Serena Fleites was in seventh grade when an obscene sex video of herself was uploaded to Pornhub. The fallout from that fateful post — made without her knowledge after a friend asked her to send him nude photos — was to lead her down a long path of depression, drug use, and self-harm, as the content repeatedly resurfaced on the Montreal-based platform and across the Internet.
The 19-year-old California resident says it took Pornhub more than a week to respond to her initial request to take down the video and even more weeks to remove it, while a few days later the site re-uploaded the video in question.
"It had already been downloaded by people all over the world, and the site kept uploading it over and over again. They are really selfish. They need to look in the mirror, because they prioritize money over human lives,"Fleites told a parliamentary committee on February 1, where she blasted Pornhub.
Similar accusations against Pornhub have been filed by other people in the past month, claiming that the site contains scenes depicting their rapes, or revenge porn, or sexual material that was published without their consent.
Companies like MindGeek, which owns Pornhub and many other sites like YouPorn and RedTube, have thrived for years, despite occasional reports that these sites contain material of underage children or material that the exposed individuals have not given their consent to be shared, and despite laws against child pornography and sexual abuse material.
Lianna McDonald, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, told the House of Commons ethics committee last week that she was concerned about the policies of platforms like Pornhub. She said the sites are free to set their own content moderation policies and reporting procedures, leaving victims “at the mercy of these companies.” There is no self-regulatory industry body to handle complaints or enforce standards.
In Canada, users who upload “illegal” photos are jointly liable with the companies that distribute them. This includes cases of child pornography or material published without the consent of the person being exposed. This is different in the US, where the Communications Decency Act (CDA) does not hold web platforms liable for user-generated material.
Daniel Bernhard, executive director of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, said the following: “Do we really need a new law to tell us that broadcasting child sexual abuse material is illegal? The problem is that there is no law being enforced. Grey areas and enforcement barriers are part of the problem.”
No regulation explicitly requires sites to screen their content – either through algorithms or human moderators – or to verify the ages and consent of participants. Furthermore, the case where an individual does not consent to the sharing of content that exposes them – which constitutes a violation of the Criminal Code – remains unclear.
Lloyd Richardson, director of information technology at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, stressed that such legal loopholes exist and need to be closed.
In December, a Toronto-based platform called YesUp Media became the first company in Canada known to be convicted of criminal charges under a 10-year-old federal law that requires companies to report online child pornography if they learn their business is being used to access it.
This case highlighted the lack of prosecution for a crime that is ubiquitous on the internet. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has received over 210,000 reports of online child sexual exploitation since 2018
YesUp, which had warned hundreds of times that a Vietnam-based client was hosting massive amounts of child pornography, faced a $100,000 fine. In addition, four men who worked with the company and were charged with crimes were fined $1,000.
These sanctions act as a small deterrent for the porn giants. The fine is a drop in the ocean of profits for arguably Canada's largest technology company, MindGeek, and its subsidiary, Pornhub, which ranks among the 12 most visited sites in the world, surpassing Netflix, Yahoo and Zoom.
The global online pornography scene is largely borderless, which is particularly worrying for authorities. Police lack the full toolkit to prosecute page owners who share videos of young victims or to shut down sites that advertise sex with minors.
Among the recommendations is changing the definition of “place” in the Criminal Code, as it can be difficult for police to act if the crime occurs in another country or if servers are in a different jurisdiction.
MindGeek is based in Montreal but operates globally, and jurisdiction is difficult to determine because it hosts content outside of Canada, said RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Caroline Duval. International standards and cooperation are therefore needed to address illegal distribution online, said Kate Isaacs, founder of the UK-based “Not Your Porn,” which campaigns against the use of sexual images posted without the consent of the person involved.
So, Isaacs is calling for regulations that require companies to have trained staff to review and remove content, while also maintaining detailed records of user reports and responses that can be audited.
Pornhub has denied allegations that it allows child sexual abuse material to be posted on its site, saying in December that about 10 million videos were posted on its platform by unverified users. “Every allegation is irresponsible and untrue,” the company said in an email late last year, claiming it has a “zero tolerance” policy for child sexual abuse material.
Pornhub also added that it works with dozens of non-profit organizations that aim to flag content and stop online child exploitation. It also noted that it takes extensive measures to remove such material, including a “massive team” of human moderators who manually review each of the 6.8 million videos uploaded annually and remove any illegal material, along with automated detection technologies.
The US House of Representatives ethics committee is expected to make recommendations, in a report to Congress later this year, on online privacy and consent.
Finally, Charlie Angus, the NDP’s ethics critic, said: “It appears that the horrific abuse suffered by Fleites is not an isolated incident. How can this?”
