Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #12 - The Dark Truth about Pornhub (And Where You Can Jerk/Rub Ethically!)

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Do you know why Pornhub removed over 80% of its content at the end of 2020? The site was littered with child pornography and rape videos. Is it still? And if it is, where else can you go to find some ..."ethical pornography"?  A look into where to (and where not to)  beat your beaver and clean your meat-rifle today! WATCH THIS EPISODE: https://youtu.be/4coiGblMKAsFor Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to this edition of Time Sucks, Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins and today we'll be tackling the nitty-gritty, deeply complex, sometimes horrifying, always fascinating and very lucrative story of Pornhub. In other words, today things are going to get gross. But also sexy. But also gross. But then sexy again. When I talk about how there are a lot of places out there where you can find porn, you don't have to worry about being underage, exploitative, and non-consensual. There are all kinds of sites that host plenty of raw and passionate fucking of all sorts for you to watch, enjoy, and beat your beaver, clap your clit,
Starting point is 00:00:34 grease your gash, or spank your monkey, battle your purple-headed custard cannon, or clean your meat rifle to guilt fucking free. We won't be talking today about recent legal rulings against Pornhub, different types of new age verification checks in a variety of US states. This short suck is focusing on the overall ethics of Pornhub's business model. And then we'll take a look at some porn competitors that seem to have higher ethical standards. Starting things off today by covering how Pornhub came to be a pioneer of both the adult entertainment and the tech industry, as well as taking a closer look at who and what people are watching on the site. After that, we'll be investigating a much less glamorous and largely unheard of aspect
Starting point is 00:01:28 of Pornhub's history. How its lucrative business model has also allowed it to profit off of assault, rape, and child sex trafficking. More specifically, we'll be looking into a monumental scandal that the company poured a great deal of time and money into trying to cover up. In 2020, Pornhub removed over 80% of its video content. After an investigation revealed many of its videos were of unconsenting victims, children, and or rape.
Starting point is 00:01:55 And while that might sound like a good thing at first, they got rid of these videos. The company was made aware of all kinds of horrible content on its sites many years prior and did nothing. They only did the right thing when they got exposed for having a lot of illicit content. Luckily, Pornhub is far from the only smut peddler on the web. And I'll end today's little episode sharing some ethical alternatives as I mentioned to Pornhub so you can fiddle your flesh flute or polish your pearl guilt-free. Let's begin to start talking about Pornhub.
Starting point is 00:02:25 You know Porn Hub, right? The company with the infamous orange and black logo and the unmistakable drum intro jingle. Porn Hub is the most popular porn website in the world or at least it probably is. A few sources have it currently listed as a second or third most popular. Most have it listed as first. As of February of this year, 2024, it averaged around 10.8 billion monthly visits. Over 2.5 billion more than the entire 8.1 billion population of Earth. While I'm sure that the site has a tremendous amount of repeat users, clearly a lot of people
Starting point is 00:03:03 are watching porn. And there is, oh, so much porn to watch. According to the website, enough is enough. A website dedicated to making the internet safe for children and families. It seems pretty well sourced. As of September of 2023, there were 1.3 million different porn websites in the world. 1.3 million different websites. And a study published back in 2000 in publications like the Washington Times on MSNBC revealed that 60% of all web content is sexual in nature. I doubt a lot has changed since then. There's so much porn content out there. Just on Pornhub, one of many many many porn sites, even after removing 80% of its content in 2020, it was estimated
Starting point is 00:03:45 that in January of 22, they had more than 3.5 million adult videos, and then over 2 million more videos were added over the course of that year. And 2023 saw even more porn be uploaded. So it's safe to say, they probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million videos, stuff full of everything from anal penetration to orgies, role-playing, finger banging, hand jobs, foot jobs, bukkake, cream pie, strap-ons, squirting, ball busting, cuckold, cum shots, double penetration, fisting, 18 plus teen, milfs, gilfs, pissing, pussy licking, pegging, every ethnicity, amateur, professional, HD, vintage, and on and on and on. Just about any sexual fetish you can imagine. You can find thousands of videos for that
Starting point is 00:04:23 on Pornhub. And if you can't, you for find thousands of videos for that on Pornhub. And if you can't, you for sure can find them somewhere else. Porn has become so mainstream. I mean, even if you're not a frequent patron of Pornhub, even if you've never watched porn, you've at least heard the name Pornhub, haven't you? If you haven't, here's a summary. Pornhub, as the name suggests, is an adult content website where users can watch and download pornographic videos or even upload their own videos.
Starting point is 00:04:47 It's one of the premier digital titans of the modern age, both in and outside of the context of the adult entertainment industry. As of April 2024, Pornhub was the sixth most visited website in the entire world, ranking just under Wikipedia and just ahead of Reddit. Number one was Google followed by YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Xvideos.com another similar porn site. Number nine, at least according to a number of sources. So we humans overall we love watching videos on YouTube, checking social media, reading
Starting point is 00:05:18 Wikipedia excerpts, and watching people fuck on camera. More than anything else when it comes to how we interact with the Internet. Additionally, according to one 2020 study, Pornhub is the third most socially impactful tech company of the 21st century, the first being Facebook and the second being Google. When it comes to porn consumption, why does Pornhub reign supreme? Amongst the vast sea of dicks, clits, and tits on the internet, how come so many people choose to watch Pornhub when they need to flick their beans, slam their clams, tickle their tuna tacos, or choke their chickens, milk their lizards, or fondle their fleshy flagpoles?
