{"id":526165,"date":"2021-05-19T15:20:09","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T19:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=526165"},"modified":"2021-05-19T15:20:12","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T19:20:12","slug":"over-700-survivors-advocates-call-on-congress-for-criminal-investigation-into-pornhubs-parent-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/over-700-survivors-advocates-call-on-congress-for-criminal-investigation-into-pornhubs-parent-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 700 Survivors, Advocates Call On Congress For Criminal Investigation Into Pornhub\u2019s Parent Company"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fover-700-survivors-advocates-call-on-congress-for-criminal-investigation-into-pornhubs-parent-company%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=526165&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-909915966-1-e1608660492919-scaled.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Over 700 survivors and advocates called on Congress to demand that the Department of Justice conduct a criminal investigation into Pornhub\u2019s parent company MindGeek, warning that the pornography platform is permitting \u201cgrave crimes\u201d to continue.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>\u201cIt is urgent that Congress demand that law enforcement agencies investigate MindGeek as the pace setter in what amounts to a massive criminal enterprise,\u201d the letter said. <\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>\u201cAnything less than full legal accountability is an injustice to victims whose lives have been damaged as a result of MindGeek\u2019s knowing and willful actions,\u201d according to the letter.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Over 700 survivors and advocates called on Congress Tuesday to demand that the Department of Justice and FBI conduct a criminal investigation into Pornhub\u2019s parent company MindGeek, warning that the pornography platform is permitting \u201cgrave crimes\u201d to continue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBased on the presented evidence, including testimony of victims and MindGeek executives before the Canadian Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, it is clear that MindGeek has violated federal sex trafficking and child protection laws, particularly child pornography distribution and reporting laws,\u201d the letter said, according to a copy obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. <span class=\"typography__paragraph--large\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/12\/14\/pornhub-massively-purges-unverified-content-under-increased-scrutiny\/\">(RELATED: <\/a><\/strong><\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/12\/14\/pornhub-massively-purges-unverified-content-under-increased-scrutiny\/\">Pornhub Purges Over 10 Million Videos)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The letter is addressed to congressional leaders and signed by 132 survivors of sexual exploitation as well as individuals from 630 non-governmental organizations throughout the world, including Shared Hope International, the Salvation Army, Fight the New Drug, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), religious organizations, academic institutions, and more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCongress must act to bring justice for survivors whose pleas to remove their child sexual abuse, sex trafficking and non-consensually recorded and distributed material on MindGeek-owned Pornhub have been repeatedly ignored,\u201d Dawn Hawkins, CEO of NCOSE, <a href=\"https:\/\/endsexualexploitation.org\/articles\/statement-joint-letter-to-congress-by-over-700-survivors-and-advocates-calls-for-u-s-criminal-investigation-into-pornhub\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said<\/a> in a statement. \u201cMindGeek has profited from illegal material for far too long, and it must be held to account.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Congressional leaders \u201chave the power to discover why the sexual assault of women and children, child sexual abuse material (also known as child pornography), and non-consensual intimate images are being uploaded and distributed on internet platforms,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is occurring with no apparent legal consequences to individual perpetrators or the digital facilitators of monetized sexual abuse, (which constitutes human trafficking) as well as criminal sexual violence, and gross violations of privacy rights,\u201d the letter said. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/12\/08\/ben-sasse-pornhub-rape-child-sexual-exploitation\/\">(RELATED: Sasse Demands Full Investigation After Pornhub Rapidly Changes Policies Over Allegations Of Child Sexual Exploitation)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The letter referred to testimony from victims and survivors during an April congressional briefing in which \u201cvictims <span class=\"a\">described their powerlessness to remove documentation of <\/span><span class=\"a\">crimes committed against them.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"a\">One of these victims, <\/span>a 20-year-old survivor, reportedly begged Pornhub to delete \u201cintimate pictures of her\u201d made when she was 14 years old \u201cto no avail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe experience led her to drop out of school, develop drug addiction, and become homeless,\u201d the letter said. \u201cShe continues to suffer complex trauma and rarely leaves her home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>MindGeek executives said during the April hearing that the company reviews every video before it is publicly posted, statements which support the accusation that MindGeek \u201cknowingly and willfully distributed child sexual abuse materials which are present on their sites,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince MindGeek monetized the child sexual abuse materials, these admissions also show that they knowingly facilitated and benefited from sex trafficking of minors,\u201d the letter continued. \u201cAdditionally, because MindGeek intentionally placed a download button on every video distributed on Pornhub until December 2020, after being exposed by the New York Times, the company has violated federal age verification and record keeping laws under 18 USC Section 2257 for over a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is urgent that Congress demand that law enforcement agencies investigate MindGeek as the pace setter in what amounts to a massive criminal enterprise,\u201d the letter said. \u201cAnything less than full legal accountability is an injustice to victims whose lives have been damaged as a result of MindGeek\u2019s knowing and willful actions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMoreover, in actions that may also be consumer fraud, MindGeek has admitted to enabling U.S. citizens to violate federal child pornography possession laws by encouraging the download and possession of images of child sexual abuse (i.e., child pornography),\u201d according to the letter.