A lawsuit filed by more victims of the sex trafficking operation claims that Pornhub’s moderation staff ignored reports of their abuse videos.
Sixty-one additional women are suing Pornhub’s parent company, claiming that the company failed to take down videos of their abuse as part of the sex trafficking operation Girls Do Porn. They’re suing the company and its sites for sex trafficking, racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, and human trafficking.
The complaint, filed on Tuesday, includes what it claims are internal emails obtained by the plaintiffs, represented by Holm Law Group, between Pornhub moderation staff. The emails allegedly show that Pornhub had only one moderator to review 700,000 potentially abusive videos, and that the company intentionally ignored repeated reports from victims in those videos.
The damages and restitution they seek amounts to more than $311,100,000. They demand a jury trial, and seek damages of $5 million per plaintiff, as well as restitution for all the money Aylo, the new name for Pornhub’s parent company, earned “marketing, selling and exploiting Plaintiffs’ videos in an amount that exceeds one hundred thousand dollars for each plaintiff.”
The plaintiffs are 61 more unnamed “Jane Doe” victims of Girls Do Porn, adding to the 60 that sued Pornhub in 2020 for similar claims.
Girls Do Porn was a federally-convicted sex trafficking ring that coerced young women into filming pornographic videos under the pretense of “modeling” gigs. In some cases, the women were violently abused. The operators told them that the videos would never appear online, so that their home communities wouldn’t find out, but they uploaded the footage to sites like Pornhub, where the videos went viral—and in many instances, destroyed their lives. Girls Do Porn was an official Pornhub content partner, with its videos frequently appearing on the front page, where they gathered millions of views.
read more: https://www.404media.co/girls-do-porn-victims-sue-pornhub-for-300-million/
For the full scope of what these sick fucks at GDP did to hundreds of women, read the DOJ sentencing document for the main actor/recruiter
I’ve seen a lot of victim blaming in regards to this situation, where people just say it’s girls who get paid and then feels like whores so they go cry about it
But a lot of those videos are legitimate rapes. Like, coercion is rape. Blocking the door, threatening violence, threatening to show their families, etc, is just rape.
The emails allegedly show that Pornhub had only one moderator to review 700,000 potentially abusive videos(…)
Well that’d be an interesting job to put on a resume
and here I was reviewing them for free…
It’s quite simple honestly, if you profit off something, you have the responsibility to make sure it’s legal. We all like platforms like YouTube where you can find anything you want, but the truth is that they’re currently unsustainable when forced to comply with the law.
With the advent of AI there’s hope for improved systems for detecting violations, but it doesn’t seem to be there yet.
I agree that pornhub, et al, should be liable for abuse their platform distributes, but how on earth is AI meant to help in sex trafficking?
A lot of people have this very naive view that if we just build AI overlords to monitor all human activity, we can somehow automate good behavior and make the world a better place.
Really we’ll just end up with RoboCop.
AI will help with sex trafficking by generating all the porn so humans won’t need to be involved at all.
In the future the equivalent lawsuit will be from the victims of hackers who used people’s PCs to generate porn.
That’s like saying professional porn got rid of amateur / “real” sex porn. It didn’t.
There will always be a demand for real humans actually doing the thing depicted. While I’m sure there will be very popular AI production houses, similar to hentai, etc, if you think AI generated porn will completely remove the desire for humans from performing, then you do not understand why people watch porn.
Yes, but how far does due diligence go in a matter like this? If company A is buying things they get from company B and company B gives company A all the proper paperwork, is it company A’s responsibility to make sure company B didn’t do anything illegal to obtain what they had? Was there a reason for company A to suspect company B was illegally obtaining something that many other companies legally and legitimately acquire?
I don’t think so. I think in that case it would be completely company B that is at fault 100%.
I think it starts to become also company A’s fault when it can be shown that they were aware of company B possibly obtaining things illegally or that company A started getting complaints about what company B was illegally doing. This here is more like what pornhub has done. They seemed to have purposefully understaffed the review and complaints department in order to more or less ignore complaints. Up until that part I don’t think PH would be responsible.
