14 ms·

The Children of Pornhub

72 points by fforflo 6y ago

Clubber 6y ago
>But in the eighth grade she developed a crush on a boy a year older, and he asked her to take a naked video of herself. She sent it to him, and this changed her life. I mean that's sad and all, but there are food lines in Texas and all over the country, and the politicians are too inept or unwilling to do anything about it. Also, police seem to be able to murder people or at least have a reckless disregard for life, and the system doesn't prosecute them for it intentionally. There seems to be wide scale corruption on all levels of government and institutions, but nothing to see here. There's also a mass incarceration problem that exists to keep people in jobs and for profit prisons stock up. Oh and mass surveillance that was never resolved. If you get sick enough, you're go bankrupt and probably end up in essentially debtor's prison. Ignore all the big problems, think of the children.
- defterGoose 6y ago
  I dont disagree with you that there are many widespread, systemic problems that people are essentially turning their back on, but this is a pretty disgusting attitude. Exploitation is exploitation, and when it comes to minors, the sexual kind is almost certainly the most despicable; even more so when its allowed to happen regularly in the name of profit.
  - Clubber 6y ago
    >Exploitation is exploitation, and when it comes to minors, the sexual kind is almost certainly the most despicable Why is it disgusting? I said it was sad. Innocent people are getting murdered by police with impunity. We have a larger prison population than China. I think that's a lot worse and affects a lot more people than when a kid takes a nude video and gets it posted on pornhub. I mean everyone knows not to take nude videos, we've known that for 15+ years now. Can't you see this is a big distraction article to shift our concerns to other things? Think of the children.
- engineer_22 6y ago
  My opinion: the "problems" you're describing are actually symptoms of the real problem. My opinion: the real problem is moral corruption, and a lack of genuine leadership. Selfishness as a virtue? I dont think leadership and charisma translate well to the digital platform, I think leadership is an analog process, you've got to be able to read the room, but we dont get into the same rooms anymore, we discuss politics on facebook and twitter. Grandpa can't teach his grandchildren how to behave if the children only talk to Grandpa on Facetime. Our communities are missing the human connection - a necessary connection if we're going to cooperate to fix our society.
  - Clubber 6y ago
    > I think leadership is an analog process, you've got to be able to read the room, but we dont get into the same rooms anymore, we discuss politics on facebook and twitter. I agree our problems are moral corruption and the shamelessness of it now. I don't mean moral corruption in the sense of sex, I mean moral corruption in the sense of greed and money. I think our institutions have been corrupt for a lot longer than social media has been around.
    - engineer_22 6y ago
      > I think our institutions have been corrupt for a lot longer than social media has been around. That's probably right. Well then... on the bright side the bar is set pretty low!
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    I don't understand. Rape existed before the Internet.
- arfar 6y ago
  Very serious "whataboitism" here. People can care about more than one thing. Different people in societies can care and want to work on different things.
  - Clubber 6y ago
    What are you personally doing to solve any these problems? Are you pressuring your representatives in any way? Reading articles and posting scolding messages doesn't really accomplish anything. It just makes us feel like we did.
    - mpalmer 6y ago
      posting scolding messages doesn't really accomplish anything.
      - Clubber 6y ago
        I've called my representative on several issues. State, local and federal. Called the local news on school COVID coverup too. They actually went to the school to check it out. What do you do to actually try to solve things as a citizen? Snark?
        mpalmer 6y ago
        Glad to hear it. I don't think many users are particularly interested in posts saying that the topic of the discussion thread is not worth discussing because there are so many other topics. Maybe go find the threads where your comments are more on-topic.
        Clubber 6y ago
        Do you not recognize the moral panic / righteousness undertone of this article and what it's designed to do? I feel my comments are very much on topic. This is a modern "D&D might be Satanism" article. I mean the NYT can publish stuff like this and still claim it's, "all the news that's fit to print." But I can disagree.
bamboozled 6y ago
It's terrible but it's happening on every online platform out there which lets you host multi-media.
myrandomcomment 6y ago
Making porn illegal would not work. The issue is that these sites allow people to upload their own videos where they are not required to go through the verification process a normal porn production company would. The solution is to prohibit content from random users by putting very stringent requirements in place requiring age and constant verification like the mainstream producers.
jakelazaroff 6y ago
It's very frustrating to see the all the money and effort that has been poured into preventing copyrighted content from being distributed, compared to the paucity of interest in preventing reuploads of a known rape video.
rasz 6y ago
>Unlike YouTube, Pornhub allows these videos to be downloaded My God, its full of stupid! > but Mindgeek is a porn titan No its not, its the second fiddle to WGCZ, with Amazon and Netflix trailing far behind in web video rankings. Not to mention Hammy Media, Multi Media LLC, IG Media, etc. Seems being a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes gives you leeway from researching stuff properly. Is this poorly informed article a hit piece on Section 230? >We’re already seeing that limiting Section 230 immunity leads to better self-policing. yep > If PayPal can suspend cooperation with Pornhub, so can American Express, Mastercard and Visa. send in moral deplatforming police >YouTube thrives without downloads. umm, there is this program that recently got a lot of press over RIAA actions. I guess it wasnt sexy or clickbaity enough for nytimes or Pulitzer winners to cover.
- tomwill656 6y ago
  Not sure if it's a dig against section 230, or just the sex industry. The journalist of this op-ed was instrumental in creating the moral panic to push through the SESTA legislation a few years ago. This legislation turned out to do nothing for victims and only damaged the safety of sex workers. He also sources and mentions a petition from an evangelical group trying to shut down the sex industry. https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-exodus-cry-the-shady-evangelical-group-with-trump-ties-waging-war-on-pornhub https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-exodus-cry-the-shady-ev...
