Adult stars slam 'war on porn' after Pornhub deletes 80% videos over child abuse claims: 'It's our livelihood'
Adult entertainment actors are furious after Pornhub reportedly removed nearly 80 percent of videos on its website over child abuse claims. The adult entertainment workers have now come forward to say that the decision has posed a risk to their livelihoods. Pornhub made the decision after several credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Discover cut their ties with the site over claims that it featured content associated with child abuse. A recent column from The New York Times claimed that Pornhub featured videos of child sex abuse, revenge porn, and rape on the website. Shortly after the company removed its controversial content, at least eight performers in the adult entertainment industry spoke to NBC about their fears over facing financial hardship after the removal of their videos.
President of the Adult Performers Actors Guild, Alana Evans, told the outlet that there is a "war on porn" amid the crackdown. Evans is a popular porn star who sells on Pornhub. Another performer, California-based Mary Moody, said: "Suspending Visa and Mastercard payments only prevents consensual adult sex workers from earning money on the site."
Another adult performer and comedian, who goes by the stage name Allie Awesome, called the site's decision "a crusade against the sex industry and the workers who comprise it." She said that she made up to a "few thousand" each month from Pornhub, but she makes just "pennies" from ad revenue now. A dominatrix from East-coast, who goes by the name Bardot Smith, told the outlet: "This is going to impact people legitimately creating content more than it will help anybody who is vulnerable to abuse."
Shortly after the widespread outrage following the Times report, Pornhub had denied the allegations. The company and its parent company Mindgeek said that it employs a "vast team of human moderators" who manually review "every single upload." They added that their filter systems also include automated detection technologies. The website, which originally had about 13 million videos on the website, however, removed about 10 million clips pending "verification and review," according to the outlet. As of Wednesday, December 16, around 2.9 million videos remained on the site.
The Times report had alleged that many videos uploaded on Pornhub showed girls and women being unconsciously assaulted. The report had also called for credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Discover to disable the use on the platform.
Shortly after Mastercard cut its links with Pornhub, the company confirmed its move in a statement, saying: "Our investigation over the past several days has confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site. As a result, and in accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions that connect the site to our network to terminate acceptance."
A spokesperson from Visa, in a statement to The Sun, also confirmed that the use of their card had been halted on the site. "Given the allegations of illegal activity, Visa is suspending Pornhub’s acceptance privileges pending the completion of our ongoing investigation. We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network," the company said.
Discover also released a statement, saying: "Discover requires our financial institution partners to monitor for and prevent card acceptance at merchants that allow illegal or any other prohibited activities that violate our operating standards. When Discover determines merchants are offering prohibited activity, we promptly terminate card acceptance through the offending merchant’s financial institution."