's picture up there. So
I mean there's different ways that that
this can be done but the technology is
there and they can do this quickly
efficiently. Now it costs money right so
the one who's going to pay for this is
the porn companies who have to implement
these third-party checks and I think
third party is so essential because I
would never ever want anybody to give
their ID to Pornhub. I mean they're
actually facing a class action lawsuit
for the exploitation of user data. So
what have they done? What's the story
behind the user data? Yeah, so
apparently what was happening was that
they were uh without consent uh
obtaining and selling the user data of
millions and millions of people who are
visiting their sites to third parties
without consent. And so they're facing a
class action lawsuit for that. They are
fully [ __ ] aren't they? Like they are
so [ __ ] dude. Holy [ __ ] Like how
many different ways? I don't know. Maybe
maybe it's the case that we will look
back on Pornhub and think that they were
kind of the
first through the door wild west
frontier style
porn company that just made all of the
errors, right? It was, look, this was
before we had the the the uh Llaya
Mikkelweight Act of [ __ ] 2028 or
whatever, you know what I mean? Um, it
was before we had the correct barriers
in place. Technology had enabled this
kind of userenerated porn uploading and
it had done it at such a pace and no one
had any idea what was going on and
everyone was making money and lots of
people were enjoying free access to porn
on the internet from mobile devices and
their laptops and then and then we
realized just how sort of rotten the
core of this was. Uh, and maybe we'll
look back and go, "Wow,
Pornhub and
Alo are a shining example of all of the
different ways that you can get this
stuff wrong online." But it is kind of
impressive. It It actually genuinely is
impressive to have one company that has
accumulated. They're like the neutron
star of making errors with this stuff.
like how many they're the they're the
LeBron James of getting you know like
the goat of [ __ ] up. Um but I mean
it's funny that you say that though
because if they had just been left alone
I mean they were so popular. I mean
people were wearing their apparel
proudly in public culturally. I mean
it's look that's the power of brand
that's that just shows obviously you
need a product that backs it up but if
you are they're the apple of porn right?
that the first mover advantage. You
think you think mobile phone, you think
Apple, you think porn, you think
Pornhub. Exactly. That's absolutely
true. And the thing of it is this is
that I think a lot of people today still
have no idea that this ever happened,
that they're facing all of these
consequences for the horrific actions
that they have deliberately done. And
you we're talking about like the, you
know, the wild west of the internet and
this and that. And you know, the the
thing that really I think is important
for people to understand about Pornhub
based on all of the evidence that we've
uncovered, like I said, is the knowing
intentionality. It's that, you know,
that these were decisions that were made
where it's not like they were completely
oblivious to the children that were
being exploited on the site or the rape
victims. I mean, you know, there's pages
and pages of in these recently released
documents, uh, accidentally released
where there's just years and years where
they had people filling out their
contact form and saying, "Please take
these videos down. I was unconscious in
this video. I was raped in this video. I
was a child in this video." Or like, "I
this is my friend. She's 15 in that
video. She doesn't know that this was
uploaded. You know, take it down." And
these were this was for years that they
knew about that.
You know, if you knowingly distribute
what whatever underage sexual material,
look at me trying to sound like I know
in terms of legislation and stuff. I've
heard this I've heard this sentence
before, right? Not at me. [ __ ] not. I
I've seen other people have this
sentence lo than before. Um if you
knowingly share underage something, you
get in trouble, right? Like it's you're
really really [ __ ] It's actually a
crime. Yeah. Is there
is there a particular different type of
carve out or was there a particular
different type of carveout in the same
way as whatever that article was that
said we are not a a curation site. We
are a pipeline utility that was talking
about section 230. Yeah. So
section 230. Thank you. Yes. Section 230
of the CDA. So, the Communications
Decency Act that essentially created a
loophole for sites that uh allow users,
right, to upload things. And so, they
say that they're not responsible for
things that other people uploaded.
Basically, they consider themselves to
be like a neutral party. They're, you
know, they're just the telephone.
They're the wires of the telephone and
they're not responsible for what people
are saying. Um, that's not the case with
Pornhub. So ah so Pornhub has actually
tried to argue section 230. They tried
to get all of their lawsuits dismissed.
I should have been on the legal team. I
could have been a part of the legal
team. I don't want to be a part of the
legal team, but you know what I mean.