Starting point is 00:05:54 What made Pornhub stand out amongst its fellow peddlers of filth before the 2020 purge of most of its content was its massive video catalog featuring more videos than anyone else. Some now say that both Xvideos.com and XXNX.com feature more content and also may have more traffic than Pornhub currently. There are numerous lists online of supposedly the most trafficked sites in the world and they don't always agree on the rankings. Even if that's true, neither Xvideos.com or XXNX.com have Pornhub's brand recognition. Also don't have as strong of an interface. Based on my very academic, not boner-based research, neither Xvideos nor XXNX are nearly as professional looking as websites as Pornhub. They tend to be
Starting point is 00:06:40 full of annoying, scammy pop-ups to try to take you to crazy websites warning you that your computer is now infected with a stupid amount of viruses, or that you've been recorded jerking off to porn, or whatever. You better pay up to keep that video from being posted, according to my thorough academic research. But for real, Pornhub seems to have put a lot more money into their site and added more bells and whistles, including a more user-focused interface, and did that before any of their primary competitors did. For example, in October of 2013 Pornhub introduced Porn IQ, an algorithm that curates personalized video playlists based on your age, where
Starting point is 00:07:14 you live, the time of day, and your search and watch history. It was one of the very first tech companies in the world to implement such an algorithm, with Instagram later following suit, soon after and switching their explore page to a for you page and then algorithm keeps people coming back no pun intended and helps hold users attention to keep them harder wetter and on the site longer currently approximately 2.5 million people visit the site every 60 seconds and the average amount of time users spend on the site? Just over 10 minutes. And who is this audience? Well, almost 80% of Pornhub users are your mom. So that was fucking fascinating to find out. Your mom accounts for most of Pornhub's youth. No, almost 70% of
Starting point is 00:07:56 Pornhub users are male. So probably your dad. And 48% are from the US. It seems as if we may be and 48% are from the US. It seems as if we may be the jerk-off champions of the world. USA! USA! No one plays a single string air guitar. Quite like American men. Pornhub was launched in 2007 and by the end of the year it was already averaging a million daily visits. By 2010 there were over a hundred thousand videos uploaded and then it just kept getting bigger and bigger, over a hundred thousand videos uploaded and then it just kept getting bigger and bigger, harder and longer, thrusting deeper and deeper into your libido. By 2017 PornHub had skyrocketed to 75 million daily visits and 10 million uploaded videos. According to the website, in those first 10 years the 5th most popular category was Mature, the 4th was Teen, 3rd was Am was amateur, second was MILF, and the
Starting point is 00:08:45 reigning champ at number one was lesbian. And the best part for most users about all this smut is that on Pornhub it's entirely free. Unlike some other adult entertainment websites on Pornhub you don't need to buy a subscription in order to access the bulk of their tremendous catalog. This is an essential, this is an essential part of the company's hugely successful business model. Same model by the way that has been adopted by almost all social media sites today. Instead of earning a profit through monthly membership fees, which you can upgrade to on Pornhub, Pornhub makes the biggest fuck bucks by selling ad space next to popular videos. Most of those
Starting point is 00:09:23 popular videos are uploaded by random people. If you want to film yourself or some other folks, fucking and sucking, you can have that footage up on Pornhub as fast as you can get it edited. It's simple and effective. With no financial hindrance, people can upload as many videos as they want, providing Pornhub with an essentially endless amount of ad inventory. It's an ingenious business model that has served Pornhub very well over the years. But as we're about to get into, it has also allowed the company to profit off of sex trafficking and child pornography. Pornhub is owned by the adult entertainment conglomerate, ILO, the company which also runs a number of other porn websites like RedTube,
Starting point is 00:10:00 YouPorn, Brazzers, Men.com, Reality Kings, and Digital Playground, currently based out of Montreal, Canada and operates under the private equity firm of, if you love this title, Ethical Capital Partners. They're probably about as ethical as anyone who uses the word truther is honest. Although you might not recognize the name ILO, you might be more familiar with the company's former moniker of MindGeek. I worked technically for MindGeek for two years when I hosted a morning show for the Playboy channel in 2015 and 2016. Because MindGeek had bought the rights to Playboy's video content. I didn't even know I worked for MindGeek for about a full year.
Starting point is 00:10:40 Their execs flew in from Montreal once for a tour. I was there, shook a few hands. Don't remember feeling one way or the other about them, but word around the office was definitely that they were not good dudes. Rumor had it that a number of models who worked for a show I was on would be invited to visit them all over the world for various company parties. It sounded less like company parties and more like just orgies. I have no idea if the rumors were true or not. Never talked to anyone who told me firsthand that they did anything skeevy, but just heard a lot of talk. And if you're wondering if I personally did any nude stuff, nope.
Starting point is 00:11:13 I was just a morning show host who interviewed actors, musicians, comedians, other guests while running pretty silly campy games full of mostly semi nude models. Pretty tame compared to just about anything you can find on Pornhub. Recently, on August 17th, 2023, the company announced it would be changing its name from MindGeek to ILO as part of a massive corporate rebranding. According to the press release, the new name ILO symbolizes a fresh beginning, reflecting our dedication to being a global leading tech platform that empowers hundreds of thousands of creators to earn a living, that employs innovative employees, and that provides hundreds of millions of users worldwide
Starting point is 00:11:50 with safe content. This rebrand not only marks a pivotal moment for our company, but also emphasizes our commitment to our employees, the content creator community, and the millions of adult users who visit our sites every day. The new name came a few years after ILO. Then MindGeek implemented some major policy changes to Pornhub, the biggest one being only members of their model program would now be allowed
Starting point is 00:12:12 to post videos on the site. So why that change? Although their press release emphasizes the company's need for a fresh start in a new brand that aligns with the employees' values and aspirations, the truth behind the massive overhaul is a very dark history of sexual assault and child sex trafficking. The truth about a lot of Pornhub's content was exposed to the many members of the general
Starting point is 00:12:31 public for the first time on December 4, 2020, when the New York Times published Nicholas Kristof's article, The Children of Pornhub, Why Does Canada Allow This Company to Profit Off of Videos of Expl of exploitation and assault? The introduction to the article reads, Pornhub prides itself on being the cheery, winking face of naughty. The website that buys a billboard in Times Square and provides snowplows to clear Boston streets. It donates to organizations fighting for racial equality and offers steamy content free to
Starting point is 00:13:01 get people through COVID-19 shutdowns. Yet there's another side of the company. Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revengeous pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags.
