Forty Women Sue Pornhub For Profiting Off Their Exploitation
(Link): Forty Women Sue Pornhub For Profiting Off Their Exploitation
Excerpts:
by Brandon Showalter
Forty women are suing Pornhub, claiming the pornography site profited off their exploitation as victims of sex trafficking.
According to (Link): BBC News, the women are all victims of Girls Do Porn, the owners of which have been charged with various sex crimes.
The 40 women, all of whom are referred to by the pseudonym Jane Doe and are each seeking over $1 million in damages, say in the lawsuit that both the porn site and its parent company, MindGeek, were aware of the allegations against Pornhub and yet continued in a business partnership.
The United States Department of Justice effectively shut down Girls Do Porn in 2019 when its senior staff were arrested and charged. Until that point, it had been a partner of MindGeek.
“As early as 2009, and definitely by fall 2016, MindGeek knew Girls Do Porn was trafficking its victims by using fraud, coercion, and intimidation,” the complaint reads.
“Despite this knowledge, MindGeek continued to partner with Girls Do Porn, never bothering to investigate or question its business partner regarding the mounting evidence of sex trafficking that MindGeek received.”
The company “simply did not care … until it was no longer profitable,” the complaint continued.
…The lawsuit comes amid increased pushback against Pornhub and following a (Link): petition that has since its February launch been signed by over 2 million people calling for the site to be shut down because of its demonstrable facilitation of trafficking.
…Credit card companies (Link): Visa and Mastercard soon thereafter announced they would suspend the use of their cards on the site and “investigate” their relationship with both Pornhub and MindGeek. Pornhub (Link): reportedly removed millions of videos from “unverified” users.
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