They tried it. Yeah. No, they tried it
and they've lost. And the reason why
they've lost every single except for one
lawsuit that unfortunately was brought
by a victim herself. She didn't have an
attorney. Um but all of the others and
again you know there's been dozens of
these lawsuits and in every case the
judge has said absolutely not. You do
not get dismissed based on section 230
and that is because they were actually
creating. So they were part of creating
the content and curating the content and
promoting it and duplicating it. So they
were taking the content from Pornhub and
they were actually uploading it to their
sister sites. uh they were also creating
thumbnails of the content both legal and
illegal. They were recommending and they
were helping people reach illegal
content by suggesting things like you
know uh minor and childhood and whatnot
in titles and tags. In fact, in those
uncovered legal discovery documents, we
have communications where they actually
refused they they were recommended by
employees to take certain words and
keywords off the site and they actually
refused minor childhood
uh wasted things like that where they
were actually intentionally uh and they
were tracking to the dollar how much
they were making on these categories
that included illegal content like teen
which was one of the most popular cate
categories on Pornhub and the most
profitable of all the categories and so
they didn't want to take down any of
that. Um so because of that they have
lost section 230 protection.
Right. What was some of the most or more
surprising
allyships that you made when going
through this? I have to assume I mean
like Bill Aman got involved but I I have
to assume that there were other even
more left field people than Bill Aman.
Yeah. I mean probably the most
surprising to me was when the former
owner of Pornhub came forward to help
you know in uh the summer of 2020. And
question on that. Got to got to
interject on that. Yeah. Yeah. How much
is that someone
begging like, "Oh, please like the lady
doth protest too much. I must be the
white knight that can come in and save
you." It's dude. Yeah. So, yes, covering
your own tracks. Yeah. It was uh there
was definitely a self-interest in that
that I discovered later on. I didn't
really care what his motivation was in
effective. What I wanted was
information. And so one of the things
that he actually disclosed was the
hidden shareholder. So there was a
hidden majority shareholder for years
that nobody knew who he was. Um and the
former owner Fabian told me who it was.
So he just I asked him who's the secret
shareholder of Pornhub now and he told
me and his name was Burnsberg Mayor and
he uh was a businessman that grew up in
Austria and then lived part-time in Hong
Kong and part-time in London but he was
the majority shareholder that was hiding
his identity forever and so he was able
to be found and exposed and today he's
being sued personally by dozens of
victims. Um but then again also he said
listen go after the credit card
companies because they're the Achilles
heel of Pornhub and that's exactly what
we did. Other than that you know
obviously Bill Aman he was a um a
surprising ally. He had read the
Children of Pornhub uh New York Times
article and he was in sense because he
sat as daughters of his own and so he
wanted to get involved and help. And so
not only did he start tweeting about
this uh but he also reached out to the
CEO of Mastercard because he knew him
from the tennis circuit. And so he
actually stepped in to help uh convince
the credit card companies to cut ties
with Pornhub. And actually they did at
the end of 2020. Uh but what we found
out was that 2 weeks later they quietly
snuck back. So they actually snuck back
to the advertising arm of Pornhub and it
was another 2-year fight to finally get
them to cut all ties with Pornhub and
Bill Aman played an important role that
whole time. You know he helped uh you
know put the pressure on. There was a
lawsuit against Visa. So this was key to
this whole story. So Serena, who I told
you about the victim, she not only sued
Pornhub, she also sued Visa. And Visa
actually lost their motion to dismiss
their case. And it was the pressure of
V. Visa losing their motion to dismiss
their case, coupled with Bill Aman
helping myself and Serena's lawyer get
on CNBC Squawkbox with Andrew Sorcin,
which was this, you know, in America.
It's a very popular uh, you know,
morning uh, financial show. And for 17
minutes, we were able to call out the
CEO of Visa, Al Kelly, saying,"What in
the world are you doing? Why are you
monetizing child sexual abuse?" And it
was just enough pressure that finally he
actually made a personal statement and
he said, "I'm a father. You know, we're
going to withdraw our services from
Pornhub."