- xg15 6y ago
  So what's your plan to solve the problem? The kids should just try harder not to have their videos end up on pornhub?
  - mindslight 6y ago
    Insisting there is some simple top-down solution is nothing but inflammatory. Once data is out there, people sharing it is inevitable. The way to stop there being a video of yourself is to never let one be made in the first place, especially by someone you can't trust. The only way out of that cold hard fact is a worldwide data control regime enforced on our personal computers, which we should all be against. At least with Youtube's censorship push, there's an argument to be made that it's not so much about the hosting, but the recommendation system giving extra attention to misleading videos. This article doesn't even attempt to make that point, instead repeatedly deferring to innuendo that the mere act of hosting is itself bad. Whereas in reality that's simply intractable, and pretending it isn't will lead to nothing good (ie another "war on drugs"). Certainly there are things Pornhub could do to help, like making it easier for people to find and report videos of themselves, or working with reputation management firms. But feigning as if there's some magical solution that Pornhub can come up with to prevent every bad thing from happening ("solve the problem") is not a way to have a constructive conversation. Also the article skips dwelling on how most of the harm is actually being caused - the bullying. Like when yet another kid shoots up a school, the actual dynamic is brushed away as "kids being kids" and somehow uncontrollable, despite school administrators have great visibility into students' activities and a wide range of sanctions. Meanwhile we're all told that we should give up our societal rights to fix the resulting mess.
alisonkisk 6y ago
Beyond Pornhub, the schools and local authorities not expelling and prosecuting the student extortionists and child-pornographers are a huge problem.
twirlock 6y ago
Dear dang, What is the point of showing me the replies to a comment you have decided I'm not allowed to read?
parliament32 6y ago
>He had shared the videos with other boys, and someone posted them on Pornhub. So why weren't they charged with distributing CP? This is what we should be focusing on, rather than, what, complaining that Pornhub doesn't have some sort of magical age-detecting AI?
- mullen 6y ago
  > So why weren't they charged with distributing CP? This is what we should be focusing on, rather than, what, complaining that Pornhub doesn't have some sort of magical age-detecting AI? This is the part I never understand about CP being shared among high school kids. Why are the schools and police not coming down on the high school kids sharing CP? Make it really simple, receive CP and don't report it, you will get punished. CP is no joke and letting people off who have received it and not reported it is not sending a proper message to these High School kids.
  - mindslight 6y ago
    Because the existing legal regime around CP is completely draconian (strict liability for your computer getting pwnt!), nobody wants to ruin the lives of teenagers for looking at pics of their peers, and it would be political suicide to discuss the issue.
    - parliament32 6y ago
      I feel like we could have a consequence somewhere in between "you're forever a registered sex offender" and "you get to skip school for a week".
      - mindslight 6y ago
        That's what I was implying would be desirable, but it's political suicide. Cue pic of creepy looking high school senior - "Senator Scumbag wants to go easy on sex offenders".
- callinOutLiars 6y ago
bennettfeely 6y ago
It's long past time for executives of these companies and others to be in prison. Someone can spend years in prison for possession of one of these videos but the people who run a distribution company for them are free.
- swirepe 6y ago
  Won't somebody think of the children!
sesuximo 6y ago
It seems pornhub could make three easy changes to satisfy everyone (or at least some of this author’s pts): 1. Use a dumber search recommendation system that chooses from a list of “safe” searches. Mostly for PR. 2. When someone uploads a video, check if it’s similar to something that was taken down. This article implies they don’t do that — surely this would save pornhub a lot of hassle anyway. 3. Publish some metrics about how many videos were taken down/list some positive actions they’ve taken. Also obv for PR.
- jszymborski 6y ago
  the article suggests to "Allow only verified users to post videos" which seems like the sensible thing to do. In fact, it should be gov't mandated regulation on the industry.
  - scotty79 6y ago
    Till the first huge data leak...
    - jszymborski 6y ago
      All you need to do is store a "permit" or "contract" ID which a government agency or law firm can verify. Performer would need to enter an agreement with the distributor as authorized by a government agency or third party, an agreement number is issued to the distributor. The distributor need not even know the name of the performer if they are incorporated. You effectively (1) blanket deny distributors agreements with underage persons (2) create a paper-trail which makes trafficking easier to prosecute (3) force takedown/prosecute distributors of pornography where they do not have a documented agreement with performers.
      - scotty79 6y ago
        What about people that record themselves and upload to pornhub? They are not distributors, performers or members of the government... What should they do in your scheme?
breakingcups 6y ago
It never occurred to me how logical it would be to require adult performers, even amateurs, to verify themselves to the platform before allowing their videos to be shown online. Sure, it increases the moderation burden on the site, but that seems like a worthwhile cost. In general online content platforms like have been given way too much slack in shoveling responsibility and manual labor onto other parties.
- swirepe 6y ago
  >It never occurred to me how logical it would be to require adult performers, even amateurs, to verify themselves to the platform before allowing their videos to be shown online. Let's make a database of everyone's penis and mailing address. What could go wrong?
  - kthxbye123 6y ago
    Porn producers in the United States are already required to maintain a registry of their performers so that it can be verified that none of them are under 18. I'm not sure why you are reacting to a solution that is in some sense already implemented with such cynical sarcasm, especially when the alternate is "let this tech company continue to profit from sex crimes"
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
It is time for sex bots. Developing sex bots could be the first meaningful step towards tackling the horrors of sexual abuse, trafficking and child victimization.

