Soon after the GirlsDoPorn.com case was resolved with 22 women winning the case against the porn website that tricked them, Pornhub is now under fire after it is being asked to be shut down on account of sex trafficking, child rape and teen porn abuse. A strongly worded petition has been filed on Change.Org to close the website, which has already received over 300,000 signatures. The petition has been launched by the Women's rights group Exodus Cry. They call Pornhub a "super-predator" site featuring "hundreds" of alleged videos of underage sex trafficking victims. GirlsDoPorn.com Row: Pornhub Removes Videos of Amateur Websites from Their Portal.
Not only does the petition allege that pornhub is enabling sex trafficking but also that there lie no verification or security checks when it comes to uploading videos online. When one tries to upload a video on Pornhub, it has been alleged that there is no background check involved about the person, nothing as simple as ID verification, so as to know what sources these videos are coming from. While it is understood that it is extremely easy to post a video on a porn website, it has also been involved in the sex trafficking of a 15-year-old who has gone missing for over a year. GirlsDoPorn Trial Comes to an End; Verdict on the Porn Website Scam to Come Soon.
The Change.Org petition alleges: "Pornhub has no reliable system in place to verify that those in the videos it hosts are not trafficked children being raped on film to line the pockets of its executives. All of this means that at this very moment, there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of videos of underage sex trafficking victims on Pornhub. We already have evidence, which is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s time to shut down super-predator site Pornhub and hold the executives behind it accountable." Pornhub had also taken down Girls Do Porn as an official "Content Partner" and profited from the arrangement.
The mind-opening petition also reads, "There have been several shocking cases of sex trafficking and child rape films that were hosted on Pornhub." It also describes how a 15-year-old girl who had been "missing for a year was finally found after her mother was tipped off that her daughter was being featured in videos on the site — 58 such videos of her rape and sexual abuse were discovered on Pornhub." It is said that some of the videos of the trafficked girl also feature a man, who has been identified as 30-year-old Christopher Johnson and is also a felon now, as he was spotted with the missing girl in February at a 7-Eleven in Broward County. Amateur Website, GirlsDoPorn, Accused of Tricking Inexperienced Women Into Making Porn.
The petition read how her trafficker, "who was seen in the videos raping the child, was identified using surveillance footage of him at a 7-Eleven where he was spotted with his victim." Giving a little bit of a background, it says that one of the most-searched terms on Pornhub is "teen" pornography and "has been a top ten search term on the site for six consecutive years." However, most of these videos "feature girls who look 13 years old at best — girls with braces, pigtails, flat chests, no makeup, extremely young faces, holding teddy bears and licking lollipops, all while being aggressively penetrated." It further read how "A quick search for the word “teen” turns up titles such as “Young Girl Tricked,” “Innocent Brace Faced Tiny Teen F---ed,” “Tiny Petite Thai Teen,” “Teen Little Girl First Time,” on and on ad infinitum."
This comes shortly after 22 women were deceived and coerced by GirlsDoPorn.com owner Michael Pratt into performing sex acts on film that were subsequently uploaded to Pornhub. While those women sued GirlsDoPorn and finally won a $12.7 million lawsuit against the company, these new allegations against Pornhub, the video content giant, are serious.
Pornhub has replied to the allegations in a statement, quoted in Complex News: "Pornhub has a steadfast commitment to eradicating and fighting any and all illegal content on the internet, including non-consensual content and child sexual abuse material. Any suggestion otherwise is categorically and factually inaccurate. Pornhub will continue to work with law enforcement efforts and child protection non-profits with the goal of eliminating any and all illegal content across the internet."
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 01, 2020 12:04 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).