If you re-sell for example stolen goods, your proceeds from those sale may be taken from you together with whatever stolen good you have on stock, and if you are found to be aware of the illegal origin of those goods, then you are an accomplice and are charged accordingly.
That’s why buyers of used items have the difficult task of ascertaining whether those items are stolen or not.
In the case of pawn shops, the money made if the item is already gone does not get claimed back. If the item that was stolen is still there, then the item is returned to the owner and the store is out whatever it paid the thief.
However this is a perfect example of what I’ve said. In the above scenario, the pawn shop is under no legal trouble at all unless it was discovered that they were knowingly buying stolen goods. It is the thief who stole the items that will be in legal trouble.
Maybe that’s how it works in your country, but not in mine
Given their videos were so highly ranked, the prevalence of coercion in the industry, and the fact that it’s often impossible to tell if someone’s been threatened behind the scenes, it’s highly likely that most people reading this who have watched porn online have also watched plenty of videos of actual rapes.
This is a simple fact, but one which a lot of people would rather deny, rather than admit their part in perpetuating it, while wondering why watching porn makes them sad. Partly, I suspect, because deep down they know the truth of it.
I avoid this by not watching porn that makes me sad. There’s plenty of consensual, happy, joyful sex-positive porn out there.
While your point is valid about this particular situation (which is horrible and criminal on multiple levels), your overbroad generalization of porn and the implied assumption of guilt in the viewers is what’s led folks to react negatively to your statement.
On a larger level, this kind of statement plays into the puritanical doctrines towards sex that paint it as a negative force, and subsequently leads to the twisting of a positive, creative act into a negative expression of power and rape in those that accept those doctrines.
Porn is not at fault here, nor are its viewers. Those at fault in this crime are the producers and publishers, who were well aware of the abuses happening under their watch, and deceived their viewers into believing they were observing consensual performance acts. I hope that these women get every cent and more, and it would be excellent to see a class action suit from Pornhub’s subscribers arise in tandem to and in support of their complaint.
I wonder how many products you’ve bought in your life were made by child labor.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism
I have never watched porn. Some would say that makes me inhuman but it can be done. Those of us with experience in the sex industry would never say ‘sex positive’.
I am a regular consumer of online porn. And I’ll admit, I loved their videos. Now knowing what was going on, that’s on me to do some thinking, i have probably watched a rape and helped the perpetrator make money from that act. That’s hard on the conscience. I don’t know what to think about it.
The fault lies squarely on the shoulders of the producers. You hold as much guilt for that action as anyone who has ever purchased a cell phone has for the conditions for the workers are subjected to. Which isn’t to say 0, but it’s so small that it may as well be.
Really? You don’t know how to feel about jerking off to rape? I know how to feel about you. POS.
Cool, I know what to think about you. Irrational and judgemental.
You’re really going to place blame at a dude who just saw what was, presumably, some good, legal porn on a legitimate source, freely available to anyone? Rather than the producers? Or in anywhere near equal measure? Enough to call them a piece of shit? Man I’m glad I don’t know you.
Not all.of us see porn as necessary or useful. Let alone a right. Yall are pathetic addicts in my eyes. And you are absolutely responsible for ensuring that the porn you watch is adult and consensual.
Alright, get rid of your phone. And whoa, if you have an iPhone, you might as well be pushing those Foxconn employees over the edge to their death. Everyone who bought a diamond is evil too. Do you love chocolate? You monster! Children most likely collected that. Clothes? My dear boy, you are supporting the exploitation of third world poors. Did you buy cheap veggies? Bloody psycho, you might as well be standing with a gun over the hordes of immigrants picking most of those for unliveable wages. Go to the cinema, watch a video on youtube, or listen to music on spotify, or vote for a conservative? How dare you support industries that have known child molesters, wage slaves, lobby for worse living standards, donate to hate groups, and and and?
“Oh, but that’s involuntary, I need those to survive”. Do you? Do you really? Did you need to buy a new phone? Is chocolate really necessary? Why don’t you pick your own fruit? Music, video, and other pleasures aren’t necessary to survive either.