72 points by fforflo 6y ago

>But in the eighth grade she developed a crush on a boy a year older, and he asked her to take a naked video of herself. She sent it to him, and this changed her life. I mean that's sad and all, but there are food lines in Texas and all over the country, and the politicians are too inept or unwilling to do anything about it. Also, police seem to be able to murder people or at least have a reckless disregard for life, and the system doesn't prosecute them for it intentionally. There seems to be wide scale corruption on all levels of government and institutions, but nothing to see here. There's also a mass incarceration problem that exists to keep people in jobs and for profit prisons stock up. Oh and mass surveillance that was never resolved. If you get sick enough, you're go bankrupt and probably end up in essentially debtor's prison. Ignore all the big problems, think of the children.

defterGoose 6y ago
I dont disagree with you that there are many widespread, systemic problems that people are essentially turning their back on, but this is a pretty disgusting attitude. Exploitation is exploitation, and when it comes to minors, the sexual kind is almost certainly the most despicable; even more so when its allowed to happen regularly in the name of profit.
- Clubber 6y ago
  >Exploitation is exploitation, and when it comes to minors, the sexual kind is almost certainly the most despicable Why is it disgusting? I said it was sad. Innocent people are getting murdered by police with impunity. We have a larger prison population than China. I think that's a lot worse and affects a lot more people than when a kid takes a nude video and gets it posted on pornhub. I mean everyone knows not to take nude videos, we've known that for 15+ years now. Can't you see this is a big distraction article to shift our concerns to other things? Think of the children.
engineer_22 6y ago
My opinion: the "problems" you're describing are actually symptoms of the real problem. My opinion: the real problem is moral corruption, and a lack of genuine leadership. Selfishness as a virtue? I dont think leadership and charisma translate well to the digital platform, I think leadership is an analog process, you've got to be able to read the room, but we dont get into the same rooms anymore, we discuss politics on facebook and twitter. Grandpa can't teach his grandchildren how to behave if the children only talk to Grandpa on Facetime. Our communities are missing the human connection - a necessary connection if we're going to cooperate to fix our society.
- Clubber 6y ago
  > I think leadership is an analog process, you've got to be able to read the room, but we dont get into the same rooms anymore, we discuss politics on facebook and twitter. I agree our problems are moral corruption and the shamelessness of it now. I don't mean moral corruption in the sense of sex, I mean moral corruption in the sense of greed and money. I think our institutions have been corrupt for a lot longer than social media has been around.
  - engineer_22 6y ago
    > I think our institutions have been corrupt for a lot longer than social media has been around. That's probably right. Well then... on the bright side the bar is set pretty low!
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  I don't understand. Rape existed before the Internet.
arfar 6y ago
Very serious "whataboitism" here. People can care about more than one thing. Different people in societies can care and want to work on different things.
- Clubber 6y ago
  What are you personally doing to solve any these problems? Are you pressuring your representatives in any way? Reading articles and posting scolding messages doesn't really accomplish anything. It just makes us feel like we did.
  - mpalmer 6y ago
    posting scolding messages doesn't really accomplish anything.
    - Clubber 6y ago
      I've called my representative on several issues. State, local and federal. Called the local news on school COVID coverup too. They actually went to the school to check it out. What do you do to actually try to solve things as a citizen? Snark?
      - mpalmer 6y ago
        Glad to hear it. I don't think many users are particularly interested in posts saying that the topic of the discussion thread is not worth discussing because there are so many other topics. Maybe go find the threads where your comments are more on-topic.
        Clubber 6y ago
