PornHub & MindGeek | Canada's Federal Ethics Committee
MindGeek's Pornography Issues
MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub, has been in hot water over the past year, now culminating in a hearing in front of Canada’s Federal Ethics Committee.
February 8, 2021
In this article:
- Where did MindGeeks issues begin?
- What are the most recent allegations against them?
- What was their response?
- What was the ethics hearing about?
- What is their defense?
MindGeek is the parent company of Pornhub (a site that I’ve never heard of, nor visited). They’ve been the world leader in the porngraphic community for a few years now. They are legally headquartered in Luxembourg, but have stationed their head offices in Montreal.
MindGeek’s first issues
In December of 2020, The New York Times published an article that called out the company for its alleged abuse of minors and adults alike. Visa and Mastercard launched an investigation of their own, and cut ties with the company.
In the same month, 40 women in California claimed that MindGeek, through Pornhub, profited off of videos that were made without their consent. This involved the channel GirlsDoPorn, where seemingly unknown actresses and non-actresses are filmed.
MindGeek did not cease its partnership with GirlsDoPorn until GirlsDoPorn was formally charged in November of 2019. One of the operators, Ruben Andre Garcia, also pleaded guilty to two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion.
In January of 2020, California state courts awarded 22 women nearly $13 million USD in damages.
In the more recent, 40 woman suit, the plaintiffs could each get up to $2 million USD in damages.
More allegations
Now an Ontario resident has started another class action lawsuit against MindGeek. The suit alleges that MindGeek has profited off of child sexual abuse and non-consensual content since 2007.
The lawsuit is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. Interestingly enough, this suit applies worldwide to those who were taken advantage of in the name of profit.
The response
In the wake of this, Pornhub says that it has removed all content uploaded by non-verified users. This is a good start, but the issues don’t necessarily stem from uploads by non-verified users, especially in the GirlsDoPorn case.
Verified users on Pornhub consist of content partners and members of its Model Program, which requires age verification to join.
MindGeek also began a partnership with Yoti in December of 2020. They state that, “Yoti’s tools will enhance [their] ability to detect attempts by people to provide false identification during the moderation process.”
They will be using Yoti’s Identity Verification, Age Scan, and Digital ID solutions, allowing MindGeek to verify uploaders and visitors.
The ethics hearing
On February 5th, 2021, MindGeek executives David Marmorstein Tassillo and Feras Antoon testified in front of Canada’s Federal Ethics Committee over their recent and ongoing child pornography allegations.
This comes on the heels of another testification by 19 year old Serena Fleites. She alleged that MindGeek caused irreversible damage to her life after a video of her when she was 13 years old was published on Pornhub. The title of the video was, “13 year old brunette shows off for the camera.” This seems to be damning evidence that they knowingly profited off of child pornography.
When she contacted Pornhub to take the video down, they didn’t respond for over a week, and only removed it several weeks later.
The video allegedly resurfaced on the site a few days later. She faced constant bullying and eventually resorted to drugs amidst all of the abuse.
Their defense
Facing quite damning evidence, the MindGeek executives say that they need to complete their own investigations into Fleites’ alleged messages. They state that they haven’t found any evidence of the messages yet.
The steps they’ve taken recently, through the partnership with Yoti and their removal of unverified content can be argued to show that they care about these issues.
At the hearing, Tassillo assured everyone that MindGeek operates, “the safest adult platform in the world right now.”
But he also added that it’s possible that people have been able to get around their security systems, and that they take these breaches seriously.
But at a certain point, that may not be good enough. Their new partnerships and steps in the right direction are a start, but until there is zero abuse, trafficking, or any other misconduct, they are responsible for all of the awful things published on their sites.
-by Arlen Dancziger
NY Times article
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html
40 woman lawsuit
Ontario based lawsuit
https://globalnews.ca/news/7565362/class-action-lawsuit-quebec-pornhub-mindgeek/
Pornhub removed content
https://globalnews.ca/news/7521547/pornhub-removes-content-unverified-users/
MindGeek Yoti partnership
Ethics hearing
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