Over 2 Million People Have Signed A Petition To Shut Pornhub Down
Pornhub and its parent company Mindgeek are under fire once again. Over two million people have now signed a petition to shut down Pornhub. The petition claims that the pornography website "is complicit in the trafficking of [...] women and minors."
This article contains graphic content that might not be suitable for some readers.
The petition has already reached the halls of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Department of Justice. A U.S. Senator has asked Attorney General William Barr to launch an investigation into Pornhub and Mindgeek.
Pornhub denies the allegations in the petition.
A Pornhub spokesperson told MTL Blog that "Pornhub has a steadfast commitment to eradicating and fighting any and all illegal content on the internet, including non-consensual content and under-age material. Any suggestion otherwise is categorically and factually inaccurate."
The company says it "has actively worked to put in place state-of-the-art, comprehensive safeguards across its platform to combat and remove all unauthorized content that breaches the platform's policies," including "an extensive team of human moderators dedicated to manually reviewing every single upload, a robust system for flagging, reviewing and removing all illegal material, age-verification tools, and a variety of automated detection technologies."
Pornhub also claims that the "group behind the campaign and petition," Exodus Cry, has a "history of hateful rhetoric toward women and the LGBTQ community, as well as toward those who don't abide by their vision of purity."
According to a press release from Exodus Cry, the movement to shut down Pornhub "was sparked by the February 9 release of an op-ed, written by campaign founder Laila Mickelwait."
Mickelwait claims that "the site is set up for exploitation and is infested with videos of the real rape, trafficking, abuse, and exploitation of women and children."
A protest in front of Pornhub's Montreal offices followed in March.
Mindgeek, in a statement shared with MTL Blog shortly after the protest, said that it was "disappointed that lies are being portrayed as fact, grossly misrepresenting MindGeek and its brands."
If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual assault, call the Assaulted Women's Helpline at 1-866-863-0511 or find them online here. You can also contact the Support Services for Male Survivors of Sexual Assault at 1-866-887-0015 or online here. For a list of resources by province, go here.