A New York Times blogpost put pressure on the porn site over videos of rape and child abuse, but only when money was at risk did it take action
On 4 December, the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof published a column entitled The Children of Pornhub. Pornhub attracts 3.5bn visitors a month, rakes in money from 3bn advertising impressions a day and, says Kristof, “prides itself on being the cheery, winking face of naughty, the website that buys a billboard in Times Square and provides snowploughs to clear Boston streets. It donates to organisations fighting for racial equality and offers steamy content free to get people through Covid-19 shutdowns.”
If you sense a “but” coming, you’re spot on. Kristof continues: “There’s another side of the company: its site is infested with rape videos. It monetises child rapes, revenge pornography, spycam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for ‘girls under18“’ (no space) or ‘14yo’ leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.”
