Feature Photo — Pornhub’s website on the screen, “There’s a lot more to Pornhub than you think!” Anut21ng Photo – stock.adobe.com
TORONTO and QUEBEC — An Ontario resident has started a proposed class action in Quebec against Montreal-based company MindGeek alleging that it has profited off of child sexual abuse material and non-consensual content since as far back as 2007.
According to it’s Wikipedia page, the website was launched in 2007 by web developer Matt Keezer as a website within the company Interhub but was later bought by the company MindGeek in 2010, the parent company also owns numerous other pornographic websites and even has offices and servers in Limassol, Cyprus.
“The case brought by Siskinds, Desmeules Advocats, s.e.n.c.r.l. in collaboration with Sotos Class Actions, alleges that MindGeek, the parent company of the popular pornography website Pornhub, illegally disseminated intimate videos and photos including depictions of child sexual abuse, sexual assault of adults, as well as intimate images of adults who did not consent to the public dissemination of their images,” reads the press release.
It continues to read; “According to the application for authorization to institute the class action, MindGeek is alleged to have monetized unverified user content while failing to employ enough properly trained content moderators to review images on its website, and having no or inadequate policies and procedures to screen and remove all abuse and non-consensual content that was uploaded by unverified users.”
Just at the end of last year, in December 2020, payment processors Mastercard and Visa cut their services to Pornhub following an article from The New York Times. On Dec. 14, 2020, they removed all videos from unverified users.
“The class action seeks a minimum of $600 million in compensation for all persons worldwide who, since 2007, had intimate videos or photos (including child sexual abuse material, images of sexual assault and non-consensual intimate images) posted without their consent to a website owned or operated by one of the MindGeek entities, either directly or indirectly.”
The company has been previously criticized for slow or inadequate responses to these allegations, including the hosting of the high-profile channel, “Girls Do Porn,” which was closed in 2019 following a lawsuit and charges of sex trafficking.
The website has been blocked in countries like Pakistan, the Philippines, India and mainland China.
ARTICLE: Two million strong — petition seeks to shut down Pornhub
Diverge Media has previously reported on a petition to shut down the website, which has garnered over two million signatures. It was founded by Lalia Mickelwait, with the petition reading;
“The world’s largest and most popular porn site has been repeatedly caught enabling, hosting and profiting from videos of child rape, sex trafficking and other forms of non-consensual content exploiting women and minors. We’re calling for Pornhub to be shut down and its executives held accountable for these crimes.”
Pornhub generates over 42 billion visits to its site each year.
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