Pornhub, Trafficking, and Abuse of Minors

By: Emma Elshaw

One of the major streaming sites for online pornography, Pornhub, received attention on the news and on social media at the end of 2020. These news articles pointed out that Pornhub has no policy for censoring videos, meaning anyone can upload a video, regardless of its content or, more importantly, the age of those depicted in the video being uploaded.

Many videos of minors and trafficked people as well as videos depicting sexual assaults are being uploaded to porn sites on a regular basis, but Pornhub did not seem to have anyone or any policy in place to review the content before being available to the public. This came to the forefront of media streams when a missing person was found in one of the videos uploaded to various porn sites. This eventually led to an arrest. The missing girl was 15 years-old at the time. In Canada, the age of consent - that is, the “age at which a young person can legally agree to sexual activity” - is 16 years-old. In the US, the age of consent varies by state, and some states have an exemption if both parties are close in age. In Florida, where the man was arrested, the age of consent is 18 years-old, meaning that the videos depicted sex with a minor - an illegal activity. 


Because of this and other factors, there is currently action being sought to shut down Pornhub and hold people accountable for aiding in trafficking. There is even a petition that you can sign. With all this illegal activity, however, why are more people not reporting the trafficking and child pornography that they are viewing to the authorities? There are several factors that could contribute to this. One is that it may be difficult to tell if the person depicted in the video is indeed a minor. With no consent or age verification process currently in place, there is no way to know if the content if the video depicts someone who is 15 or 18: “We want to see mandatory age and consent verification for every single person in every single video that is uploaded to a porn site,” says Laila Mickelwait of Traffickinghub. 

Furthermore, if the content is of a violent nature, there would be no way to know if the depiction is real or fake. With a significant amount of videos being of trafficked persons (nearly half of trafficking survivors say that pornography was made of them while they were being trafficked), it is likely that the person did not truly consent. True consent means that there is no manipulation, force, power or control. In the videos on Pornhub’s site, it is currently not possible to know if the person truly consented to the act that is being depicted. Additionally, it is unknown if the person consented to the video being uploaded and subsequently viewed. 

Pornhub itself made a statement, explaining that there are moderators who screen all of the uploads and remove any illegal activity depicted in those videos. A question arises from this statement, however, as to how videos of a 15-year-old girl made it across their site, and others, without detecting the illegal activity. With 1.36 million hours of new content a year, how many moderators would be needed to view all of the content on Pornhub? This New York Times article says, based on the employment of 80 moderators, each would need to view hundreds of hours of content a week. That does not seem feasible, and it is therefore likely that not all the content is being monitored. Furthermore, these 80 moderators are employed not by Pornhub, but by Mindgeek - a parent company that controls various sites, including but not limited to Pornhub. Therefore, these 80 moderators are charged with reviewing content over all of Mindgeek’s sites, and not just Pornhub alone. It would be logical, then, to assume that there are actually fewer moderators that review Pornhub’s 1.36 million hours of new yearly content. 

In addition, Mastercard and Visa conducted their own investigation regarding their business relationship with Pornhub, and its larger company, Mindgeek. After a few days of investigations, Mastercard, Visa and Discover made the decision to cut ties with Pornhub, meaning that their customers could not use their cards to make purchases on the site, stating that Pornhub violated their “standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site.”  

As a result of all the investigations and media attention, Pornhub took down a majority of its videos. With all the negative attention Pornhub received at the end of 2020, they made a decision to no longer allow uploads except from verified users, and they removed the ability to download videos. They have not, however, outlined a policy or process for age-verification. 

Action Steps

To get involved in the fight against trafficking that is happening in Pornhub’s videos, sign the petition to hold Pornhub accountable. You can find more information about the Traffickinghub Campaign here. 

If a pornographic video of you has been uploaded to Pornhub without your consent, you can get in touch with Defend Dignity and they will help you to get legal assistance and support. There are also other ways you can get involved in advocacy projects with Defend Dignity. 

To book a training session for your group or organization on the link between porn and sex trafficking, click here.