Over 30 women sued Pornhub on Thursday and accused the site of violating federal sex trafficking laws, distributing child porn, racketeering, and additional crimes.
“The suit alleges that Pornhub’s parent company, MindGeek — and its constellation of porn brands — is a criminal enterprise that purchases, launders, and uploads illegal content often obtained through human trafficking and sexual assault,” NBC News reported.
The outlet continued:
The women say in their suit that MindGeek used nonconsensual content to “become the dominant online pornography company in the world.” The women were victims of sexual exploitation, rape and trafficking, and they were “victimized first by their original abuser, and then repeatedly by the defendants in this case,” the suit alleges. Serena Fleites and more than 30 Jane Does allege in the suit that they were victimized by unauthorized videos uploaded and disseminated by Pornhub.
However, Pornhub reportedly denied the recent allegations.
“Pornhub has zero tolerance for illegal content and investigates any complaint or allegation made about content on our platforms,” it claimed in a statement.
“The allegations in today’s complaint that Pornhub is a criminal enterprise that traffics women and is run like ‘The Sopranos’ are utterly absurd, completely reckless and categorically false,” the company continued.
It added its site has “the most comprehensive safeguards in user-generated platform history, which include the banning of uploads from unverified users, expanding our moderation processes, and cooperating with dozens of non-profit organizations around the world.”
In December, Pornhub announced it suspended videos not uploaded by verified users as part of a policy implementation.
“The porn website said the move meant ‘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,'” Breitbart News reported.
Prior to the announcement, Mastercard and Visa said they were investigating allegations made in a New York Times column that Pornhub was posting clips portraying child abuse on its site.
“Mastercard’s investigation resulted in a ban on processing payments for MindGeek. Visa, which is named as a defendant and is accused of knowingly profiting from the trafficking alleged in Thursday’s suit, resumed processing some transactions,” the NBC News report concluded.
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