        Do you not recognize the moral panic / righteousness undertone of this article and what it's designed to do? I feel my comments are very much on topic. This is a modern "D&D might be Satanism" article. I mean the NYT can publish stuff like this and still claim it's, "all the news that's fit to print." But I can disagree.

bamboozled 6y ago

It's terrible but it's happening on every online platform out there which lets you host multi-media.

myrandomcomment 6y ago

Making porn illegal would not work. The issue is that these sites allow people to upload their own videos where they are not required to go through the verification process a normal porn production company would. The solution is to prohibit content from random users by putting very stringent requirements in place requiring age and constant verification like the mainstream producers.

jakelazaroff 6y ago

It's very frustrating to see the all the money and effort that has been poured into preventing copyrighted content from being distributed, compared to the paucity of interest in preventing reuploads of a known rape video.

rasz 6y ago

>Unlike YouTube, Pornhub allows these videos to be downloaded My God, its full of stupid! > but Mindgeek is a porn titan No its not, its the second fiddle to WGCZ, with Amazon and Netflix trailing far behind in web video rankings. Not to mention Hammy Media, Multi Media LLC, IG Media, etc. Seems being a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes gives you leeway from researching stuff properly. Is this poorly informed article a hit piece on Section 230? >We’re already seeing that limiting Section 230 immunity leads to better self-policing. yep > If PayPal can suspend cooperation with Pornhub, so can American Express, Mastercard and Visa. send in moral deplatforming police >YouTube thrives without downloads. umm, there is this program that recently got a lot of press over RIAA actions. I guess it wasnt sexy or clickbaity enough for nytimes or Pulitzer winners to cover.

tomwill656 6y ago
Not sure if it's a dig against section 230, or just the sex industry. The journalist of this op-ed was instrumental in creating the moral panic to push through the SESTA legislation a few years ago. This legislation turned out to do nothing for victims and only damaged the safety of sex workers. He also sources and mentions a petition from an evangelical group trying to shut down the sex industry. https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-exodus-cry-the-shady-evangelical-group-with-trump-ties-waging-war-on-pornhub https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-exodus-cry-the-shady-ev...
xg15 6y ago
So what's your plan to solve the problem? The kids should just try harder not to have their videos end up on pornhub?
- mindslight 6y ago
  Insisting there is some simple top-down solution is nothing but inflammatory. Once data is out there, people sharing it is inevitable. The way to stop there being a video of yourself is to never let one be made in the first place, especially by someone you can't trust. The only way out of that cold hard fact is a worldwide data control regime enforced on our personal computers, which we should all be against. At least with Youtube's censorship push, there's an argument to be made that it's not so much about the hosting, but the recommendation system giving extra attention to misleading videos. This article doesn't even attempt to make that point, instead repeatedly deferring to innuendo that the mere act of hosting is itself bad. Whereas in reality that's simply intractable, and pretending it isn't will lead to nothing good (ie another "war on drugs"). Certainly there are things Pornhub could do to help, like making it easier for people to find and report videos of themselves, or working with reputation management firms. But feigning as if there's some magical solution that Pornhub can come up with to prevent every bad thing from happening ("solve the problem") is not a way to have a constructive conversation. Also the article skips dwelling on how most of the harm is actually being caused - the bullying. Like when yet another kid shoots up a school, the actual dynamic is brushed away as "kids being kids" and somehow uncontrollable, despite school administrators have great visibility into students' activities and a wide range of sanctions. Meanwhile we're all told that we should give up our societal rights to fix the resulting mess.