So you’re fine with the fact that you’ve almost certainly, essentially guaranteed to have, masturbated to a woman being raped? What the living fuck is wrong with you?
It’s a legitimate criticism. Evil exists in every aspect of life. Direct your vitriol to the people who are actually responsible - those doing the raping, the nonconsensual filming, the other vile things that happen in the industry, and not the people who just consume. It’s for all intents and purposes impossible to guarantee as the consumer that ANYTHING you’re consuming is ethical. From sweatshops making your phone and clothes to scumbags doing vile shit to make porn.
No one reasonable is comfortable with any of that. But I’m not going to bash the dude who’s just consuming rather than the top dogs making. It’s the same principle as climate control. It does NOTHING to target the consumer, they’re responsible for a negligible amount of the problem, and yet so many people are quick to point to “you didn’t do your part! You threw away instead of recycling! You drove a gas car!” Aim where it matters.
I will bash the dude knowingly consuming porn when he is aware that a non zero amount of is literally rape. I will also bash the rapists making it. Consuming porn isn’t like wearing clothes, or eating food. You do not need to consume unethical pornography.
Ok and I’ll bash you for using an electronic device and wearing clothes. Both of them are as coercive and damaging to people as consuming unethical pornography.
Or we can get to an actual middle ground of understanding, realize that the world we live in is the way that it is, and do some actual work changing it, from both sides. I dunno, one of those seems way more productive.
You know, as a rape survivor myself, I have to say that no wearing clothes and using a cell phone to access society are not comparable to masturbating knowingly to women being raped. Rape is not equatable with unethically using a cell phone that I require to exist in society at all. Again, you can just not masturabate to unethical porn. You do not have to do that. I go every day without doing that. You’re defending knowingly masturbating to rape. To a woman being raped. No, no, no I’m sorry if you’re not willing to stop doing that then there is no possible middle ground that exists here.
Rape is not equatable with unethically using a cell phone that I require to exist in society at all.
What are you talking about? My father doesn’t have a phone. Does that mean he doesn’t exist?
Your argument is only based on emotions. What if I told you that I had relatives who died working in the mines for the minerals in your smartphone? What if I told you the money you paid for nigh every product in your life was used to keep people from my country in shit? That you (specifically you) helped pay a company to fuck up the political system of my country?
Well, I guess it’s bashing time now, because I have the moral highground, right? I mean, yes, you were raped, but my relatives were killed; forced to work in inhumane conditions and die before you even could leave highschool. I had to flee a war with my parents where more of my relatives were killed all because of the consumerism of you, your parents, your friends, relatives, and your country. I should hate everything about you. There’s no middleground here - you and people like you are evil.
My anger is greater than yours, so my argument is more valid. Only somebody who had it worse than me can have an opinion that is “more valid”. Only they can be the arbiter of morality since their suffering is greater than mine.
Hopefully you get the point. Obviously I don’t hate you and do I understand why you’re triggered, but that doesn’t mean you’re right.
Whoa what? Who said it was knowing? I’m pretty sure every comment I’ve read in this thread has been “oh God, I didn’t know that studio did this shit, I feel disgusted!”
I’m legitimately sorry you’ve been raped. You also have to look around that lens and see the actual truth of the situation, not take it out on the people who are very much with you on this thing.
“Fine with” is probably too far. I think they’re pointing out that, for example, your phone contains cobalt which was likely mined unethically, perhaps by a child, perhaps resulting in their death. Is therefore buying a phone inherently wrong? Not essentially. Nor is porn inherently wrong. The abusers in these scenarios are in the wrong, not necessarily the end consumer.
It could even be argued that rather than being some sort of monster for being unknowingly subjected to footage of a sexual assault, that the viewer is also now being harmed themselves.
Furthermore, I’m not familiar with the “Girls Do Porn” channel/company/whatever but it sounds to me that the concept was porn created by women. Wether sound or not logically, the intent seemed ideally to be a safer porn environment, like reduced patriarchy flavored porn. So in this case the company responsible actively preyed on people trying to find a more consensual and equitable pornography.