Starting point is 00:13:19 A search for girls under 18 or 14 year old leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren't of children being assaulted, but too many are. That is obviously pretty fucking troubling. A mainstream porn site, the most popular porn site in the world, dealing, knowingly or not, in kiddie porn, rape, and human trafficking. Throughout the article, the Pulitzer winning journalist goes on to share stories of a few of Pornhub's victims. Like a 15-year-old girl from Florida, who went missing in 2019,
Starting point is 00:13:52 was found a year later after police identified 58 different videos of her being raped by a 30-year-old man on Pornhub. Fucking crazy. Multiple of these videos had ads injected into them, meaning Pornhub was directly, if unknowingly, profiting off the rape of a minor. And as the article reveals, that is not an isolated example. Pornhub became my trafficker, one anonymous woman told Kristoff. She was originally from China, but moved to the US as a child after getting adopted by an American family.
Starting point is 00:14:23 Upon adoption, her new parents sex trafficked her and, quote, forced her to appear in pornographic videos beginning when she was nine. Nine years old and a lot of those videos of a fucking nine-year-old being molested and raped eventually ended up on and were monetized on Pornhub. Before Pornhub, so only verified members of their model program could upload videos. Literally anyone could post anything and anyone could download anything It was a fucking wild west of online smut So even when someone managed to get a video removed from the site for being child pornography
Starting point is 00:14:53 It would just soon get reposted by somebody else who had already previously downloaded it and that cycle would continue over and over and over and over again One woman whose videos were cycled in this manner identified in in the article as Lydia, was also sex trafficked as a kid. For almost a decade the same videos of Lydia getting raped were posted and shared on Pornhub over and over, causing her insurmountable trauma and pain. She was quoted in the article saying, my stomach hurts all the time. Similarly, another woman named Nicole shared how a naked video of herself at 15 years old continuously got re-uploaded to Pornhub. Despite her desperate pleas to the company to take the video down and keep it down, for
Starting point is 00:15:31 two years Pornhub did nothing. It's never going to end, Nicole said in the article. They're getting so much money from our trauma. A young girl named Serena Flaitas suffered a similar cycle of exploitation, both at the hands of Pornhub and her fellow middle schoolers. Back when she was just 13 years old in 2014, Serena was asked by her crush, some sources say boyfriend, who was just a high school freshman for a naked video. She was in the 8th grade at the time, had never even made out with a boy before, and
Starting point is 00:16:00 the request made her nervous, but he said if she really loved him, she'd do it. And she obliged. Then he asked for another video. And another. And another. That's when I started getting strange looks in school, Serena said in the article. She soon found out that her crush had shared the videos with his buddies and that one of them posted it on Pornhub. Word soon spread that naked videos of the young girl were circulating the school hallways and the internet, and the 13-year-old was labeled a whore and a slut by her peers.
Starting point is 00:16:28 She even started receiving messages from blocked numbers demanding she either send them a nude photo or they would send her mom the link to her Pornhub videos. One of which was captioned, 13-year-old Brunette shows off for the camera. Didn't even try to hide it. Eventually Serena couldn't take the mock anymore, decided to switch schools. Though her mom was able to get one video removed from Pornhub, it was quickly just reposted by another user that had downloaded it previously. For the next couple of years this continued to happen.
Starting point is 00:16:55 They'd get a video taken down only to watch it resurface. Over and over and over again. The rumors about Serena followed her to her new school, as did the bullying. Feeling like she was unable to endure the harassment for any longer. She would never be able to escape it. She tried to commit suicide. Luckily, she was taken to the hospital before all the antidepressant pills she swallowed killed her.
Starting point is 00:17:15 When she woke up three days later, her peers were still slut-shaming her online. They were still calling her a whore. Nude videos of her were permeating the internet still. Strangers around the world were still masturbating to her 13-year-old adolescent body and Pornhub still making money off of it. One of the many re-uploads of 13-year-old Serena on Pornhub racked up over 3.7 million views. And when Serena saw just how many people had watched it, she hung herself in her hospital
Starting point is 00:17:42 room bathroom. Thankfully, her second attempt at suicide was also unsuccessful. And it's hanged, not hung. That's going to bother me if I don't correct myself. Serena's little sister found her medical personnel were able to revive her in time. Following the second attempt, life still did not get easier for the minor. She dropped out of school, ended up addicted to meth and opioids as she struggled to escape her problems, ran away from home and ended up homeless.
Starting point is 00:18:05 Afraid to apply for even a fast food job now out of fear that someone there would recognize her from Pornhub, at 16 years old, Serena decided to start selling naked videos of herself on Craigslist. Feeling desperate, alone, full of displaced self-hatred, at the time Serena thought, I'm not worth anything anymore because everybody has already seen my body. Two years later, at now 18 years old, Serena decided to get clean and by 2020 when she was 19, she felt strong enough to share her harrowing story in Kristoff's article and to let her name be attached to it.
Starting point is 00:18:35 And then thanks to an outpouring of support from readers plus a GoFundMe that raised just under $100,000 for Serena, there are a lot of good people out there. She was able to move out of her car into a long stay hotel with her two beloved dogs. On December 6th, 2020, just two days after the article's publication, Kristoff posted on Instagram a picture of a smiling, sober Serena and her two dogs with the caption, I'm thrilled to report that thanks to readers.
Starting point is 00:19:01 Serena Flaitas, the young woman in my Pornhub piece, is no longer homeless. She just moved into this long stay hotel with her pups and sent me this selfie with permission to post it. Her room is financed by a GoFundMe that readers set up for Serena. And readers also offered her housing and jobs and generally enveloped her in love. She is so glad to be safe and off the street and looking forward to studying again. She sends her thanks, as do I.