And so that's what happened. But other
than him and Fabian, I think probably
the porn stars and the porn performers
were just very helpful allies that maybe
people wouldn't normally think would be
part of this, but they were essential in
the fight against Pornhub. I mean, there
was allies that were porn performers and
porn producers and they came to me and
we would talk for hours and one of the
things that they would share is their
own struggle with trying to spend hours
on Pornhub every day trying to scour
their Pornhub and the tube site, so the
other sister sites trying to take down
their own stolen content. And when they
were going through Pornhub, they
actually were finding so much illegal
content and they were sending it to me.
And so we document it. Yeah. I suppose
they are
um
they have an incentive to have to get
content that they didn't consent to
being uploaded from a monetization uh
copyright
standpoint. But you're observing
professionals, adults, right, that maybe
even have a management company behind
them and and have preferential access to
Pornhub's moderation team and stuff like
that, they are struggling to keep on top
of this game of whack-a-ole. So if you
are
19year-old ex 15year-old girl trying to
chase down your thing trying to keep it
from your parents. You don't want mom to
find out. You don't want dad to find
out. You're already ashamed. You're
doing this on your own. You're spending
all of this time. You're in your room.
You're worrying. You're you know. Yeah.
It's insane. It's It is absolutely
insane. And you're absolutely right.
They're I mean imagine the professionals
who do this for a living struggling and
frustrated at the fact that every day
they're having to scour these sites. And
so you know the adult industry actually
hated Pornhub and the porn tube sites
for what they did by allowing just un uh
you know unregulated
free porn to just flood the internet
which included so much of their
copyrighted material. So they actually
want age and consent verification when
they're talking about kind of the
professional porn industry and they've
abided by that for many many years. It's
like it has been the standard in studio
produced. You call it brick and mortar
porn valley, right? Like good old good
old brick and mortar porn. The brick and
mortar porn like porn valley porn where
you know they've actually had to abide
by this law called USC 2257. And
basically in the United States and they
abide by this internationally because
they want to not be in trouble for
distributing it in the US. And the DOJ
can actually inspect a porn company's
records and they are mandated to make
sure that they had the ID of everybody
who's in a a scene to make sure that
they're of age. And this was enacted in
1988 and the DOJ can inspect those
records and if you don't have those
records, it's actually criminal offense
and you can be criminally charged for
not having that. and they've accepted
that and actually have for the most part
abided by that. It's just with the
advent of the internet and the free
userenerated
porn site model that things have not
been abided by with regard to the law.
Now, thinking about criminality, uh, one
of the things that's illegal is to
distribute content under USC2257. So,
you know, I mentioned the download
button. So, Pornhub had a download
button on every single video. They were
distributing that content from their
servers onto the devices of people
around the world, including illegal
content, and they were not checking. So,
they could also be held criminally
liable for millions of violations of
USC2257.
That's something to note as well. Have
you ever got to sit down with the people
behind Pornhub? You've ever been in a
room face to face with them? I have not.
No.
How do you How do you imagine that would
go? Well, I imagine it would never
happen because one of the things that
they did when I started this campaign to
hold Pornhub accountable, one of the
things they did was engage in attacks,
smears, like they just tried to
discredit the work that we were doing.
They tried to discredit the trafficking
hub movement. Um, whatever ways that
they could, they were doing that. I
mean, they've done they they've what we
call uh dirty tricks. like they've
engaged in dirty tricks to try to
silence instead of address it. They
wanted to silence it because they knew
it would be expensive and they actually
made the changes that were necessary to
stop the illegal content from up being
uploaded. So no, they didn't want to
engage. They wanted to silence and
they've done some pretty horrible things
not only to me but you know victims have
have faced some real hardships as well
for speaking out. What has has there
ever been direct Pornhub response to
your work? Have you has there ever been
have they interacted with that stuff
directly? I mean, one of the things that
they are you talking about like their
responses in the media or everything? I
mean, have they reached have you have
they tailed you with private
investigators? Have they tried to
counter sue for you accessing stuff?
