A $600 million lawsuit has been filed against Pornhub's parent company, MindGeek, accusing it of hosting child pornography videos on its site .
The lawsuit, filed in Quebec Superior Court in late December but first reported by Le Journal de Montréal on Jan. 8, seeks redress and compensation for minors exposed to the site’s prohibited, sensitive content. The $600 million child pornography lawsuit against MindGeek was brought by an Ontario woman who alleged she was raped when she was about 12 years old and a video of rape was posted on the Montreal site.
The woman also said the company ignored her repeated calls to remove the video from its site. According to the lawsuit, the company has profited from child sexual abuse content and non-consensual sexual content since 2007.
It's worth noting that this is the second lawsuit filed against Pornhub in a month. On December 16, 2020, an $80 million lawsuit was filed against MindGeek, as 40 women accused the company of working with a video maker who tricked or coerced young girls into appearing on camera. In addition, the women claim that the company made millions of dollars in profit from the alleged sex trafficking scheme.
Both lawsuits come after a damning New York Times investigation that has already led to massive changes to how Pornhub operates . Among other things, the porn site has stopped accepting videos from unverified, unidentified users , while also removing most of its previous content from its platform .
Additionally, the porn site removed over 10 million videos from its page last month as part of its recent crackdown on illegal content.
A Pornhub spokesperson who was asked to comment on the lawsuits filed against the company for child pornography declined to comment.
According to the claim filed in Quebec, Pornhub is one of the most visited websites in the world, attracting 3.5 billion visits per month. Additionally, MindGeek currently employs approximately 1,000 people.
Lawyers have been calling for the site to be shut down for years, while Canadian leaders have pledged to consider whether new legislation is needed for Pornhub and similar companies.
