Pornhub is removing millions of videos in attempt to rid the adult site of child pornography and other illegal content.
On Monday, the site announced it was purging videos from all unverified uploaders. As a result, Pornhub is pledging to only host videos created by official content partners and creators from the site’s verified models program.
“This 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,” the site said.
The crackdown appears to have eliminated at least 10 million videos. Currently, when you visit Pornhub.com, the search bar says it’s hosting 2.9 million clips—down from 13.5 million last week.
The site made the announcement days after Discover, Mastercard, and Visa all stopped accepting payments from Pornhub over concerns the platform was hosting thousands of child porn and rape video clips. The controversy was sparked earlier this month when New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof documented how easily the offending videos can re-circulate on the site, even after they’re taken down.
In response, Pornhub initially began restricting the download and upload features on its site. Nevertheless, the credit card providers pulled their support, dealing a massive blow to Pornhub’s attempts to attract and maintain paid users. Now the only way to pay for a premium subscription is to use cryptocurrency.
In its defense, Pornhub is questioning why the child porn controversy is threatening its business when illegal videos continue to circulate on mainstream social media sites such as Facebook. “It is clear that Pornhub is being targeted not because of our policies and how we compare to our peers, but because we are an adult content platform,” it said in today’s announcement.
The site went on to claim its two biggest critics, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and TraffickingHub, have right-wing ties and are actually focused on abolishing pornography and commercial sex work. “In today’s world, all social media platforms share the responsibility to combat illegal material. Solutions must be driven by real facts and real experts. We hope we have demonstrated our dedication to leading by example,” Pornhub added.
However, the founder of TraffickingHub, Laila Mickelwait, has long argued that Pornhub often ignored the child porn videos on its site, leaving victims to suffer while it profits from the traffic.
Pornhub is just one website owned by company parent MindGeek, which operates numerous adult video sites. We’ve asked whether the company will apply the same policies to other sites, and we’ll update the story if we hear back.
