A lawsuit filed by more victims of the sex trafficking operation claims that Pornhub’s moderation staff ignored reports of their abuse videos.


Sixty-one additional women are suing Pornhub’s parent company, claiming that the company failed to take down videos of their abuse as part of the sex trafficking operation Girls Do Porn. They’re suing the company and its sites for sex trafficking, racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, and human trafficking.

The complaint, filed on Tuesday, includes what it claims are internal emails obtained by the plaintiffs, represented by Holm Law Group, between Pornhub moderation staff. The emails allegedly show that Pornhub had only one moderator to review 700,000 potentially abusive videos, and that the company intentionally ignored repeated reports from victims in those videos.

The damages and restitution they seek amounts to more than $311,100,000. They demand a jury trial, and seek damages of $5 million per plaintiff, as well as restitution for all the money Aylo, the new name for Pornhub’s parent company, earned “marketing, selling and exploiting Plaintiffs’ videos in an amount that exceeds one hundred thousand dollars for each plaintiff.”

The plaintiffs are 61 more unnamed “Jane Doe” victims of Girls Do Porn, adding to the 60 that sued Pornhub in 2020 for similar claims.
Girls Do Porn was a federally-convicted sex trafficking ring that coerced young women into filming pornographic videos under the pretense of “modeling” gigs. In some cases, the women were violently abused. The operators told them that the videos would never appear online, so that their home communities wouldn’t find out, but they uploaded the footage to sites like Pornhub, where the videos went viral—and in many instances, destroyed their lives. Girls Do Porn was an official Pornhub content partner, with its videos frequently appearing on the front page, where they gathered millions of views.

read more: https://www.404media.co/girls-do-porn-victims-sue-pornhub-for-300-million/

archive: https://archive.ph/zQWt3#selection-593.0-609.599

  • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    Okay, so now you know that a non zero amount of porn you consume is made by sexually abusing women. Are you going to certify that anything else you consume is safely and ethically produced in a non-coercive manner by participants who are consenting and capable of withdrawing that consent? Are you going to make sure you only consume ethical porn? Are the rest of the people in this thread? Are they going to continue to consume pornography the same way they have been, with little regard for how its made and by whom and the circumstances of the actors being filmed?

    If your answer is “yes I am going to take steps to ensure the only porn I consume is ethical”, then good. I hope you’re able to understand why the very existence and tolerance of this industry and this content is absolutely horrifying to me.

    • Ookami38
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      1 year ago

      I take every reasonable step that I can. I also speak out when I see something truly gross and damaging. I ALREADY DO THESE THINGS. The difference is, when I see a video that’s even ethically questionable, I don’t point to the viewers and go “AH HAH I KNEW IT WAS YOU!” I point to the people who made the thing.

      Let me ask you this. What is worse? Raping a woman (or man,for that matter) and recording it, or watching the video? I would absolutely say doing the act is worse than watching it. Circumstances don’t even really matter. It doesn’t matter of the watcher knows it’s a rape, or anything else except MAYBE of they explicitly commissioned the film. The act is far worse than watching it, in my opinion.

      My view is simple. Point your anger to the people ACTUALLY DOING BAD THINGS instead of those that just come after the fact.

        • Ookami38
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          1 year ago

          Sure and so is speeding. Different degrees of bad, or is nuance completely lost on you?

            • Ookami38
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              1 year ago

              Cool, so we agree on that.

              Let’s go a step further.

              Is watching a video of a guy being beheaded the same as beheading a guy?

              • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                1 year ago

                I never said masturbating to women being raped was equivalent to raping a woman. I said they’re both bad and inexcusable actions that I, and many others, are perfectly capable of entirely avoiding.

                • Ookami38
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                  1 year ago

                  Sure sure. Now add in a layer of deception. Let’s say PurePorn (fictional, as far as I know) has always been very good looking they sound like they pay well, are responsive to the needs and desires of all models, etc etc. From what you can tell, they’re completely ethical. The girls always seem to be enjoying themselves, it’s produced by a woman, whatever other green flags you wanna give it.

                  That’s about as ethical as you can be consuming porn, right?

                  Now, a few years go by, and some models come out about some truly gross stuff happening. The company gets sued, the women get recompense, yadda yadda.

                  From what you, as a consumer, could have possibly known, everything was fine. Now it’s not. You immediately stop watching their videos, report them any time you see them come up, inform fellow consumers, etc

                  Are you the monster here? Did you actually do anything wrong? Or were you deceived as well?

                  • winter@slrpnk.net
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                    1 year ago

                    All that to justify watching porn. You already said “you take every reasonable step that you can” to make sure you are consuming ethical porn. So you should be done.

                    Why try so hard to defend people who, being aware that it could very well be made sexually abusing women, watch porn carelessly? Which I think is obvious the criticism was aimed to.

                  • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                    1 year ago

                    No you’re not just as bad as the producers, but I wouldn’t watch it in the first place as masturbating to someone being sexually abused is not an acceptable consequence of watching porn for me.