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"View Over 700 Survivors, Advocates Call On Congress For Criminal Investigation Into Pornhub on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/508494226\/Over-700-Survivors-Advocates-Call-On-Congress-For-Criminal-Investigation-Into-Pornhub#from_embed\">View Over 700 Survivors, Advocates Call On Congress For Criminal Investigation Into Pornhub on Scribd<\/a> by <a title=\"View Mary Margaret Olohan&#039;s profile on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/user\/506904746\/Mary-Margaret-Olohan#from_embed\">Mary Margaret Olohan<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/04\/opinion\/sunday\/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html\">New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof<\/a> sparked a massive backlash in December when he accused Pornhub of monetizing \u201cchild rapes, revenge pornography, spycam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags.\u201d <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/12\/09\/hawley-pornhub-victims-sue-rape-videos-spy-cam\/\">(RELATED: Hawley, Lawmakers Introduce Bills Allowing Victims To Sue Pornhub, Perpetrators)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The popular&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/12\/02\/pornhub-sex-ed-national-center-on-sexual-exploitation\/\">pornography website<\/a> has been listed as the 10th-most-visited website in the world, according to one ranking, with 3.5 billion visits a month and profits from almost three billion ad impressions every day, Kristof said.<\/p>\n<p>Kristof\u2019s story <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/12\/04\/pornhub-rape-videos-new-york-times\/\">prompted multiple lawmakers<\/a> to call for investigations into Pornhub, and <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/12\/07\/visa-mastercard-pornhub-new-york-times\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">major credit card companies<\/a> also began reviewing their relationship with the pornography website. Both&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/12\/10\/most-major-credit-card-companies-now-block-payments-to-pornhub\/\">Visa<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/12\/10\/mastercard-terminates-use-of-pornhub-after-discovering-illegal-material-on-the-platform\/\">Mastercard<\/a> told the Daily Caller News Foundation in December that they were no longer allowing their cards to be used on Pornhub, and Mastercard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mastercard.com\/news\/perspectives\/2021\/protecting-our-network-protecting-you-preventing-illegal-adult-content-on-our-network\/\">updated its requirements<\/a> in April to state that banks must ensure that porn websites document the age, identity, and consent of <span class=\"typography__paragraph--large\">all persons <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/04\/14\/pornhub-mastercard-banks-payments\/\">depicted<\/a> in adult content as well as for those uploading the content.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Following the announcements from the credit card companies in December, Pornhub began removing videos that were not uploaded by the site\u2019s official partners or members of the site\u2019s programs. The pornography website had about 13.5 million videos before it began purging on December 13,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en\/article\/jgqjjy\/pornhub-suspended-all-unverified-videos-content\">Vice reported<\/a>, and many of these videos were from unverified accounts.<\/p>\n<p>The DCNF&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2020\/12\/14\/pornhub-massively-purges-unverified-content-under-increased-scrutiny\/\">confirmed<\/a> Dec. 14 that Pornhub had removed over 78% of its videos, leaving 2,913,964 videos on the site. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were over 3.2 million videos on the pornography platform.<\/p>\n<p>A Pornhub spokesman told the DCNF that the company\u2019s current policies \u201cfar exceed those \u2026 laid out as mandatory in the announcement today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs part of our policy to ban unverified uploaders, we have now also suspended all previously uploaded content that was not created by content partners or members of the Model Program,\u201d&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/blog\/11422\">Pornhub announced in December<\/a>&nbsp;following the backlash. \u201cThis means every piece of Pornhub content is from verified uploaders, a requirement that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter have yet to institute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neither Pornhub nor MindGeek immediately responded to requests for comment from the DCNF.<\/p>\n<p>Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact <a href=\"mailto:licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org\">licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over 700 survivors and advocates called on Congress to demand that the Department of Justice conduct a criminal investigation into Pornhub\u2019s parent company MindGeek, warning that the pornography platform is &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2312381,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-909915966-1-e1608660492919-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Over 700 Survivors, Advocates Call On Congress For Criminal Investigation Into Pornhub\u2019s Parent Company","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-909915966-1-e1608660492919-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Over 700 Survivors, Advocates Call On Congress For Criminal Investigation Into Pornhub\u2019s Parent Company","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}