The porn platform Pornhub has just announced drastic changes to its moderation policy. Its aim: to stop hosting illegal content.
The plan is a series of measures to combat stolen content, as well as child pornography, videos depicting non-consensual sex and revenge porn.
Of course, the site rules already prohibited all of this. But for a platform hosting more than 6 million new videos a year, there can be a considerable gap between theory and putting it into practice.
More moderation at Pornhub: why?
Content theft and sex workers
In December, Pornhub announced in a tweet that it wanted to make commitments to combat illegal content.
Indeed, many porn actors and actresses had accused the platform, which belongs to porn giant Mindgeek, of making money at their expense by turning a blind eye to videos uploaded by people who didn’t own the rights to them. This affected the big studios (who we won’t feel too sorry for either, although it should be noted that Mindgeek is even bigger than the studios in question), but also small studios and independent performers, as well as cam girls and cam boys, whose shows were sometimes recorded without their consent by unscrupulous “fans”, so they could be posted on Pornhub.
As well as seeing a multinational company pocket the profits from their work, this could also cause them problems with privacy. There’s a big difference between doing a one-off show in front of a small audience and seeing the video of that show posted online against your will. All without any way to get it removed, or only after time-consuming procedures, and with the risk of the culprit reuploading it two days later from a new account.
The adult entertainment community therefore welcomed this news with enthusiasm. With its “Model Partner” programme, Pornhub hosts the accounts of many porn performers, who earn money from advertising shown in their free-to-view posts and from selling videos.
Payment systems and anti-porn lobbies
But a few days later, bad news for Pornhub models. Mastercard and Visa, two of the main payment systems, decided to cut ties with the platform, citing illegal content. Mastercard declared that it would ban all use of its bank cards on Pornhub following the discovery of illicit content. Meanwhile, Visa suspended the use of its cards while it awaited the results of its own investigation.
For many sex workers, already made more vulnerable by the pandemic, this is a real disaster. Covid-19 led to the cancellation of a large proportion of shoots, many escorts chose to pause their work for fear of infection, and many people were relying on video sales to make ends meet.
It seems unlikely that Visa and Mastercard are genuinely concerned about the image rights of independent porn actresses. The main accusation levelled at Pornhub is that it hosts child pornography.
The accusations originated with a campaign called “TraffickingHub”, actually run by various religious lobbies campaigning for the abolition of porn. Bringing together lurid news stories about minors who had been abused, with the abuse filmed and posted online, articles in Catholic newspapers, and pieces written by anti-porn activists for the “Opinion” section of well-known media outlets, it is a particularly well-orchestrated campaign. Its petition to shut down Pornhub has, in fact, collected more than 2 million signatures.
However, although Pornhub has indeed at times negligently allowed porn videos involving minors to appear online, it’s worth knowing that this also happens on non-porn platforms. In a press release, Pornhub points out that “Facebook recorded 84 million child pornography videos over the past three years. By comparison, the Internet Watch Foundation found only 118 incidents of this kind on Pornhub over the past three years”.
Nor is this the first time payment systems have gone after porn. In 2019, PayPal had already cut ties with Pornhub, as well as Chaturbate and other adult platforms, and many adult performers can no longer access their accounts.
Pornhub’s new moderation rules
Pornhub has therefore implemented a series of new measures:
Upload verification
To upload a video, if you’re not one of the platform’s partner studios, you now have to verify your account through the “Model Program”. This uses a digital identity verification solution based on “biometric” data (in this case, the shape of your face) called Yoti.
The first step in verifying your account is the same as before: send the platform a photo of yourself, with your face uncovered, holding a handwritten sign with your username and the words “Pornhub.com”.
But now, once you’ve completed this step, you’ll also have to show your ID.
I couldn’t be bothered to start dealing with paperwork straight away to verify an account I don’t really use, so I uploaded the first image that came to hand. I obviously didn’t expect it to be approved, but I thought I’d be able to see what the rest of the form looked like. No such luck: I accidentally sent Pornhub a photo of a carrot sex toy. I hope they won’t hold it against me too much. It’s an adult, consenting carrot, so it should be fine.
Anyway, I wasn’t able to find out for myself, but the process for verifying a Pornhub account seems fairly similar to the one for verifying a Chaturbate account.
Downloads banned
Users can no longer download videos, except for those for which they’ve paid for download access.
Expanded moderation
Pornhub has hired an additional team of moderators, the “Red Team”, whose aim will be to continuously audit the platform for illegal content and keywords to censor.
The porn tube has also decided to use numerous automated tools for detecting illicit content, to combat child pornography and the reuploading of banned videos.
A form to request the removal of an inappropriate video is also available on every page.
Pornhub has also introduced the “Trusted Flagger” programme, a partnership with around forty child protection organisations. They can now contact the platform’s moderation team directly to have content removed immediately. In addition, the platform works in partnership with the NCMEC (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children) and cooperates with the authorities to report and eliminate any instances of child sexual abuse on the platform.
A little more unusually, Pornhub also plans, in collaboration with a child protection organisation, to automatically send deterrent messages to any user who tries to search for videos of child sexual abuse.
Transparency
Pornhub has committed to being transparent about the content moderated during 2020, and will publish a report on it.
Pornhub is polishing its image
Will these measures convince Mastercard and Visa to change their minds about the platform (and therefore allow sex workers to keep earning money through Pornhub)? Only time will tell.
In any case, Pornhub seems determined to maintain a more ethical image.
Recently, the porn tube launched “Sextainability”, an initiative aimed at raising awareness about the environment.
For the occasion, eight actresses and one actor filmed some rather unusual videos, the “Sexstainable JOI”.
At first glance, they look like “Jerk off instructions” clips, in which someone “explains” how to masturbate, but they’re actually tips on protecting nature. The result, half-sexy and half-comic, is free to watch. For every “Sexstainable JOI” watched, Pornhub promises to donate to “2030 or Bust”, a project to combat global warming.
