Parents ask Pornhub to take down children's photos without delay, say platform is slow in responding to reports
Parents have accused the porn industry of profiting from nude photos of their teens and young children and called for a global regulation that would grant oversight over the websites. Youngsters often send intimate and sexually explicit photos of themselves to their friends and partners via social media platforms like Snapchat under the assumption that they will disappear after a few seconds as promised.
However, hackers have been targeting these platforms and siphoning away the photos before uploading them on websites like Pornhub, where they continue to stay up for distressingly long periods of time despite repeated complaints. A spokesperson for Pornhub, Chris Jackson, told MEAWW that the website immediately removes any content that violates their terms of use—as soon as they are made aware of it.
The website also employs an extensive team that "continuously scans for and proactively removes" content that breaches their terms. Any suggestion otherwise is categorically and factually inaccurate, Jackson added.
Not Your Porn, a group that is working with MPs and ministers in the UK for tighter laws surrounding porn websites distributing revenge porn and child pornography, has had ten reports of Snapchat users aged between 13 and 15 finding their nude photos on Pornhub.
"Teenagers are exploring their sexuality with a smartphone and sending images thinking what they put on Snapchat will disappear," revealed the group's Kate Isaacs to the Mirror. "Instead, it’s broadcast across the globe."
"We were contacted by the older sister of a 14-year-old who had sent naked videos through Snapchat and it ended up on Pornhub," she continued. "She was too scared to go to the police. She thought the world was over. It can have real mental health repercussions."
Not Your Porn pointed out in their website that these videos and photos can often go viral in less than 24 hours and stack millions of views before the victim is even aware that it has happened.
"Mums are coming to us in utter despair, begging to know how videos ended up on a porn site and how they can be removed," Isaacs said. "They, like us, have found Pornhub to be very slow in responding to reports. The firm is not only distributing and sharing child abuse, it is commercializing it."
Blake White, Pornhub's vice president, said the company is committed to eradicating and fighting non-consensual content and child sexual abuse material. “While the wider tech community must continue to develop new methods to rid the internet of this horrific content, Pornhub is actively working to put in place state-of-the-art, comprehensive safeguards on its platform to combat this material," they added.
Mindgeek is a company that owns around 80% of the commercialized porn industry including popular websites like Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube.
Stolen content is often marketed on these websites through "leaked sex tape" genre or via search terms like "UK Teen Snapchat," "Young Teen Snapchat," and "Leaked Teen Snapchat," which then help them make money via membership sales, it was alleged.
"Pornhub can argue that people in these videos are pretending to be teenagers, which some might be. But there is no process to check," Isaacs argued.
Not Your Porn highlighted how there was no process of asking if the subject(s) of the video have provided consent before the videos are uploaded or even an age check.
It is now campaigning to hold the porn industry to account and ensure that regulation is put in place for the porn industry to require explicit consent from the subject(s) of the video, including age verification, before being uploaded to their websites.
Not Your Porn is not the only organization calling for drastic change either, with Exodus Cry, an international non-profit, seeking to ban Pornhub for good to abolish sex trafficking.
"Pornhub is a hotbed for sex trafficking and exploitation because the company has taken no serious measure to verify the age or consent of those who upload sex acts to their website," said Laila Mickelwait, of Exodus Cry.
The adult website has refuted these claims with their representative saying, "As previously stated, we have safeguards in place including a robust system for flagging, reviewing and removing all illegal material. We use automated detection technologies such as YouTube's CSAI Match and Microsoft's PhotoDNA as added layers of protection to keep unauthorised content off the site. We also use Vobile, a state-of-the-art fingerprinting software that scans any new uploads for potential matches to unauthorized materials to protect against any banned video being re-uploaded to the platform."