Pornhub, the popular porn website, is facing major deserved backlash today as 34 women came forward with a lawsuit stating that videos of them were posted without their consent. And, as over half of the survivors involved in the case were minors at the time, Pornhub is being accused of violating sex trafficking laws and distributing child pornography. Many of the women have also said that their videos were the products of abuse and rape and the distress that this has had on them is irreparable.
According to NBC News, Pornhub is denying all of the charges saying it “has zero tolerance for illegal content and investigates any complaint or allegation made about content on our platforms.”
The women involved in the case have all come out with harrowing accounts of not only their exploitation but also of the gaslighting and noncompliance of Pornhub at the time of the incidents. These women were placed in a position where they were forced to fight to get the videos taken down and protect their own privacy while Pornhub made no attempt to help them.
The lawsuit calls attention to the exploitation that women everywhere face when it comes to sites such as Pornhub, which are looking to make a profit regardless of the context of the content they are putting into the world. This lawsuit is starting a much-needed conversation on the importance of consent in the porn industry, and will hopefully enact change.
Top Photo by Shane Uchi on Unsplash
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Payton Toomey is an editorial intern at BUST and a student at the University of Arizona studying Journalism and Information Sciences and eSociety. She loves writing about mental health, feminism and pop culture. You can follow her on Twitter @PaytonToomey.