Well, they've never been they've never
tried to counter sue because here's the
thing. If they were subject to legal
discovery, I mean, they they know that
they're going to be in in just hot
water. And the problem with, you know,
if they were to engage in a defamation
lawsuit, right, if from the very
beginning, you know, they could have
done that, but the problem is when
you're telling the truth, I mean, that's
the ultimate defense. And so I mean and
absolutely 100% everything that I've
been saying and it's not just me. I mean
really this has been a movement of so
many people, hundreds of organizations,
hundreds of survivors, attorneys and
lawmakers and uh law enforcement and
lawyers and businessmen and so many
people coming together um that no they
have not done that but uh yes I've had
faced you know and some of this is not
cannot be tied directly to the company
some of it can and some of it has been
but yeah there's been a lot of backlash
from, you know, doxing, hacking, you
know, online smear campaigns, media
smear campaigns, uh, letters being sent
to my house with my children's names,
middle names saying, "We're watching
you. You're going to get somebody
killed." Um, you know, even things like
getting reported for child sexual abuse
material distribution myself. So they,
you know, people who we know are
directly tied to Pornhub, um, put in
fake police reports about me to actually
get me investigated, but it didn't go
well for them because obviously, you
know, when they looked, they didn't find
anything. But besides that, they did
they heard a lot about Pornhub. And so
the police that were investigating me
ended up becoming allies and saying,
"Hey, we're on the same page. We're on
the same team, and how can we help you?"
Um, so that didn't go well for them.
I have to imagine that the valuation arc
of Pornhub looks like the saddest
investing could have sold at the top
opportunity of all time. Well, we know
some numbers now. So, it was a
multi-billion dollar corporation. And
just a few weeks ago, some information
was released from court documents uh
where we understand that the site was
sold. And I put sold in quotation marks
cuz it wasn't actually sold. It was just
sold on paper. Um, but it wasn't paid
for, but the sale price was $400
million. So, it has lost a significant
amount of value as a company for sure.
Okay. The I guess the question
Pornhub is the biggest largest mold that
needs to be whacked. It's a shot across
the bow of people who are maybe going to
do something similar. It hopefully will
be a massive deterrent.
Presumably, there needs to be some
changes in tech andor regulation
to
make this more scalable. So like
scalable protection. I'm aware that what
you know the purest approach would be
this is on the tube sites. they just
need to be very strict with their
moderation and so on and so forth. But
we need to be realistic and kind of
enable that uh enable moderation to be
made as easy as possible from a tech
side and then increase the level of
deterrence from a regulation side. It
seems like kind of those are two
important routes to go down. So what's
the what does the future look like with
that? Yeah. Yeah. So that is such an
important uh question and we have to
think that way because we have to at the
end of the day we need to make the
internet a safer place and yes we need
to hold these porn sites accountable and
like you said the justice and the
deterrence but how do we at scale help
prevent this across the many different
userenerated porn websites and other
sites that you know may not be porn
websites but per terms of service they
allow and they distribute userenerated
porn. Um and that is mandatory
thirdparty agent consent verification
for every person in every video. But the
scale solution, the atscale solution
isn't just that governments implement
this policy because the these are
international corporations, right? Every
website is pretty much operating in
every place, every country in the world.
So if we have that policy in the US,
well, we have to implement it in Canada
and we'll have to implement it in
everywhere. Um which we should do. But
the I think that the atscale solution is
to have the financial institutions. So
Visa, Mastercard, Discover, PayPal say
we don't do business with userenerated
porn sites that don't verify the agent
consent of every individual in every
video. And just like they have
anti-moneylaundering policy, they can
have anti-online exploitation policy.
And we know that these websites are
highly motivated by credit card company
demands. I mean, that's exactly why
Pornhub took down 91% of the entire
website was because of the credit card
companies. So, we know the power that
they have. And when they enact that
policy, it's instant and it's global.
And I think that's going to be the most
effective way to get all of these
websites into compliance to start
verifying agent consent. Yeah. In Texas,
where I am at the moment, uh there's all
manner of age verification stuff being
debated right now. It seems like that's
even in the the news sort of at the
moment. There's stuff bouncing back and
forth. What is, you know, I have to
assume restricting access as well. Like
we haven't even talked about that. Like
we literally haven't talked yet about
And what about exposing porn to people
who are underage? That's like an entire
other world, too. That's the other world
and that's the debate right now in Texas
that's going on and there's this
movement across the United States and in
other countries. So we're seeing it in
Europe, we're seeing, you know, in the
UK and Canada where countries are
understanding, legislators and the
population is understanding the harm
that is being done to children through
unfettered free access to these tube
sites, to these porn sites, and just to
porn online. And so yeah, there's age
verification laws that have been enacted
and right now in Texas, so they enacted
mandatory age verification for users. So
that's, you know, people who go to that
site, they're going to have to verify
they're an adult to get onto the site.