There is definitely a crime here, but it isn’t the horny guy cranking away in the privacy of his home.
Its not impossible to research the porn you consume to ensure that you’re not getting off to someone being sexually abused or raped.
My cell phone is something I require to access society. I cannot work without one, I cannot be a functional adult in society without one. I go every day without masturbating to women being sexually abused, and there is no reason whatsoever someone has to do that. It’s not the same at all, and its telling that men see “Please stop masturbating knowingly to women being raped” and immediately compare doing that with unethical consumption in general. It’s not comparable. I’m sorry, there really is nothing comparable to sexually pleasing yourself to a video of a woman being sexually abused. It makes me literally sick to my stomach that so many men are clearly totally fine with doing that.
And your cell phone was, at least assuming you live in a developed country, most likely replaced before it was necessary. You, and I, and every other consumer, caused that cobalt mine to have to produce a little more, which caused another chain of human suffering. Now do something about it. Oh, you can’t because you’re one powerless voice going against some of the wealthiest corporations in the world. Make friends, fight together, and collectively something may change.
Thats all fine and well, but you don’t have to masturbate to women being sexually abused. At the very least you can vet the content you’re consuming to be as sure as you possibly can be that you’re not doing that. Otherwise, as I stated in another comment, you see masturbating to women being sexually abused as an acceptable consequence of consuming pornography.
What happens when the producers actively deceive people? You can vet all you want, these companies -gasp- lie so that they can make more money
Research on stuff you consume is a good habit, but most people don’t make time to check every source, even on things they use daily like a phone (or people would all buy Fairphones).
I think most sane people do not like to masturbate to something when they believe it actually causes harm. That’s why this is a news item, porn for most people is not about abuse and they are not fine with it (although I agree much content is often extremely aggressive). As for many it’s supposed to be a window of letting sexual frustration out; porn is about sex, which is one of the core drive factors of most existing species and one of the main reasons we exist today. Not everyone feels as strongly about it, but one cannot deny the human urges surrounding it.
For many people porn in general can fulfill a need, and therefore it’s quite easy for them to overlook the dark side of porn out of habit, just like eating animals is culturally acceptable to most, as well as buying the latest phone every two years while child labour is likely involved. People get their dopamine hit by different things and may look away from questionable parts. I’d figure that includes us, perhaps on different subjects.
I think we should all critically look at our own behaviour. We’re all bad and hypocrites in my perspective, but not on purpose per se. Most discussion in this topic I see is about some people trying to admit they’re confused and defending their past behaviour without wanting to give it all up and others that claim to have the moral highground while ignoring any nuance.
I think it’s good to look at ourselves and our own shortcomings. Everyone has different flaws, some might be equally morally questionable. Let’s acknowledge that and share our views. And together make sure that we strongly form a bond on that practices like in this news post will not happen again. This is a lot easier if we can understand the consumers of porn related services and work together to weed out the dark while acknowledging existing needs.
I still take great issue with the equivalence of deriving sexual pleasure from watching women being sexually abused, inadvertently or not, and me using a cell phone. As I’ve said elsewhere in this thread, my cell phone I own to access society. It serves a purpose beyond child labor. I’m not deriving sexual pleasure from watching child labor or unethical companies operating. In the case of watching porn of a woman being raped and masturbating to it, the rape is the commodity you’re consuming. The rape is the thing that you’re getting off to.
So, if we are openly aware that these videos exist and that you will come across them while masturbating to porn - then you have accepted that you will masturbate to a woman being raped. It is acceptable that that happens so that you can continue to masturbate to porn. You do not have to watch porn. Porn has only existed for the last 130 years based on our present knowledge of early works. That means that only for the last 130 years have sex acts being performed on women been recorded, and thusly only for the last 130 years has deriving pleasure from a woman being raped in a video format been a possibility. The entirety of human history this has not existed and we have all gotten off just fine, many people continue to get off just fine today no porn involved. Watching porn is a choice, it is a want and not a need. You have to accept that you will get off to sexual abuse at some point in order to continue to consume it. That shouldn’t be acceptable to anyone who has any actual empathy for women. In essence the least that someone could say is they will go as far out of their way as possible to only consume content they are absolutely certain is not depicting sexual abuse. If you’re not researching the actors you watch, the studio that produced it, the film crew that worked on it, then you’re openly accepting that youre going to get off to porn depicting sexual abuse and that it’s okay for that to happen and not worth going to every length possible to ensure it doesn’t.