alisonkisk 6y ago

Beyond Pornhub, the schools and local authorities not expelling and prosecuting the student extortionists and child-pornographers are a huge problem.

twirlock 6y ago

Dear dang, What is the point of showing me the replies to a comment you have decided I'm not allowed to read?

parliament32 6y ago

>He had shared the videos with other boys, and someone posted them on Pornhub. So why weren't they charged with distributing CP? This is what we should be focusing on, rather than, what, complaining that Pornhub doesn't have some sort of magical age-detecting AI?

mullen 6y ago
> So why weren't they charged with distributing CP? This is what we should be focusing on, rather than, what, complaining that Pornhub doesn't have some sort of magical age-detecting AI? This is the part I never understand about CP being shared among high school kids. Why are the schools and police not coming down on the high school kids sharing CP? Make it really simple, receive CP and don't report it, you will get punished. CP is no joke and letting people off who have received it and not reported it is not sending a proper message to these High School kids.
- mindslight 6y ago
  Because the existing legal regime around CP is completely draconian (strict liability for your computer getting pwnt!), nobody wants to ruin the lives of teenagers for looking at pics of their peers, and it would be political suicide to discuss the issue.
  - parliament32 6y ago
    I feel like we could have a consequence somewhere in between "you're forever a registered sex offender" and "you get to skip school for a week".
    - mindslight 6y ago
      That's what I was implying would be desirable, but it's political suicide. Cue pic of creepy looking high school senior - "Senator Scumbag wants to go easy on sex offenders".
callinOutLiars 6y ago

bennettfeely 6y ago

It's long past time for executives of these companies and others to be in prison. Someone can spend years in prison for possession of one of these videos but the people who run a distribution company for them are free.

swirepe 6y ago
Won't somebody think of the children!

sesuximo 6y ago

It seems pornhub could make three easy changes to satisfy everyone (or at least some of this author’s pts): 1. Use a dumber search recommendation system that chooses from a list of “safe” searches. Mostly for PR. 2. When someone uploads a video, check if it’s similar to something that was taken down. This article implies they don’t do that — surely this would save pornhub a lot of hassle anyway. 3. Publish some metrics about how many videos were taken down/list some positive actions they’ve taken. Also obv for PR.

jszymborski 6y ago
the article suggests to "Allow only verified users to post videos" which seems like the sensible thing to do. In fact, it should be gov't mandated regulation on the industry.
- scotty79 6y ago
  Till the first huge data leak...
  - jszymborski 6y ago
    All you need to do is store a "permit" or "contract" ID which a government agency or law firm can verify. Performer would need to enter an agreement with the distributor as authorized by a government agency or third party, an agreement number is issued to the distributor. The distributor need not even know the name of the performer if they are incorporated. You effectively (1) blanket deny distributors agreements with underage persons (2) create a paper-trail which makes trafficking easier to prosecute (3) force takedown/prosecute distributors of pornography where they do not have a documented agreement with performers.
    - scotty79 6y ago
      What about people that record themselves and upload to pornhub? They are not distributors, performers or members of the government... What should they do in your scheme?

breakingcups 6y ago

It never occurred to me how logical it would be to require adult performers, even amateurs, to verify themselves to the platform before allowing their videos to be shown online. Sure, it increases the moderation burden on the site, but that seems like a worthwhile cost. In general online content platforms like have been given way too much slack in shoveling responsibility and manual labor onto other parties.

swirepe 6y ago
>It never occurred to me how logical it would be to require adult performers, even amateurs, to verify themselves to the platform before allowing their videos to be shown online. Let's make a database of everyone's penis and mailing address. What could go wrong?
- kthxbye123 6y ago
  Porn producers in the United States are already required to maintain a registry of their performers so that it can be verified that none of them are under 18. I'm not sure why you are reacting to a solution that is in some sense already implemented with such cynical sarcasm, especially when the alternate is "let this tech company continue to profit from sex crimes"

jelliclesfarm 6y ago

It is time for sex bots. Developing sex bots could be the first meaningful step towards tackling the horrors of sexual abuse, trafficking and child victimization.