And Pornhub obviously does not want this
to happen. So they're shutting
themselves down in in states across the
US that are implementing age
verification for users in protest of
this policy. And why? It's because it's
expensive for them. They have to pay to
get every user verified. But that's the
cost of running a porn site and making
sure that children aren't all over your
site. Um, both in back of the screen and
in front of the screen because this is a
form of secondhand sexual abuse for a
child to have to access and witness
what's happening on these sites. And
like I said, so much of it is legal. So
much of it's illegal. Some of it's
illegal on the homepages of these sites.
And some of it's illegal, but it's
pretend illegal. So, like there was a
study done by uh the UK um Journal of
Criminology in 2021 and they looked at
150,000 I think was the number of videos
on the homepages of the most popular
porn tube sites, X videos, Xamster,
Pornhub, these free porn sites, and they
were analyzing what's showing up to just
anybody who may accidentally or
intentionally land on the homepage. And
they were finding that one in eight of
the videos was depicting sexual
violence. So, you know, some of this may
be pretend like you know what I said,
there's no way to tell what's rough sex
and what's rape. There's no way to tell
who's 15 and who's 18. But so much of
this was also the teen content that
children are witnessing as their sex
education from as young as 8, 10 years
old. I mean, I get messages all the time
from especially men who say, "I was
addicted to the free porn tube sites
when I was even, you know, even 6 years
old, 8, 10, and they've been addicted
ever since." And it's shaping their
sexual template, right? This is where
they're saying, "What's normal? What is
sex supposed to look like? What is it
supposed to be like?" and they're seeing
so much of, you know, things that I
wouldn't wish on my worst enemy to have
to witness that I've seen on these
sites. I have to imagine that
this is going to get even more complex
as AI
renderings of of porn, whether it's um
stuff that's so lielike that you can't
tell. Like, is it is it ethical to put
out non-consensual
AI
porn? because there hasn't been
anybody's consent that has been crossed
but there is a like an ethical essence
of well this potentially increases real
world harm by changing people's
expectations.
Uh this there's something kind of just
the virtue of a person being represented
in this way is also something that kind
of should be protected. uh the ability
to take photos of people and then
recreate
videos that aren't them but are like
them. Do you own your own likeness when
it comes to this sort of protection? So,
I mean it is like the real front lines
of of this at the moment. Absolutely.
And there was just a law that was passed
in the US called the Take It Down Act
where now it it's federally a crime to
upload even AI generated non-consentual
content. So this would be like deep
fakes where people could have their face
on um superimposed onto porn and it
looks realistic and it's being
distributed. So you know that's uh
illegal. Um but also you know what
what's important too that parents might
not even realize when it comes to AI
generated content like this is that now
there's the ability for predators,
abusers, anybody to take an image even
of a child. So, if you have an open
social media account and you're posting
pictures of your children, they could
take that image of the child's face and
and put that, you know, into an AI
generated child sexual abuse material
video and make it look like it's actual
abuse of that child. Um, and and that's
that's actually happening. Um, now in
certain countries, even the depiction of
child sexual abuse is illegal. So, in
Australia, in the UK, in Canada, even if
it is somebody over the age of 18 that
is being used in a video and they look
like they're a child, that's illegal.
Um, in the US, you know, that actual,
and we're not talking about AI right
now, but the depiction of a child by a
person that is over the age of 18 is not
illegal. that was made legal in a in a
case called um Ashcraftoft versus the
free speech coalition. uh unfortunately
uh so but in other countries that's
illegal but yeah there's this whole
frontier of what's going to happen with
all of this AI generated content and I
actually think that at least on websites
that distribute user generated content
that by having agent consent
verification policies in place you can
actually prevent the even the AI
generated content from being distri
because that would have to cross the
same yeah so if you have somebody's face
superimposed on a deep fake you how are
you going to at the ID and actually have
a verification of that person to uh
verify their governmentissued ID and
consent, it would stop that from being
uploaded. That's an interesting uh
single solution to multiple problems.
Yeah.
How do you think that uh sort of user
monetized platforms only fans, admire
me.vip VIP stuff like that.
How do you think of that as contributing
to the sort of ecosystem at the moment?