It’s just telling again and again that men see “inadvertently masturbating to a woman being raped” as equivalent in some manner to “using a cell phone who’s resources were gathered unethically”. And somehow the nuance that owning a cell phone for other reasons is not the same as consuming rape porn. It isn’t, no matter how hard you try to frame it that way it isn’t and never will be. Just to reiterate, so that we hopefully don’t go in circles on the same point again, in the example of the cell phone the child labor or unethical business practices is not what I am consuming. In the example of accidentally getting off to a woman being raped the rape itself is what is being consumed, a direct video of that sexual abuse is the commodity that is being consumed.
I understand that you are frustrated, but in my opinion you are using a lot of black/white arguments. Let’s try to work this out, as I think definition differences and perspective are confusing things.
A. I’m not saying porn is the only way out, I’m saying it’s an outlet of existing (sexual) urges. Watching porn is as necessary as eating meat, both are not needed to survive and have not been accessible to people in the past per se. It’s an urge you can act on, purely for pleasure. Just like toying with one’s new iPhone can be considered a pleasure, while we might want to look for a more sustainable alternative that is not build on workforce abuse of all ages. But indeed, not all phones are bad, there is nuance and most people will need one. Just like not all food is bad, but we’ve got some pretty nasty stuff done to our fellow-earthlings. But there is nuance.
B. Porn can be consensual stimulating graphic imagery, for example in the form of a couple sharing part of their love life, a photoshoot of a nude model, but it can also be found in ancient paintings and has been common in books as old as time itself as texts (figuratively speaking). This distinction is important in the argument.
Perhaps we need to define the term porn better; as I understand it you mean the non-consensual form of real people in sexual situations in media.
And if I understand you correctly, you say that if you look at any of the forms of porn I’ve described above than you are masturbating to rape. But that’s strong generalizing in my opinion.
What I do get though, is the part when what you find online is questionable and you can’t see the difference. I’d say let’s rule out all the porn that does not have an approval certificate of actual consent by an official authority.
C. 130 years ago iPhones did not exist either, the context made them useful, but I think I get what you mean with that argument. Just to keep things in balance, perhaps the amount of sexual abuse was higher as well then, as there was less of an outlet for sexual frustration / less regulation. I don’t think we can get factual records on that, as sex has always been a bit of a taboo subject. What I’m sure of though is that sexual imagery has been around for far longer than 130 years.
D. In my opinion the Fairphone alternative (fairtrade, relatively expensive, sustainable) to an iPhone now (forced -child- labor, relatively cheap, marketed as 2 year object) is on an abstract level like the nuance discussion between consensual porn and nonconsensual. Most people do not know the difference even after some research. It is both extremely hurtful for real people, downright sadistic even, hurtful for the environment and just surfing in a wave of lustful dopamine. In both cases most people do not care enough to pay a bit extra, even do research.
In both cases people might throw the subjects under the bus because they do not see the relevance, while they’re both supported by extreme human suffering in the bad scenario. They do not want to see similarities between suffering if it does not support their story.
- What I mean with all my responses, there is nuance in this topic.
- What you mean with your responses, there is pain in this topic.
And I say yes, there is pain, and it is gutwrechingly terrible. So are humans, I despise all of us for existing. But the truth is just that we are bad at looking at our own flaws and good at pointing out others. We still want things to change? We must work together and that starts with nuance.
I acknowledge the downsides of porn, I do not ask of you to acknowledge an upside, only hope to instill a bit of nuance in the definitions we’re talking about.
I think that’s where most of this triggers emotions and confusion.
That’s a lot of words for “I know, but I really don’t want to give up my porn 😭”
Nice way to justify buying another iPhone.
