An alarming discovery has been made public through leaked internal documents from adult content platform Pornhub, revealing that the site hosted videos depicting child sexual abuse for over a decade. These documents, erroneously released amidst an ongoing class action lawsuit in Alabama, portray a company culture where employees joked about potential incarceration for having such material on their computers.
The lawsuit, initiated by victims of child sex trafficking, alleges that Pornhub's parent company, MindGeek, financially benefited from distributing videos that captured the victims' abuse. Disturbingly, some staff members explicitly recognized they were in possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and feared the legal implications. "I hope I never get in trouble for having those vids on my computer LOOOOL," one employee messaged in March 2020. Another expressed concern over forgetting to delete an incriminating video, "like I will go away for a long time."
Employees believed that MindGeek would come to their defense if legal issues arose, as suggested by one staffer's comment: "MindGeek would vouch for us if we every [sic] get arrested." This cavalier attitude extended to the content itself. A staff member pointed out the longevity of one child pornography video on the site, remarking on its presence for 11 years.
The leaked documents included keyword tracking files that revealed terms connected to child abuse returned hundreds of thousands of results. The terms "12yo" and "13yo" each yielded 155,447 videos, while "7yo" showed 5,387 results. The company's content moderation teams seemingly allowed videos to remain on the site unless they were flagged more than 15 times, a threshold that led to a backlog of potentially illegal content.
"I hope I never get in trouble for having those vids on my computer LOOOOL," - MindGeek Employee
Even as the company contended with over 706,000 flagged videos by May 2020, the enforcement of rules was lax. A leader within the company admitted that strict enforcement would result in loss of moderation staff and "chaos within the team."
Following a 2020 New York Times exposé on the presence of child sexual abuse material on Pornhub, the platform removed over 10 million videos and announced new safety measures, including a ban on unverified uploaders, the elimination of video downloads, and partnerships with nonprofits focused on online safety. Now operating under the name Aylo, the company claims to have initiated an uploader verification system and a robust banned keyword list to prevent future abuse.
Despite these efforts, advocates like Laila Mickelwait, CEO of the Justice Defense Fund, condemn MindGeek's historical inaction. "It was systemic criminal conduct—monetized sexual abuse on an industrial scale, driven by willful corporate decisions," Mickelwait stated. She stressed that the documents confirm what survivors have long known: Pornhub executives were aware they were distributing child rape content and prioritized profits over children's safety.
The class action lawsuit in Alabama is ongoing, with more discovery materials anticipated to be released, potentially leading to increased scrutiny of Pornhub's content moderation practices and executive decisions.