Starting point is 00:19:26 Thankfully, Serena's tragic tale seems to have been given a happy ending. But what about all the other girls like Serena? Not highlighted. Highlighted. In a massively read article. How are they doing? According to Kristoff, although at the time the publication PornHub had banned the search terms underage and rape, videos of underage children rape victims still pervaded the site. When the term 13 year old was searched over a hundred and fifty five thousand videos popped up. The phrase girl with braces generated a long list of 1,913 videos also prompted a suggestion for videos tagged with extra like three X's small teens. The term rape with an asterisk
Starting point is 00:20:06 instead of an A produced almost 2,000 videos. Back in 2020 Pornhub profited off of thousands of videos of adolescents and children with titles such as beautiful high school girl is tricked by classmates and taken to the top of the building where she is insulted and raped and junior high school girl after class. My god the fuck is wrong with people. Additionally one of the many vile things he discovered on the site or of the many vile things he discovered on the site. Christoph also wrote, I came across many videos on Pornhub that recordings of assaults on unconscious
Starting point is 00:20:39 women and girls. The rapists would open the eyelids of the victims and touch their eyeballs to show that they were non-responsive. Pornhub profited this off of a video of a naked woman being tortured by a gang of men in China. It's monetizing video compilations with titles such as Screaming Teen, Degraded Teen, Extreme Choking. Look at a choking video and it may suggest searching for she can't breathe. Holy shit. Well arguably a lot of people watching these videos may have assumed the videos were made by consenting adults role-playing. I'm sure a lot of other people figured these videos were you know what they were advertised as. That
Starting point is 00:21:15 they were of underage girls or girls or women being actually raped and they watched them and jerked off to them all the same because of that. Kind of like a future serial killer beating off in the bushes, watching somebody through a window, working up the nerve to break in and do more than fantasize. How many dudes watching these videos were watching them in part to work up the nerve to get out there and rape women themselves? How many other sex crimes have been committed by people who became
Starting point is 00:21:39 obsessed with watching sex crimes on Pornhub? You know, became desensitized to them there. After the Children of Pornhub, who became desensitized to them there. After the Children of Pornhub article was published, the adult entertainment galay's Day of Reckoning finally came. And we'll talk about that reckoning right after today's mid-show sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads, you can sign up for our Patreon, become a space loser for five bucks a month, and get the entire catalog ad free and more. And I'm back.
Starting point is 00:22:07 Now let's hear about Pornhub's Day of Reckoning. In addition to the outrage from the general public, Pornhub and its parent company, ILO, suffered intense condemnation from its own staff, shareholders, and other partner companies. Pornhub's initial response to Kristoff's article was to aggressively and vehemently dismiss it. The day the article was published, Pornhub's official statement was that the claim that it allows rape, assault, and child pornography videos to exist on its site and profits off of doing so was irresponsible and flagrantly untrue. However, within just a couple of days, the Porn Titan changed its tune. Sort of. Under the pretense of reaffirming its supposed long-standing commitment to the safety of its community, Pornhub announced the removal and banning of all videos posted by anyone except its verified users,
Starting point is 00:22:54 or members of its model program. In just a few days, Pornhub's extensive inventory went from well over 13 million videos to under 4 million. This means every piece of Pornhub content is from verified uploaders, a requirement that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, and Twitter have yet to institute, said the initial press release. Nowadays, as I mentioned earlier,
Starting point is 00:23:18 to be able to upload a video to Pornhub, you may have to, or you have to, excuse me, become a member of its model program, or you have to be a content partner. Pornhub, you may have to, or you have to, excuse me, become a member of its model program, or you have to be a content partner. Pornhub content partners are certified adult entertainment film studios that produce their own videos, which are then redistributed on the site. Pornhub models, on the other hand, are individual porn performers who have undergone an age verification process to be able to post photos and videos on the site.
Starting point is 00:23:43 They can also profit off their content creation by instituting a paid subscription in order to access their channel or by charging per view. To join the model program, you first need to create a point-up account, which in theory you must be 18 or older to do. After that, you'll be able to fill out the model application with your personal information, address, and preferred method of payment. Once your application has been sent off, you'll move on to the verification process.
Starting point is 00:24:07 In addition to signing the terms and conditions, this involves uploading a live photo of your government-issued ID and taking a live biometric face scan to verify you are a real human being. After that, you'll click Submit, and within 48 hours, you'll be either denied or accepted into the model program. Pornhub models are then, in theory, now only permitted to upload videos of themselves. To feature another person in the video, that person first has to sign a performer consent release agreement and also get verified as a co-performer, in theory. By signing the release agreement, the secondary person certifies that,
Starting point is 00:24:42 I am of sound mind and body, acting of my own free will and fully understand the terms of this document, and legally able to execute this document. I have agreed to be photographed, recorded, or videotaped by or on behalf of the uploader in connection with my participation in the content, and that I have done so of my own free will and volition and was not coerced to do so nor underdressed to do so. I fully understand the explicit sexual nature of the content and of the site on which it may be uploaded to and consent to appear fully, partially nude or non-nude actively participating
Starting point is 00:25:16 or not in the sexual acts in the content." Uploader ascertained by examining the validity-issued government identification bearing a recent clear and recognizable photograph of me with no alterations that included a visible date of birth expiration date and my full legal name that i am at least 18 years old or over the age of majority and legal consent in the jurisdiction in which i live or reside on the date hereof the government identification referred to above was validly issued unexpired and has not been altered identification referred to above was validly issued unexpired and has not been altered. That a picture of me holding this document identification referred to above was taken by or on behalf of uploader on the date hereof
Starting point is 00:25:53 and at the time the content that features me was created I was at least 18 years old or again over the age of majority blah blah blah you know where the content was created and that's good right right especially in the in comparison to the free-for-all Pornhub used to be with practically zero regulations and ways to verify that everyone that appears in a porno has consented to being there. That's good comparatively, better than it used to be. However many people believe that Pornhub's verification process not even close to being a foolproof method of preventing exploitation.
