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/
It’s a legitimate criticism. Evil exists in every aspect of life. Direct your vitriol to the people who are actually responsible - those doing the raping, the nonconsensual filming, the other vile things that happen in the industry, and not the people who just consume. It’s for all intents and purposes impossible to guarantee as the consumer that ANYTHING you’re consuming is ethical. From sweatshops making your phone and clothes to scumbags doing vile shit to make porn.
No one reasonable is comfortable with any of that. But I’m not going to bash the dude who’s just consuming rather than the top dogs making. It’s the same principle as climate control. It does NOTHING to target the consumer, they’re responsible for a negligible amount of the problem, and yet so many people are quick to point to “you didn’t do your part! You threw away instead of recycling! You drove a gas car!” Aim where it matters.
I will bash the dude knowingly consuming porn when he is aware that a non zero amount of is literally rape. I will also bash the rapists making it. Consuming porn isn’t like wearing clothes, or eating food. You do not need to consume unethical pornography.
Ok and I’ll bash you for using an electronic device and wearing clothes. Both of them are as coercive and damaging to people as consuming unethical pornography.
Or we can get to an actual middle ground of understanding, realize that the world we live in is the way that it is, and do some actual work changing it, from both sides. I dunno, one of those seems way more productive.
You know, as a rape survivor myself, I have to say that no wearing clothes and using a cell phone to access society are not comparable to masturbating knowingly to women being raped. Rape is not equatable with unethically using a cell phone that I require to exist in society at all. Again, you can just not masturabate to unethical porn. You do not have to do that. I go every day without doing that. You’re defending knowingly masturbating to rape. To a woman being raped. No, no, no I’m sorry if you’re not willing to stop doing that then there is no possible middle ground that exists here.
Whoa what? Who said it was knowing? I’m pretty sure every comment I’ve read in this thread has been “oh God, I didn’t know that studio did this shit, I feel disgusted!”
I’m legitimately sorry you’ve been raped. You also have to look around that lens and see the actual truth of the situation, not take it out on the people who are very much with you on this thing.
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.
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.
Masturbating to a woman being sexually abused IS a bad thing. Two different things can both be bad.
Sure and so is speeding. Different degrees of bad, or is nuance completely lost on you?
What are you talking about? My father doesn’t have a phone. Does that mean he doesn’t exist?
Your argument is only based on emotions. What if I told you that I had relatives who died working in the mines for the minerals in your smartphone? What if I told you the money you paid for nigh every product in your life was used to keep people from my country in shit? That you (specifically you) helped pay a company to fuck up the political system of my country?
Well, I guess it’s bashing time now, because I have the moral highground, right? I mean, yes, you were raped, but my relatives were killed; forced to work in inhumane conditions and die before you even could leave highschool. I had to flee a war with my parents where more of my relatives were killed all because of the consumerism of you, your parents, your friends, relatives, and your country. I should hate everything about you. There’s no middleground here - you and people like you are evil.
My anger is greater than yours, so my argument is more valid. Only somebody who had it worse than me can have an opinion that is “more valid”. Only they can be the arbiter of morality since their suffering is greater than mine.
Hopefully you get the point. Obviously I don’t hate you and do I understand why you’re triggered, but that doesn’t mean you’re right.
I’d say “I’m sorry your relatives died. I only got this phone so I could get a job and an apartment, both of which I require a cell phone to acquire in the modern world. All modern life is being tied directly to cellular devices and I have been coerced by capitalism and the government into getting one. Not having one means a significant portion of modern society is inaccessible to me. I wouldn’t have one if it was reasonably avoidable.”
Whats your comparable justification for masturbating to a woman being sexually abused?
This is what we mean when we say we live in a society that justifies sexual abuse against women. Its seen as an unfortunate side effect of men having sexuality. Youre acting like watching a woman being raped and whipping out your cock to get off to it is a reasonable thing to do, and like the viewer is totally casually disconnected from what they’re viewing. Have you ever wondered why so many women would be raped in the porn industry? Tell me, why is the porn industry full of sexual coercion and rape? Is this natural in some way? Is it natural for men to want to witness rape, to be fine witnessing rape, or to see accidentally getting off to rape as equivalent to “eating an unethically sourced chocolate” or “using a cell phone that was made of unethically sourced parts”?
