Petition urging Pornhub shut down builds up steam

An online petition calling on the US Department of Justice to shut down adult entertainment platform PornHub for hosting videos of sex trafficking victims has reached over 650,000 signatures.

Pornhub recently extended its free Premium service offering worldwide in the face of the coronavirus crisis and various countries being locked down.

“Stay home and help flatten the curve! Since COVID-19 continues to impact us all, we have decided to extend Free Pornhub Premium worldwide until April 23rd. So enjoy, stay home, and stay safe,” the company tweeted.

However, its critics have blasted this as an attempt to silence complaints about videos featuring sex trafficking victims. “Pornhub has no reliable system in place to verify that those in the videos it hosts are not trafficked children being raped on film in order to line the pockets of its executives,” the petition states.

“Recently the Internet Watch Foundation stated that it alone had confirmed 118 cases of child rape, sexual abuse and trafficking on Pornhub; half of the videos were Category A level abuse which is the worst kinds of abuse,” it adds.

“What all of this means is that at this very moment, there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of videos of underage sex trafficking victims on Pornhub. We already have evidence, and it is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s time to shut down this super-predator site and hold the executives behind it accountable,” the petition concludes.

Pornhub did not respond to our request for comment.