We may or may not be of differing views on pornography, but here’s something we probably should all agree on: A pornography website should...
We may or may not be of differing views on pornography, but here’s something we probably should all agree on: A pornography website shouldn’t be getting praise for an environmental awareness campaign that bases how much it donates on how much you watch porn.
Furthermore, that site shouldn’t be getting praise when one of its most watched channels had to be shut down for alleged sex trafficking — albeit weeks after its owners were charged.
They also shouldn’t be praised when a missing girl under the age of 16 shows up in multiple videos on the site.
They shouldn’t be praised when illegal hidden camera clips from a college show up on the website.
And they shouldn’t be praised when revenge porn — very much in the news of late thanks to the resignation of Democratic Rep. Katie Hill of California — shows up on the site regularly.
That’s exactly what an anti-porn group says has been happening with Pornhub, the streaming giant which made news in August for a bizarre campaign which involves cleaning up plastic-strewn beaches through … a clip of a couple engaging in sex acts on one of said plastic-strewn beaches.
“The site is offering a flick featuring hot amateur couple Leolulu getting frisky on a beach that is loaded with plastic trash,” the New York Post reported on Aug. 27.
“Jumping on the eco bandwagon, Pornhub will mark each viewing with a donation to Ocean Polymers — a nonprofit organization working on sending a ship to sea that will pick up and recycle plastic from the world’s waters — and spread awareness about a pressing environmental issue.”
“While flicks in the site’s ‘Dirtiest Porn Ever’ campaign might appeal to a narrow slice of fetishists, the larger point being made is that a trashy background can put a damper on our trashiest (in a good way) viewing. On screen, the couple’s pornographic acting gets obscured by detritus until a cleanup crew — dressed in hazmat-style suits adorned with Pornhub Cares logos — tidies the beach.”
I’m not sure whether this counts as X-rated performance art or ludicrous stunt, or whether the two are even mutually exclusive. I tend toward the “ludicrous stunt” end of things, if only because of Pornhub’s sad-trombone promotional quotes for this thing.
“We’re dirty here at Pornhub but that doesn’t mean our beaches need to be,” Pornhub vice president Corey Price told LADBible.
He went on and “cited some 12.7 million tons of plastic in the ocean’s depths and a situation that may eventually result in garbage outnumbering fish in the deep blue,” according to the Post, because apparently there’s nobody like a pornographer to tell us what kind of damage is being done to the ocean via plastic.
“It is a very effective platform to raise awareness and support for the crisis we face in our oceans today,” Heather Wigglesworth of Ocean Polymers told the Post.
“This a brand with significant global reach, spanning all demographics.”
Well, not all, as the Post pointed out. It’s mostly males and 30 percent of total viewers are between the ages of 18-24. In fairness, many of those are probably under the age of 18, given that Pornhub is not rigorously checking for age or anything like that.
While the campaign’s been going on for quite some time, anti-pornography group Fight the New Drug took exception to the ongoing praise that Pornhub is getting for what amounts to an eco-friendly advertisement.
“We’ve been seeing a number of people praising PornHub recently for the porn video they released to help raise money to clean the ocean. But shall we review just a few other things PornHub has been in the news for, just in the past couple weeks??” the group posted on its Twitter account Wednesday.
We’ve been seeing a number of people praising PornHub recently for the porn video they released to help raise money to clean the ocean. But shall we review just a few other things PornHub has been in the news for, just in the past couple weeks??
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The group then cited the case of Girls Do Porn, a porn company which posted its clips on Pornhub for nearly a decade.
Girls Do Porn’s owners have been charged with sex trafficking and face a class-action lawsuit from women who say they were defrauded and tricked by the site into performing clips they thought would only be shown to private collectors.
1ST: The Girls Do Porn scandal: For over 8 years, PornHub hosted videos from Girls Do Porn, whose producers forced hundreds of girls into performing in porn. This is sex trafficking through and through.fightthenewdrug.org/sex-on-camera-…
PornHub finally removed their Girls Do Porn channel 2 weeks ago— and this only after the owners were arrested and charged with counts of federal sex trafficking. The complaints, however, existed long before the arrest. The videos are still scattered all across PornHub's site.
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A news release from prosecutors says that when the clips were released online, the women were “harassed and ridiculed and estranged from their families as a result,” and “some were sexually assaulted and in at least one case raped.”
That’s hardly all, however.
PornHub finally removed their Girls Do Porn channel 2 weeks ago— and this only after the owners were arrested and charged with counts of federal sex trafficking. The complaints, however, existed long before the arrest. The videos are still scattered all across PornHub's site.
2ND: This last week, a missing 15-year-old girl was identified in 58 videos on PornHub. The videos showed her being raped. Legally, this is both child porn and sex trafficking, yet it made the top 5 on PornHub and her legal name became a suggested search term.
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This almost certainly involves the case of a Florida man who was arrested and charged with posting videos of a girl under 16 on the website.
According to WPLG, “the girl’s mother told detectives in September that several videos of her missing daughter performing sex acts on two men had been posted on various websites like Pornhub and Modelhub.”
The young woman “is either fully nude (or) topless in all videos and performs oral sex and sexual intercourse in at least two of the videos,” a police report read.
The report added that police found “paperwork from an abortion clinic” in the accused’s home, with the young woman saying she had been impregnated by him and then taken there to have an abortion.
And there’s more.
3RD: Recently found on PornHub’s site were videos from hidden cameras in the locker rooms at Limestone college. PornHub removed the initial videos only after authorities got involved, although videos just like these pop back up regularly.jezebel.com/hidden-camera-…
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According to Jezebel, a camera had been installed in a sink in a locker room at Limestone College in South Carolina to show visiting athletes showering and getting dressed.
This isn’t an uncommon thing on Pornhub, either, with a search for “hidden camera” yielding over 100 results pages, Jezebel reported. Some are staged, others might not be — but it would be difficult to find out.
“In this case, the identification of a true hidden camera video would, for the most part, require one of two circumstances: 1.) A victim comes across or is alerted to the video, or 2.) Someone recognizes a person or location in the video,” Jezebel’s Tracy Clark-Flory reported.
In the case of the Limestone College camera, that involved a parent recognizing some aspect of the video and reporting it to a university.
While Pornhub said it has “a dedicated team of human reviewers to review content uploaded,” the company certainly didn’t spot this voyeurism. How can we be sure when it comes to other cases?
Finally, Fight the New Drug noted the presence of “revenge porn” — porn that’s often uploaded by former lovers who have been spurned.
4TH: And, of course, there's the countless videos of revenge porn. Despite continuing complaints and victims’ pleadings, PornHub regularly ignores and/or allows videos to remain on the site and be re-uploaded again and again. #NotYourPornthesun.co.uk/news/10194473/…
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“When I watched the videos I felt sick. I knew straight away it was me,” one British woman told the U.K. Sun.
“I felt dirty and ashamed, even though I had done nothing wrong. I thought I was in love with him at the time. I had no idea the videos had been filmed.”
The man had apparently filmed multiple women he had dated in sexual acts without their knowledge and then uploaded the videos to Pornhub.
“But when the Derbyshire police requested a statement from Pornhub they never responded and, this week the [Crown Prosecution Service] dropped the case as a result,” the Sun reported.
“Now, the internet porn giant has been accused of sinking the investigation into the incident by failing to respond to requests for information. Pornhub claims it did not receive any requests.”
But please, let’s report on Pornhub’s efforts to clean up beaches by getting people to watch porn.
Again, this is nothing more than an advertisement — an advertisement for an addictive, damaging product that Twitter users and the media are more than willing to distribute freely.
Porn will not save our beaches.
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