Investigative journalist discovers a shocking truth about Pornhub
Journalists like Arden Young are keeping the integrity in their practice alive.
Young, from Sound Investigations, recently set her sights on the website Pornhub — which boasts millions of pornographic videos online and over 180 million unique visitors daily.
The journalist went under cover to dig up the truth about Pornhub’s disgusting practices, straight from the mouths of its unwitting senior employees.
She recorded these employees admitting to illicit, illegal, scandalous practices behind the scenes. The information she exposed is so damning that Pornhub is ironically threatening to sue for lack of consent in recording its employees.
Young tells Allie Beth Stuckey that she decided to go after the company because “sexual exploitation has always had a close place in my heart.”
This closeness is due to growing up in Hollywood, where she was “put in and witnessed a lot of very inappropriate situations.”
She zeroed in on Pornhub when she saw a 2020 New York Times article called ‘The Children of Pornhub.’ The article detailed the victims' attempts to get their abuse videos removed from Pornhub. Many of these victims were underage.
While Pornhub claimed to change its ways after that article, Young and her partner “had a hunch that this just wasn’t the case.”
And with the jaw-dropping information Young tirelessly gathered and revealed to Stuckey — it’s clear that their hunch was right.
To get the full story, watch the episode below.
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Pornhub's parent company admits to profiting from sex trafficking operations
The FBI said that Aylo Holdings, Pornhub's parent company, was "motivated by profit" when it came to profiting off of women who were sexually exploited.
Aylo Holdings S.A.R.L. was arraigned on a charge of engaging in unlawful monetary transactions involving sex trafficking proceeds, the Justice Department stated in a press release.
According to the DOJ, Aylo hosted pornographic videos created by a company called GirlsDoPorn, which was indicted in 2019 by a federal grand jury in California for, among other charges, sex trafficking offenses in which the company was accused of "deceiving and coercing young women to appear in sex videos which were then posted online without the women’s consent" in United States v. Pratt, et. al.
Since the indictment, several of the operators of GirlsDoPorn have allegedly been convicted in connection to the prosecution.
The DOJ went on to describe that according to Aylo's admissions and court documents, the company "knew or should have known" that money received from GirlsDoPorn operators came from sex trafficking operations.
"This deferred prosecution agreement holds the parent company of Pornhub.com accountable for its role in hosting videos and accepting payments from criminal actors who coerced young women into engaging in sexual acts on videos that were posted without their consent," said United States Attorney Breon Peace.
The FBI also said that Aylo was "motivated by profit" and "knowingly enriched itself by turning a blind eye to the concerns of victims who communicated to the company that they were deceived and coerced into participating in illicit sexual activity."
James Smith, FBI assistant director in charge, added that "any entity that engages in sexual exploitation will be held to account for the mental anguish and terror imposed on victims."
The DOJ noted September 2017 as an example of an instance when Aylo allegedly learned that many women who appeared in certain videos had filed a lawsuit alleging that they had been tricked and coerced into filming adult videos. Furthermore, the women claimed that the videos were posted to Pornhub.com without their consent.
Aylo allegedly did not independently verify consent and did not remove all the videos that were requested to be taken down. Also according to the DOJ, Aylo removed videos in question in October 2019.
Pornhub has faced heightened scrutiny in 2023, particularly in Virginia, where it was compelled to enforce an age restriction feature on its website.
Rather than comply, the website chose to cease access in the state altogether.
"The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification," wrote Pornhub. "Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Virginia."
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Your Daughter’s Face Could Be Hijacked For ‘Deepfake’ Porn
Meet The State Legislator Who Figured Out How To Protect Kids From Vile Images Online
Rather than comply with age verification law, Pornhub restricts access to Virginians
Smut giant Pornhub has blocked access to users in Virginia rather than comply with a new law designed to preclude children from accessing the graphic and often brutal sexual content on its site.
In a notification to prospective users Thursday, the company claimed the legal requirement — effective July 1 — that users provide proof of their age "is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk," reported WRIC-TV.
"The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification," wrote Pornhub. "Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Virginia."
The smut company told users in Utah virtually the same thing last month after state Republicans took similar steps to spare American children from the content peddled by the European-based, Canada-centered company, which sees over 2 billion users every month.
Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin's office released a statement, saying, "The governor remains committed to protecting Virginia’s children from dangerous material on the internet."
State Sen. William Stanley introduced SB 1515, stating, "If we're going to sit here and just say, ‘Well, there's nothing we can do about it. It's the, you know, darn old internet,’ then we're abrogating our responsibility to our children," reported VPM News.
The law states that "Any commercial entity that knowingly or intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on the Internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of such material shall ... verify that any person attempting to access such material harmful to minors is 18 years or older."
A commercial entity that enables children to access harmful pornographic material is subject under the law to civil liability for damages.
Youngkin ratified the legislation in May.
While Pornhub cited the need to protect users in its rationale for discontinuing service to Virginia, it was accused further afield this week of illegally collecting data from millions of users.
Wired reported that a complaint, "based on a technical analysis of the website and its privacy practices," was filed in Italy Thursday claiming the site is "dealing with the sexual preferences of users" without asking for consent and likely violating European law.
A 2019 study found that 93% of porn sites sent user data to an average of seven third-party domains, reported the New York Times.
"This isn’t picking out a sweater and seeing it follow you across the web. This is so much more specific and deeply personal," Elena Maris, the study's lead author.
In Pornhub's message to users in Virginia, the company also references the desire to protect children from risk, yet the company has been accused on multiple occasions in recent years of hosting explicit videos of minors, allegedly uploaded without their consent, as reported by the New York Post.
In 2021, the company even settled a lawsuit brought by 50 women who alleged it had profited from pornographic videos published without their consent, according to Canadian state media.
The Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for American smut dealers, indicated it might challenge the Virginia law in court, as it has in both Louisiana and Utah.
"It’s not a matter of if these laws will be ruled unconstitutional but when," a spokesman for the group told WRIC.
Concerning a possible legal challenge, Stanley said, "I think the compelling state interest is the protection of our children. ... And I would rather try and have a supreme court tell me I was wrong then not to try at all."
Pornography has been shown to have a devastating impact on the minds of children and adults alike.
An Israeli study published this month in the scientific journal Body Image indicated a link between pornography consumption and negative body image and ultimately increased severity of eating disorder symptoms.
A February 2022 study published in the journal Psychological Medicine found that porn is "associated with the erosion of the quality of men's sex lives" — "associated with lower levels of sexual self-competence, impaired sexual functioning, and decreased partner-reported sexual satisfaction."
The Australian government found that pornography consumption by young people has served "normalise sexual violence and contribute to unrealistic understandings of sex and sexuality."
A 2014 study revealed that watching porn actually could shrink a part of the brain linked to pleasure.
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