TheQuartering [9/13/2023]
A new investigation out from Sound Investigations reveals that tube site Pornhub has found a loophole around the age verification process for explicit, pornographic videos. When videos are uploaded with faces blurred out, Pornhub does not verify the ages of those in the videos.
Pornhub CEO Mike Farley spoke with an undercover reporter over dinner, and revealed that execs at the porn site are aware of this, and that human traffickers and rapists use this feature of bypassing age verification to “make a lot of money.”
“Why do they roll with it?” the Sound Investigations reporter asked Farley, “Why don’t they say something?”
“Because it costs money,” Farley admits. “It would be counterintuitive to the business.”
“We’ve brought it up to the CPO [chief product officer]. We’ve brought it up to the CLO [chief legal officer], and they’re both telling us it’s all good. And the CPO is especially telling us like, ‘F*ck off. It’s all good. Stop. Like, shut up,'” Farley goes on to say.
Pornhub parent MindGeek is based in Quebec, and has been pressured to make sure that consent and age verification are done on videos hosted on the site. In 2020, the site changed its rules and made it not possible for users to download videos, only to upload.
They denied outright hosting videos of rape or revenge porn, but per the Sound Investigations report, they are not able to vet videos that contain that kind of content in the event that the face of the victim is blurred out.
Sound Investigations asked Farley what would happen “if the government was to find out about this loophole. What would they do?”
“I don’t know,” Farley said, “They’re not going to do sh*t. They’ll do nothing.”
“Why?” Sound Investigations asked.