Starting point is 00:26:23 fightthenewdrug.org, a non-religious nonprofit raising awareness about the negative effects of pornography, wrote that the biggest issue with Pornhub's verification process is that it, quote, only verifies the account holder. While in some cases the account holder may be the person in the video being posted, what happens in the other cases where the account holder isn't in the video being posted? What about cases of secondary person being depicted in content
Starting point is 00:26:46 uploaded to a verified account? And yet that secondary person supposed to sign a form, but who's checking? Is anyone going through the full upload to see exactly how many people are in the video, making sure that they've all done their required paperwork? I highly doubt it. I'm not sure. I couldn't find an article stating that more underage porn continues to be found on Pornhub today, but after Googling, uh, can you still find underage porn on Pornhub, and then being shown a message reminding me that child porn
Starting point is 00:27:13 is illegal, and that if I or anyone I know is struggling with an addiction to child porn to call, uh, this number, well, I fucking stop searching. So I wasn't going to look real hard, because I couldn't figure out how to fucking Google google Hey, I'm just doing a podcast and this is not for me. I just want to know like legally what's going on But I'm not gonna watch anything. I want to find out about child board not find child porn What I did find was people on places like reddit saying that there is still illegal porn on pornhub and I believe them stating that there is still illegal porn on Pornhub, and I believe them. In addition to being insufficient in preventing videos of non-consenting individuals from getting uploaded to the site, Pornhub's new verification process and policy changes were also not enough to prevent further backlash.
Starting point is 00:27:56 On December 10, 2020, less than a week after the New York Times article was released and two days after Pornhub's policy changes were announced, both Visa and Mastercard announced it would stop processing payments to Pornhub. Mastercard's press release said or read, today the use of our cards at Pornhub is being terminated. Our investigation over the past several days has confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site. As a result and in accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions to connect the site to our network to terminate acceptance. In their site. As a result and in accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions to connect the site to our network to terminate acceptance. In addition, we continued to investigate
Starting point is 00:28:29 potential illegal content on other websites to take the appropriate action. Pornhub called the credit card company's decisions disappointing and said the quote, news is crushing for the hundreds of thousands of models who rely on our platform for their livelihoods. Which is very true. Even though the content they were producing was 100% legal and consensual and they never had anything to do with the production, distribution, and monetization of child pornography and non-consensual materials on the site, the lives of thousands and thousands of legitimate porn performers were severely negatively impacted following the publication of Kristoff's New
Starting point is 00:29:04 York Times article. In 2020, once Pornhub essentially lost its payment processing capabilities, many porn performers were forced to move their services elsewhere. In some cases, they found sites that were, you know, good career alternatives and ended up being, you know, found places that were more lucrative than Pornhub. Hello, the rise of OnlyFans. OnlyFans currently does accept Visa and MasterCard. Prominent Pornhub model Siri Doll started focusing all her time and energy on creating content for OnlyFans and there she was able to get a little more creative carve out a pretty interesting niche for a price. I think this
Starting point is 00:29:38 is pretty funny. Siri started offering dick pic ratings through OnlyFans private messaging service. You send her a picture of your dick dick and she fucking rates on a scale of one to ten Seems to have worked out welfare because her account now has almost 300,000 likes Not sure how much she's making Or how many fucking self-esteem she's destroying but the top nude models and only fans are making over ten million dollars a year rapper and model Iggy Azalea, rumored to be the top earner on OnlyFans, supposedly making a staggering 36 million dollars a year
Starting point is 00:30:12 for sharing semi or fully nude pics with her fans. Holy shit. If I thought I could make 36 million dollars a year taking nude pics, you would all know exactly how my dick looks right now. He's a little shy, but he's not $36 million shy. Good for Iggy and whoever else is making that much money doing something we humans have likely done for money ever since there was money, letting other people see us naked. However, not every adult performer that was popular on Pornhub in 2020,
Starting point is 00:30:39 you know, was able to get their fans to follow them over to OnlyFans. As the Netflix documentary Money Shot, the Porn Hub story points out, other models were forced to go back to working for porn studios where they had much less control over what they were doing, who they were doing it with, and how much they were making. In the documentary, former employee of Mind Geek and porn industry professional Noel Perdue spoke of how it was also hard for these highly viewed porn performers to jump into some other career. She said general public opinion about pornography
Starting point is 00:31:11 ultimately does not harm PornHub executives pockets. It just doesn't. When there is increasingly negative media around porn performers who are very publicly involved in the porn industry, they can't just leave the office and go home. They can't just quit their job and get a different job. They are very publicly involved in a way that if you've been doing it for a while, is very difficult to erase fully. Following Visa, MasterCard's decision to cut ties with Pornhub, both Discover and PayPal also followed suit, and the consequences of Christophe's trending article didn't stop there. On February 1st, 2021, the Canadian House of Commons Ethics Committee launched an official
Starting point is 00:31:45 investigation into Pornhub's parent company, ILO, then called MindGeek, for housing and profiting off of videos of child sexual abuse, rape, sex trafficking, and non-consensual distributed content. Ten days later, a class action lawsuit was filed against MindGeek for victims of childhood sex trafficking whose videos of their assaults were uploaded to Pornhub. Later that week, four survivors of Pornhub's sexual exploitation gave witness statements to the House of Commons Ethics Committee. One of those survivors was Serena Flaitas, that young girl interviewed by Kristoff and
Starting point is 00:32:16 the children of Pornhub. Another was Victoria Daly, a young woman who discovered approximately 30 videos of herself unconscious getting sexually assaulted by her ex-boyfriend on a trip they had taken together earlier that year. She didn't remember much of the trip and when she was alerted to these videos she realized why. He had fucking drugged her repeatedly. In each of the porno posts Victoria's ex advertised that quote the girl in the video was completely unconscious in the captions as well as physically demonstrated her unresponsiveness in the videos. Despite reporting the videos for being non-consensual only three of the
Starting point is 00:32:53 roughly 30 videos were taken down by Pornhub and then all three that were taken down nearly immediately re-uploaded by other users. This vicious cycle continued until eventually there were over 60 videos of Victoria on the site, many of which have been posted by a verified account of some random couple in Finland. And because of this, Pornhub continued to refuse her requests for the post to be taken down. They sided with that random Finnish couple.