62? what about hundreds more vids they had just like that? add the fact that most of the people who watch porn just skip past the interview so they seldom see the consent of the actors involved.
Think the free and open internet dream is dead.
Corporations are going to rule the world.
The amateur porn glory days are gone.
Lustery.com exists, fyi
If the allegations hold up in court i hope aside from the victims to be properly compensated that multiple heads go to prison. Being the head of an organized crime ring that is trafficking and rapeing people for profit, in this case at least all C levels of Aylo, should get a life sentence and all assets seized.
Imagine a world where you read the article and learned that they’ve already been federally convicted. It was in the first paragraph.
The direct company doing it. But Aylo who partnered with them and promoted the content should also be held criminally liable.
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What an incredibly naive stance to take.
Not only is it flat wrong, you just choose to ignore the significant usage of boys / girls to refer to adults in pop culture. ie: boys will be boys.
The term girls does not necessarily refer to underage, or women who appear underage. Same with boys. And making an argument to the contrary really just makes you look silly and discredits any legitimate point you might have.
The term boy and girl are not used in even remotely similar ways. Girl as a term is used for grown adult women altogether too often, and a disgusting amount in sexual contexts. Its always a girl fucking a man, never a woman fucking a boy. Infantilizing women is a core feature of patriarchy, and reducing us to subservient and submissive of men in a childlike way. Porn is, obviously, extremely sexualized and plays into male power fantasies and the male perspective on women in their day to day lives. The fact that girl is so often used then, indicates that term represents in some capacity the underlying view men take to women they are sexually attracted to and the fantasy they have of those women.
And that should absolutely horrify you. If it doesn’t then on some level you’re just telling on yourself. Its one thing if one woman in a relationship likes being called a girl by her partner, another thing altogether when its mass media consumed by millions of men and is therefore devoid of any real emotional attachment or investment in the real woman in the video. Add in that its commonly known that pornography as an industry is chock-full of coercion / blackmail / manipulation / sex trafficking / rape and sexual abuse and it paints a picture of one of the most horrifying things that is normalized to exist in our society.
Lol you’re outta your depth here.
And yet you don’t care to tell me how or why what I’m saying is wrong.
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Yes yes and I don’t want to hear about me hanging out with “the boys” either when I’m with my male friends, we’re “the men” I suppose, to keep it consistant. I mean, I know nobody means it in a derogatory manner, at least mostly, but if “girls” is derogatory than so too must “boys” be, especially when used by those who claim “girls” is derogatory.
I now expect the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” become stricken from the lexicon since they are derogatory terms, instead “manfriend” or “womanfriend” must be used going forward from 00:00:00 on the individual in question’s 18th birthday.
I hate to break it to you, but “girls” is just the term the porn industry uses. I get what you’re saying about it being problematic, and I don’t disagree, but suggesting that this is a red flag for sex trafficking is really close to just saying that all porn is sex trafficking, and that is SWERF nonsense.
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its just a red flag in general
That’s not how red flags work. A red flag is any indicator of danger. You have to define what that danger is.
Since you were responding to an article about sex trafficking, and never bothered to define what kind of “red flag” you were referring to, it’s natural to assume that you were talking about a red flag for sex trafficking.
Now I can see that you were just running your mouth about semantics without actually responding to the topic of this thread.
Can we have AI generated porn now ?
Time for even more impossible beauty standards!
Most beauty standards are held by women tbh
I always hated GDP videos cause the girls never looked like they wanted to be there, now I know why, they didn’t. There’s a lot of porn out there where the girl is very clearly not enjoying it or just laying there, I don’t know how anyone finds that hot.
Honestly I’m running into that a lot with women, especially younger women. They all want to be “dominated” and it does nothing for me.
Consensual non-consent is also surprisingly common with younger women as well. Makes me very uncomfortable.
Rapists.
Rapists find it hot.
Like the rapists that ran GDP.
Or, like, half of the BDSM community who enjoy when this is roleplayed, like what everyone watching these videos thought it was.
Unless you think anyone who plays video games with guns only find it fun cause theyre murderers?
Porn is bad
If you downvoted this, you are a coomer