There's a lot of moral panic around the
normalization of regular people becoming
sex workers online and and you know all
of the objectification that comes along
with that.
Do you think about have you got concerns
around that? How do you think about that
sort of working into this world? Yeah.
Well, I know that we have seen some
really concerning reports from the BBC,
multiple uh reports from the BBC and
from other news outlets that have been
investigating the subscription sites.
And so some of those are like the only
fans model where they've actually you
know had children and victims who have
been abused in even that content under
you know behind the payw wall on the
subscription uh sites and even victims
that I have had come forward to me that
have been abused on Pornhub or the tube
sites have some of them have also been
abused on only fans. Uh, I think that
they've tightened up a lot of their
regulation now. Again, the power of
deterrence, right? Um, starting in 2020
when they saw what was happening with
Pornhub, I definitely know that there
was a change in policies and the way
that they were checking who's uh in
those videos, but it's it's not by any
means. It doesn't seem like it's
perfect. And I think minors are being
abused on the subscription sites for
sure. I know that that's true. Um, and
so I mean it's just a real concern that
it a lot of this again is selfgenerated
where it's not that a child is out there
getting raped and having an abuser post
their content. Children are now it's
very become very normalized for children
to be sharing nude images not realizing
the harm that that could do to them. the
way that the internet is forever. And
there was a study done by Thorne. So
Thorne is a a big child protection
organization in the United States. They
focus on CS SAM online, child sexual
abuse material. And they surveyed over a
thousand children. And they found that
one in seven 9 to 12 year olds said that
they had shared a nude image or video of
themselves with somebody else. One in
seven. One in seven. 9 to 12 year olds
had shared a nude image or video of
themselves with somebody else. Holy
[ __ ] I am so glad that I had a Nokia
3410 when I was 14 years old. Like, you
know what I mean? I think the same
thing. I do. I mean, it's so hard to be
a child these days. Perilous minefield
of [ __ ] That's a question. I had uh
Do you know who Jeffrey Kenberg is? He
was the guy that founded DreamWorks with
Steven Spielberg. He did Aladdin. He did
the Lion King. He is now pushing this
thing called Aura. A U R A and it is I
mean it's to be honest it's pretty
mind-blowing what it can do. It's a a
security app, I guess. Uh but it allows
parents, you just install it on your
child's phone and it uses sentiment
analysis to work out whether kids are uh
accessing or messaging stuff that isn't
good. If they receive adult images or
send adult images or take photos of
adult images, it sort of pings the
parent immediately. So, it doesn't
restrict the use of the phone all that
much and it's not a overbearing level of
supervision, but it keeps it allows the
parent to sort of be notified about
what's going on. It can do stuff. It can
even work out the mood of the kids based
on the geoloccation of where they've
been. So, it'll say when you go to
football for an hour, you type less
hard. You hit the screen less
aggressively. and less aggressive screen
hitting has been associated with lower
cortisol, which means that you're
typically in a better mood. On the
nights when your child doesn't use their
phone for half an hour before they go to
bed, they stay in bed, i.e. they don't
use their phone for a bigger window,
which we can correlate with better
quality sleep. It is the most It turns a
phone into kind of like a wearable, like
a biometrically informed wearable
device. the whole thing. I think pretty
much everything's done locally, so it's
not like they're sending this up to the
cloud security. So, I just think, you
know, these kinds of I know there's
there's always this arms race of tech
versus tech. Um, but that was the first
time that I sat down and he had Hari,
his his uh co-founder at this company,
and they just kept on telling me more
and more of this. Oh yeah, we can work
out, you know, how hard they hit the
screen is an indication of their level
of autonomic arousal and and whether
they're stressed. And so there are some
cool amazing I mean technology is is the
capability of technology to help solve
the problems that technology creates is
amazing. Um, and I mean there are even
some uh apps and different programs now
that for for children's devices where
they can prevent even the filming. So
the camera itself could detect whether
it's filming a nude image or video and
actually stop it from ever being filmed
in the first place if it's a child's
phone. That that kind of thing. I mean
that level of of prevention at that
level. Um but yeah, I mean the the ways
that we can implement technology to help
is is amazing. But the harm that
children face, the danger that children
face online and young people and you
know even adults, right? uh is is is inc
incredible levels and I think you know
the more that we can talk about and at
least have young people understand the
consequences of distributing content
online and that yeah it's nude images
and videos but it's also things that we
say online that we take them we take it
so lightly uh sometimes even things we
say or things we distribute online not
realizing the internet can be forever
and that maybe you'll regret saying that
10 years from now when you know your
employer goes and there's a screenshot
of you saying whatever. Um, but just to
have more of a sense of I don't know uh
I guess a gravity about the the way that
things do get immortalized online and
the consequence of that especially when
it's a nude image and video because
there's sometimes there's so many people
that think that you know it's fun right
now and I'm going to do this but they
don't realize that maybe they won't want
those nude images and videos online in
10 years from now. uh but then you know
it's forever. So informed consent I
think is a really important thing as
well for people to not just consent but
understand exactly what they're
consenting to when they're sharing those
kinds of images online. There is a weird
type of it's I think in the history of
ideas it's called conceptual inertia. Uh
so you can imagine
there is a time when it's proposed that
maybe the entire solar system and
universe doesn't orbit around the earth.