Starting point is 00:33:19 According to one source, in a final desperate attempt to get the company to believer, quote, Victoria sent a PowerPoint presentation to Pornhub, including images of her birthmark and other body parts as proof that she is the one featured in the videos and pointed out that her voice can be heard saying her ex-partner's name. Pornhub reportedly refused to remove Victoria's videos still. Her videos stayed on the site until that massive purge in 2020, when
Starting point is 00:33:43 Pornhub deleted 80% of its content. Then now exposed in a major way Pornhub did the right thing under immense pressure they did the right thing something that they could have done earlier but clearly chose not to over and over again. During her testimony to the House of Commons Ethics Committee Victoria said to think the amount of money the Pornhub is made off of my trauma date rape and sexual exploitation makes me sick to my stomach." Another woman, referred to only as Jane Doe One, told the committee how four months after divorcing her abusive ex-husband, she discovered he had posted images of her in sexually explicit
Starting point is 00:34:15 positions on Pornhub without her knowledge or consent. On the site, she also found a video of herself being sexually assaulted by her ex. She didn't know the assault had even happened. Again, she was unconscious. Let alone that it had been uploaded to Pornhub for millions of viewers to watch. The title of the video advertised that she was asleep and was tagged with the term sleeping pills. Fucking creepy. During her testimony, Jane Doe One told the committee, whether I was asleep or drugged is impossible to know after the fact. But what is clear in the video is that I am not conscious and there is nothing to suggest consent.
Starting point is 00:34:51 The video is clearly homemade, was uploaded by an anonymous email address. This is the content that Pornhub moderators supposedly viewed and decided belonged on their porn site. My video had been uploaded in August of 2017, so by the time I found it, it had been active on Pornhub for over 3 years. And I had no idea. In all that time, the video never got flagged or removed. The viewers, rather than being turned away by sexual assault videos, were actively searching out that content. The tags made this possible. And they knew what they were watching before they clicked.
Starting point is 00:35:22 It is a profound betrayal to know that thousands of men saw your assault and not only did nothing to flag it, but actively sought it out and enjoyed it. On Pornhub there is a comment section. So the night I found my video, I also got to read a man describing graphic physical detail just how much he enjoyed himself watching it. Sexual assault is not an anomaly on the porn sites, it is a genre. This leaves little incentive for these sites to moderate such content. On February 22nd, 2021, the Canadian House of Commons investigation found that PornHub consciously neglected to report proven instances of child pornography to law
Starting point is 00:35:58 enforcement until public outrage forced them to do so. Shortly after the Children of PornHub article was published, Pornhub filed a whopping 13,000 reports of child sexual abuse material, aka child porn. But the House of Commons investigation uncovered that from 2008 to the tail end of 2020, Pornhub had filed exactly zero reports of child pornography to law enforcement. Not a single fucking one. You know, when they're figured out he wasn't a gun to their head threatening their business, Pornhub aka MindGeek aka ILO chose not to do the right thing over and over and over and over again.
Starting point is 00:36:36 Around the same time, multiple class action lawsuits were filed against Pornhub and MindGeek on behalf of victims of childhood sex trafficking whose videos of their sexual abuse were hosted on PornHub and monetized through advertising. Later on June 17, 2021, another lawsuit on behalf of over 100 victims of sex abuse and trafficking is hurled at PornHub and MindGeek. The introduction to the suit reads, MindGeek is the most dominant online pornography company in the world. It is also one of the largest human trafficking ventures in the world, and it is likely the largest non-regulatory repository of child pornography in North America and well beyond. This is a case about rape, not pornography. It is a case about the rape and sexual exploitation of children. It is a case about the rape and sexual exploitation of
Starting point is 00:37:18 men and women. And it is a case about each of these defendants knowingly and intentionally electing to capitalize and profit from the horrendous exploitation and abuse of tens of thousands of other human beings so they could make more than the enormous sums of money they would have otherwise made anyway. Interestingly enough, these suit goes on to compare Pornhub execs to mobsters. MindGeek is a classical criminal enterprise run according to those who know it best, quote, just like the Sopranos.
Starting point is 00:37:46 The bosses of the head of this criminal enterprise, or at the head, are MindGeek's CEO, Ferris Antune and financier Berg Bergmeyer, representing a group of uber wealthy owners of the company. These owners, the overbosses of the enterprise, are unknown to the public and even to Antune because they did not want to be publicly associated or even risk being publicly associated with the criminal enterprise they fund and from which they profit. Indeed, until recently, Bergmeier had no identifiable public identity, let alone identifiable connection to Meinke. Instead, he literally secreted himself from the world,
Starting point is 00:38:19 hiding behind a false professional identity, an extensively scrubbed internet fingerprint, and extreme rules of secrecy. Yeah, you still can't find shit about this guy in line. On April 25th, 2021, the $20 million mega mansion of one of the bosses mentioned in the lawsuit, MindGeek CEO, Ferris Antune, was set ablaze in an arson attack. Property was located in the affluent Ahunsic-Cartéville neighborhood of Montreal, Canada, and before it was reduced to ash, boasted 21 rooms, 9 garages, 7 bathrooms, and 4 powder rooms. On the night of the attack, police received a call at 11.30 p.m. from a witness who saw two people trespass onto the property. By the time officers arrived, the house was already engulfed in what was described as
Starting point is 00:39:01 50-meter or over 160 over 160 feet tall flames. Although neighbors were promptly evacuated, no one was injured. Luckily for the Pornhub exec, he wasn't living in the house at the time and had recently put it up for sale. Was his house burned down by somebody angry over how he had exploited their abuse? I certainly hope so. Almost a year later, in June of 2022, both MindGeek CEO Ferris Antune and COO David Tseo resigned from their positions but stayed on as majority shareholders of the company.