The difference is I have a cell phone for a reason other than abusing workers. I eat chocolate because it tastes good, not because witnessing workers being abused brings me pleasure. Does it bring you pleasure to witness women being raped? Is masturbating to women being sexually abused an acceptable consequence of consuming pornography to you?
Yep, we’re turning in circles. You’re justifying your consumption of blood goods “because you need it” and “because it’s good”, and if someone said the same about porn, you’d say they’re evil. Yet somehow, you don’t think that’s hypocritical because you were raped.
Your rhetoric and argumentative style is just using fallacies and moral outrage. You know full well that not everybody in porn is being abused on camera or being forced to do it, yet you argue as if all are and that anybody watching it is complicit. That same line of reasoning can be used with your consumption.
Does it bring you pleasure to give money to corps who kill my people? Is consuming products made by the hands of little children a turn on for you? Do you moan in pleasure and exclaim “OMG this is SO FUCKING GOOD” when you imagine another family toiling away, possibly for their whole lives, to makes products that you only half consume and then toss in the trash because you’re “full”?
It’s terrible that you were raped and you are obviously still dealing with it, so I wish you the best of luck on that path.
Gonna copy paste another comment and then I’m done. Have fun being a misogynist.
Since we’re discussing reasonable mitigation factors, when was the last time you got a new cellphone? And the time before that? Were they absolutely unable to be used? Sure,you practically need both to be a member of society,but they don’t have to be fancy or new. How about your clothes? Did you wear them til they’re threadbare, barely holding together? Coffee? Chocolate? You ever consume those from non-fair-trade sources?
It’s absolutely ridiculous to place the blame for all of those things on the consumer. You do your best, and you make Boise about the shit the manufacturers and producers do, in whatever way you can bear. I don’t care about what’s worse between rape and slavery, that’s a fuckin dumb discussion they both suck. Do your best to limit your impact, but know that your impact alone, and mine, and every other person in this threads, is MINIMAL. Form allies, and together we can deal with the actual problems.
Masturbating to a woman being sexually abused is not comparable with eating something unethically sourced. I’m not gaining gratification from witnessing the workers being abused. When you masturbate to a woman being sexually abused you are directly getting sexual gratification from watching someone being sexual abused. I don’t know what to tell you if you cannot understand how that is different from eating an unethically sourced food.
You’re literally gaining gratification from the abuse of people. Don’t deny it. We all fucking are. Make allies, and fight it.
It doesn’t matter that you witness it or not. What most people witness when. They watch porn is something they assume is above the table. There are laws that say you can’t rape and you can’t film certain things. It’s a pretty reasonable assumption that most pornography you’re going to find would follow those laws, otherwise it’d be taken down.
A critical look at the situation reveals this isnt the case. Porn is going to be produced to look as legit as possible. That deception keeps a lot of people from realizing the shit they’re watching is actually horrible. Why place the blame for the action on the person that was deceived, rather than the one doing the deceiving?
To tie it all back together, consumption as we know it today quite literally cannot be ethical. Everything we consume is brought about by abuse, either of people, or of the planet. I don’t see the point in making it the person lowest on the totem pole of suffering who should bear that sin. It’s on the people at the top, and we need to figure out how to set OUR differences aside and target the ones actually doing.
So then, in your view, masturbating to a woman being raped accidentally is an acceptable consequence of watching pornography?
Acceptable isn’t the word id use. I think every reasonable person would prefer if it never happened. But unless you want to make the argument of “all porn inherently bad” then I think it’s as much a reality as killing kids for your cellphone is.
Frankly I don’t want to engage with that argument, it’s a bit outside of the nuance level I think the Internet is capable of. But if that’s your position, at least you’re internally consistent on that one thing.