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Pornhub under fire for rape and abuse videos

WION Web Team
New Delhi Updated: Mar 09, 2020, 06:40 PM IST
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Pornhub is the world's largest porn site. Photograph:(Zee News Network)

Story highlights

The petition was started by a group called Exodus Cry in the US but is being supported by activists in the UK, where Mindgeek also has offices.

An online petition accusing Pornhub, world’s biggest porn site, of profiting from videos of rape and sexual abuse has gained more than 350,000 signatures.

Pornhub, which was visited 42 billion times last year, is free to access, with no age restrictions, and raises revenue through advertising and paid-for promotions by porn producers.

The serious allegations levied against Pornhub owner Mindgeek centre on the perceived insufficiency of the company’s safeguarding checks on the 6m videos a year that are posted on the site, many by amateur producers, reported UK based newspaper The Guardian. 

Over the past year, the company has been facing several criminal charges including one on Rose Kalemba , who was raped and video uploaded on the site.

The petition was started by a group called Exodus Cry in the US but is being supported by activists in the UK, where Mindgeek also has offices.

Some of the videos on Pornhub – as on other free to view sites – show extremely hardcore and violent pornography.

Campaigners say that this fact, coupled with the high prevalence of videos promoting sex with young teenagers – “teen” is one of the most popular categories on the site – means there is an urgent need to know for certain that videos are made consensually.