Starting point is 00:39:33 August of 2023, in Antune and Tseo's place, Pornhub appointed longtime employee Alexandra Kukisi as head of community and brand. According to the company's press release, the new role will oversee all of Pornhub's creative direction and external brand initiatives, including those focused on its daily audience of 130 million users worldwide, as well as community and nonprofit efforts, performer engagement, and the company's support of the adult community in the fight against sex work discrimination." So it seems as though Pornhub is probably moving in a good
Starting point is 00:40:05 direction and taking steps to clean up their names since the Children of Pornhub article revealed some of the despicable things the company not only allowed on its site but profited off of and just you know refused to report. Should we trust them now? I don't know. Even if we should, should we support them or should we file the recent changes under too little too late? I think so. I think why support a porn company that has definitely been so shady might still be so shitty when there are many other companies that seem to be trying to really navigate a morally complicated space in a very ethical way. So if you're now worried about thoughts of rape exploitation and kiddie porn Casting a dark limp dry shadow over your nightly pillage to pornhub.com. Fear not.
Starting point is 00:40:43 Let me talk about where you can drain your wizard staff without all the drama, where you can grease your front butt without all the guilt. We've compiled a list of a few other adult sites that produce guilt-free adult entertainment, i.e. ethical porn. Although there's no hard and fast definition of ethical pornography, there's a few qualities that all ethical porn sites seem to share. The first and most important, two aspects of ethical porn is that to share. The first and most important two aspects of ethical porn is that everyone in the videos is of legal age and has consented with sound body and mind to participate. Additionally some but not all ethical porn is also focused on accommodating a wider audience, meaning
Starting point is 00:41:18 the traditional heterosexual male gaze not the only perspective it appeals to. For all the horny movie lovers out there, one of the more ethical and picturesque alternatives to Pornhub is Lust Cinema, a company dedicated to creating high quality feature length pornographic films and miniseries that merge storytelling and sex. And the previews, I gotta say, pretty fucking hot. One of their newest series is called The Art of Anal. I like that it's an art form now, which is about exactly what you think it is. frankly from the short clip of it that you can see on Instagram looks like it's shot pretty beautifully. One of their newer films is called Kazumi's Party they recently advertised the film on Twitter
Starting point is 00:41:56 with the caption adored and desired by five men of her choosing we invite you to watch a porn performer or invite you to watch as porn performer Kazumi so fills her ultimate gangbang fantasy. So the same kind of stuff you can find on Pornhub but without the guilt. Co-founder Erika Lust, a Swedish erotic filmmaker, shares more about her porn philosophy on her own website, erikalust.com, which is an affiliated porn site. She has a section labeled values which states, Erika Lust Films is part of a new wave of adult cinema made with an ethical production
Starting point is 00:42:28 process challenging mass produced mainstream pornography. These are the principles we follow to adhere to this sex positive mantra. Equal pleasure, women's pleasure matters. Our female characters have their own sex drive and desires and are not passive objects focused primarily on pleasuring the men. Diversity, represent all people equally and respectfully. desires, and are not passive objects focused primarily on pleasuring the men. Diversity – Represent all people equally and respectfully. Do not reduce performers to any primal feature, whether that be body shape, ability, age,
Starting point is 00:42:53 or ethnicity. Fair Pay – We pay every person fairly, from interns to performers. When you pay for your porn, you ensure that everyone working on the movie gets the right pay. Transparency – We have nothing to hide because we are proud of what we do. Unlike the tube sites, you can see the name of every person involved in each part of making an Erika Lust film. Safe sex environment.
Starting point is 00:43:17 Every performer on every shoot must provide up-to-date STI tests and choose which method of safe sex they will use. No surprises. Each part of the film is discussed and agreed upon with all performers well before the shoot. Worker standards. All shoots include multiple breaks, food, and a welcoming relaxed atmosphere. And fair commissions. Every director or studio feature is paid commission for their sale of their films. Studio featured. Another ethical porn science that has been praised in magazines like Cosmopolitan, Rolling
Starting point is 00:43:47 Stone, Glamour, and Marie Claire is Sh.com. 3S's 1H.com. On their home page Shush describes themselves as your source for ethically produced sex-positive adult cinema. Our crowd-sourced films are inspired by our fantasies and desires shared by our members. Our provocative storylines will challenge your perceptions of explicit sexual content from cutting-edge VR to narrative film. From the written word to auditory stimulation, we are uninhibited, unapologetic, and unabashed. Shush is the evolution of indie adult. It's feminist porn for women and couples. It's porn reimagined. Right? So if you're like an
Starting point is 00:44:25 indie type person, like a little indie record shop, like a little indie coffee shop, you can also check out some indie porn. Another highly regarded company to check out instead of PornHub is MakeLoveNotPorn.tv. Founded by uber successful businesswoman Cindy Gallup in 2009, Make Love Not Porn is a social sex tech platform designed to promote good sexual behavior and good sexual values Unlike many other adult entertainment companies out there make love not porn solely features unscripted unedited and non performative sex Through videos of real-world couples the company aims to showcase the reality of sex and pleasure as it happens in people's everyday lives As well as highlight how different actual sex and pleasure as it happens in people's everyday lives
Starting point is 00:45:08 As well as highlight how different actual sex is to the sex scene in mainstream porn So if you're like wondering like what would it look if like I filmed a porno myself? And really didn't edit it or didn't like really it was amazing lighting and just threw that up there Uh, you don't even you don't have to matter. You can just find videos of people who look like you having sex and be like, okay That's that's how it is and then there's dreams of spanking a queer focused porn production company that specializes making a BDSM content like all true ethical porn companies the foundational mission of dreams of spanking is consent one of the cool ways they do demonstrate this is by including dialogues between characters about consent in some of their videos. Currently cost about 13 bucks to subscribe to their website a
Starting point is 00:45:48 month. And then finally if you're just not gonna pay for membership and you want something that looks a lot like Pornhub but without all the bullshit you still want to watch porn where the performers are not being exploited and maybe where they don't look necessarily like you and look more like, I don't know, the porn performers you're used to, you can go to balisa.co, B-A-L-L-E-S-A, balisa.co. Per their website, what exactly is ethical porn? The term ethical porn sometimes used interchangeably with feminist or fair trade porn.
