One of the world’s largest pornography websites has been accused of turning a blind eye to a loophole that enables rapists and human traffickers to make money from uploading content.
Pornhub requires users supplying content to verify their identity, using documentation such as a driving licence, which is checked against a scan of their face. After approval, they can upload and monetise their content.
But Mike Farley, Technical Product Manager at Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek, now known as Aylo, told an undercover journalist that because it is “very common” for videos not to show people’s faces they could contain anyone.
Money
When Farley was asked if human traffickers use the loophole, he answered: “To do what, to make money? Of course.”
He claimed he was told to “shut up” when he raised the issue with the Chief Product Officer who he believes “just wants to make money as much as possible”.
Farley said that although the solution is to prohibit content where “you can’t identify the person”, the company does not want to do so because it would “lose a lot of money”.
In 2020, a New York Times columnist revealed that the website was “infested with rape videos”, including “child rapes”. Pornhub deleted over ten million videos but only after Visa and Mastercard threatened to withdraw their services.
Review
Earlier this year, the UK Government announced a review of pornography regulation to tackle any gaps which allow “exploitative, abusive and illegal” online content.
The review, which is not expected to be completed before the end of the year, is set to address the separate regimes covering online and offline pornographic material to ensure that any restrictions are consistently applied.
The Christian Institute’s Ciarán Kelly welcomed steps to introduce robust age-verification measures but called on the Government to also “address known gaps now – for example by prohibiting online content that would be prohibited offline”.
He urged Ministers: “Don’t put off to tomorrow what can be done today”.
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