Perhaps the earth orbits around the sun
and this is a total heresy and we can't
believe that this is the truth. And then
you know evidence continues to come
forward and you can say somebody
proposes a thing that most people aren't
sure whether they agree with and then
slowly maybe uh evidence or data or
science catches up with this and they go
okay this person wasn't talking
[ __ ] This is actually legit. this
is the way it is. But there is still
this huge lag. And it even happened with
that revolution, this huge lag for just
most people to use the right language.
And you know, given that we're talking
about the internet being around for two
decades, uh sort of widespread porn
being around for one, one and a half,
something like that. uh and you think
okay is it any surprise that cultural
norms and expectations and
understandings of behavior and the way
the parents communicate with their kids
that these things are taking time to
catch up and you know it's people like
you that are uh applying a nitro boost
like turbocharged thing to hey these are
all of the areas these are all of the
different bits of weakness and and
vectors where [ __ ] can go ary and don't
fall down that fisher over there and we
need to be worried about this thing and
um yeah I mean you're a trooper you're a
real hero for putting this stuff
together I think you know God knows what
would have happened if it hadn't been
for you and it certainly seems like the
the hashtag and the movement that you
put behind this is definitely expedited
this process so uh yeah well thank you I
I always you know want to pass that on
because I know that shout out to the the
survivors ers who have spoken up and
without their voices, none of this would
have been possible in their bravery to
speak up and to share their stories,
their powerful, powerful stories. And so
many of them have done that at risk.
It's hard to talk about your own
exploitation. Um, but they have done it
because they don't want this to happen
to others. And so I just Yeah, thank you
for that. And I would love to pass on
they've got a a powerful ally in you.
And uh I I my intention is to spend the
rest of my life not being the subject of
an investigation that you do. Uh I do
not want to be on the on the other side.
I'm sure you will not. I guarantee that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh look, tell people
where they can check out your stuff
online, support you, do all of the
things. Of course. Yeah. So many people
are still signing the Trafficking Hub
petition and it is still a powerful
awareness tool and it, you know, it is a
way that so many people are getting this
message. So you can go to
traffickinghubetition.com
and sign that uh and join others. You
can also so I wrote a book about this
story that was released last summer
called takedown inside the fight to shut
down pornhub and um you can buy that
book and all proceeds 100% of author
proceeds from the sale of the book go to
the cause go to the justice defense fund
an organization that I founded and in
the book like you will go through this
journey with me. It's written a lot of
people are calling it a true crime
thriller where you know it's first
person present tense and from that
moment in February 1st at night when I
tested the upload system you go on the
journey with me all the way through and
you will understand this issue not only
in your head but you'll understand it in
your heart you will experience it with
me and so hopefully you'll be inspired
by that. So you can do that at
takedownbook.com
and you can join what we created called
team takedown. So, this is a team of
dedicated activists that are saying,
"Look, we are, yes, we're going to take
down Pornhub, but we're going to work to
take down illegal content across the
internet to make the internet an
actually a safer place for our children
for generations to come." So, you can do
that and uh my organization is called
the Justice Defense Fund and you can go
to justice defensefund.org. So, you are
doing God's work. I appreciate you very
much. Thank you. I appreciate you too.
Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations.
You made it to the end of the episode.
And if you want more, well, why don't
you press right here?
Come on.
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