Starting point is 00:46:20 Is porn that honors consent, treats performers with respect, pays everyone fairly. The environment on an ethical porn film set is one of mutual complicity and understanding. According to sex therapist Kamille Lewis, ethical porn validates the needs, boundaries, and curiosities of the performers, while depicting sex as more true to life, often featuring performers with more diverse body types and skin colors, and perhaps most importantly showcasing real female pleasure. Ethical porn is inclusive, creative, and perhaps most importantly, showcasing real female pleasure.
Starting point is 00:46:45 Ethical porn is inclusive, creative, and consensual, she says. In case you missed the memo, there is an ethical porn renaissance happening right now and Belisa is at the center of the action. This means that when you're watching porn on Belisa Plus, you know that you're getting off to porn that has the following key qualities. And Belisa Plus is like the paid version of their site. The following key qualities are consent. Consent can be emphasized enough. There's a whack-load of mainstream porn out there that no one can't watch without feeling a bit gross.
Starting point is 00:47:11 Yeah, great. This is because there's a tension that's created when it's unclear whether everything happening on set was mutually agreed upon or whether coercion or force was involved. Consent is sexy and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. All sex on Belisa Plus is a hundred percent consensual. Nothing is filmed without enthusiastic consent from all performers. And there's legal age. Should go without saying that all performers are of legal age but this is certainly not always the case with mainstream porn. The endless variety of barely legal porn along with the mountain of probably not so legal porn that people choose not to talk
Starting point is 00:47:43 about is downright rampant and it's not okay. Being of age is a crucial aspect of giving informed consent, for starters. All performers on Belisa Plus are old enough to know what they love and get off on and show it. No incest. This cracks me up. No incest. On Belisa Plus, you'll never accidentally stumble upon a, quote, step-sister stuck in
Starting point is 00:48:03 a washing machine scene. Nor will you find any twin sisters fucking the same guys or father swapping daughters. While we get that fantasy is fantasy, we choose to nurture the empowering perversions over the more questionably twisted variety. Because we believe the world is what we make it. I fucking love that. Right? That's not kink shaming, but it is like kink judging which is important. I think I
Starting point is 00:48:27 Love that they're addressing the disturbing amount of incest porn on sites like pornhub. It's fucking crazy Chemistry is another quality. It's actually kind of appealing or excuse me appalling very different word How difficult it is to find mainstream porn? That's been instigated with real-life chemistry between two or more performers and the difference is palpable to say the least Belisa performers always choose who they work with so what you're seeing is the result of the authentic chemistry that occurs when performers get paired up With people they truly want to do Real connection is hot as fuck for performers and viewers alike Safety first. I love the way they write all this stuff
Starting point is 00:49:03 Belisa always ensures rigorous STI testing for the safety of performers on Belisa sets and what with COVID-19 still in the scene, this was written I'm guessing a couple years ago, we now require thorough testing protocols for that as well because we don't think pleasure is really pleasure if it doesn't prioritize safety and well-being above all. Another aspect is communication. Belisa performers are encouraged to communicate their likes and dislikes with their partners before shooting a scene. Much like off-camera sex amongst romantic or sexual partners, strong communication is key to getting the most out of the experience. Plus, bonafide arousal is a lot hotter to watch, wouldn't you say?
Starting point is 00:49:38 I won't read all the rest. It's a lot. But the remaining qualities are by women, pleasure equals everything, transparency, no pressure, comfort is a must, and empowerment is the goal. And if you think that all of that adds up to porn that isn't super fucking hot, you're wrong. Here are their categories. Passionate, girl on girl, hot guy, rough, story, anal, sensual, Threesome with Two Women, Big Cock, Threesome with Two Women, Two Men, Eating Out, Bondage, Squirt, Orgy, Homemade, Guy on Guy, and Sexhead. Some categories have a lot more videos than others. While there's just two Sexhead videos
Starting point is 00:50:19 and only six Guy on Guy videos, there are almost 1,500 Passionate videos, over 1,000 Girl on Girl, videos there are almost 1,500 passionate videos, over a thousand girl on girl, almost 800 rough, over 400 anal, and over 130 bondage etc. And the videos, I haven't seen them all! The ones I looked at, got into my research, good quality, stream well, no lagging, site's really slick. Also have a huge online sex toy store full of what looks like really high quality stuff, stuff used a lot of videos you know all kinds of stuff for all kinds of kink and while balisa.co advertise itself as porn made for women this dude loves it too to me it just reads is very sexy porn I was honestly doing research for this at home very I'm not gonna do this topics research at a fucking coffee shop I can
Starting point is 00:51:03 see my computer screen and I was working next to my topics research at a fucking coffee shop where everyone can see my computer screen. And I was working next to my wife Lindsay for a while and she was actually the one who brought this particular site to my attention. And while checking it out, let's just say that the two of us got distracted for about an hour. A really fucking hot guilt-free hour. And we were just watching the ads supported free stuff. You can pay for their premium content for $19.99 a month if you pay per month Or just ten bucks a month if you buy it for the year or you can just pay three dollars for a two-day trial And they don't fucking know us. This is not as an ad. I was just impressed. So get your porn on But probably not a pornhub or if you're still gonna use pornhub
Starting point is 00:51:40 maybe ask yourself some questions before you adjust your antenna or Maybe ask yourself some questions before you adjust your antenna or Start giving your half-blind dog a run for his money before you brush up on your typing skills or try the two finger tango Ask yourself. Are these people actually adults and do they want to be doing this and how about you also ask? Does it look like they're having a great time if you you get three yeses, okay, by all means, full come ahead. But if you get even one no, how about you close that web browser, you know, or app and look elsewhere when it comes to pumping your keg or rubbing your nut. And that's it for this edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. Hope you learned some stuff. I did. If you enjoyed the story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic catalog. Beefier episodes of Time Stuck every Monday at noon Pacific time.
Starting point is 00:52:28 New episodes of the now long running paranormal podcast, Scared to Death, every Tuesday at midnight. Thank you to Molly Jean Box for the initial research. And thanks to Logan Keith for recording and uploading today's episode. Please go to BadMagicProductions.com for all your Bad Magic needs and have yourself a great weekend.

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