Pressure's still on Pornhub as advocates call for mandatory age verification, other measures

Pornhub under pressure to make more changes After a scathing investigation by the New York Times, Montreal-based giant Pornhub changed how it operates, but advocates want more.

Montreal — Montreal-based Pornhub announced yesterday that it’s making changes to its operations, but advocates for victims of sexual abuse—including several survivors—have come out today to say they want more.

Companies like Pornhub, which was the subject of a New York Times investigation published last week, have been accused of hosting videos that show the sexual exploitation of minors, rape and revenge porn.

“We want to see the site be held seriously accountable, because when a person… actually profits from the rape of a child or the rape of a vulnerable woman or man, that is considered trafficking,” said Laila Mickelwait of a group that calls itself Traffickinghub and aims to shut down Pornhub.

“That is a serious offence,” she said.

Pornhub strongly denies allegations that it hosts this kind of content. The Montreal-based company also said this week that it no longer allows users to download the videos, and it only allows verified users to upload their own videos.

But a motion was tabled at Quebec’s National Assembly denouncing Pornhub and calling for an investigation into its practices, among other measures.

The motion also calls on the government to implement, as soon as possible, five recommendations made by a committee studying how to stop the exploitation of minor.

“I will make sure that those recommendations have a follow-up and are applied,” said Minister of Public Safety Genevieve Guilbault. “This is unacceptable that children are abused and are abused on the Internet.”

Pornhub and its parent company, Mindgeek, operate largely out of an office building in Cote-des-Neiges. The company says moderators are tasked with screening user uploaded videos to make sure illegal content isnt shared online, but victims say they don’t catch everything.

“We want to see mandatory age and consent verification for every single person in every single video that is uploaded to a porn site, period,” said Mickelwait.

“And that is not an unreasonable expectation.”

Pornhub has told CTV News that it has increased its teams of screeners whose job it is to eliminate illegal content from the site.

In the meantime, the company is facing other external pressures. PayPal stopped supporting Mindgeek payments in 2019, and now Visa and Mastercard are also investigating their approach to the company.

Advocates say the bottom line of what they want is stronger laws to hold these companies accountable.