Pornhub should forget the coronavirus and focus on its own pandemic: revenge porn
The site is offering free access to everyone in Italy and even has a philanthropic division – but it needs to do better with non-consensual content
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More than 60 million people are currently under lockdown in Italy, which is dealing with Europe’s worst outbreak of Covid-19. But where there’s a crisis, there’s also a marketing opportunity. On Thursday Pornhub announced that it is giving everyone in Italy free access to its premium service for the rest of the month. The world’s biggest porn site also said it will donate its March proceeds from Modelhub, one of its adult marketplaces, “to support Italy during this unfortunate time”.
Pornhub’s philanthropic division (yes, it has one) is good at pulling headline-grabbing stunts. It launched a BeeSexual channel to benefit honeybee conservation efforts; it ran a tree-planting scheme called Pornhub Gives America Wood; it tried to clean up plastic-filled beaches with a campaign called Dirtiest Porn Ever.
While Pornhub has clearly given a lot of thought to smutty pun-based philanthropy, it doesn’t seem to have put quite as much effort into ensuring its own business practices are ethical. The site is currently facing serious allegations of profiting from videos of rape and sexual abuse. Almost half a million people have signed an online petition, started by a group called Exodus Cry in the US, demanding that Pornhub be shut down and its executives held accountable for sex trafficking.
“This is a company that is generating millions in advertising and membership revenue and yet they do not have an effective system in place to verify reliably the age or consent of those featured in the pornographic content it hosts,” the Exodus Cry founder said.
Pornhub vehemently disagrees. In a recent statement to the Guardian, the company said it “has a steadfast commitment to eradicating and fighting non-consensual content and under-age material. Any suggestion otherwise is categorically and factually inaccurate”.
There have been rather a lot of suggestions otherwise. Kate Isaacs, the founder of Not Your Porn campaign, recently wrote a Guardian op-ed detailing how she’d worked with “50 women who were turned into ‘porn stars’ without their permission”. Isaacs notes that some of these women were under 18 “when videos of them were posted on Pornhub without their consent”. It took Pornhub weeks to get a video of one of Isaacs’ friends removed; “When one video had been removed, an identical video with her full name attached would pop back up again.”
While Pornhub may argue it has a “steadfast commitment” to eradicating non-consensual content, there’s clearly a lot of room for it to do better. Instead of trying to take on the coronavirus, it would do well to focus on its own pandemic of revenge porn.
‘The web is not working for women and girls’
The inventor of the world wide web has urged companies and governments to tackle misogynistic online abuse. Berners-Lee said the “online harms facing women and girls”, particularly those from marginalized groups, was causing them to skip school, silencing female opinions and damaging relationships.
Coronavirus is causing an outbreak of domestic violence in China
A combination of people spending more time indoors together and police attention being diverted to coronavirus-related issues has caused a spike in domestic violence in China. The hashtag #AntiDomesticViolenceDuringEpidemic (#疫期反家暴) has been used more than 3,000 times on Sina Weibo, a Chinese social media platform and calls to women’s rights organizations have tripled, according to the BBC.
Thousands of Mexican women strike
A total of 1,006 women were victims of femicide in Mexico last year; 580 more than in 2015. On Monday women across the country joined a historic strike to protest against the government’s failure to combat violence against women.
Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 23 years
The convicted rapist doesn’t seem to understand he did anything wrong. “I’m totally confused,” Weinstein said at his sentencing. “I think men are confused about these issues.” I guess he has time to think about it now.
Converse launching a gender-neutral clothes line
It’s called Converse Shapes and the clothes are designed for body types rather than gender.
Women are (horse)racing ahead
Last year female jockeys outperformed their male counterparts.
US Soccer Federation president resigns after misogyny row
Women just aren’t as good as men, according to court filings by the US Soccer Federation in an ongoing gender discrimination lawsuit. On Thursday, Carlos Cordeiro, the federation’s president, resigned following a backlash from fans, players and sponsors over the misogynistic filings. Former USWNT midfielder Cindy Parlow Cone will become the first female president in the history of the federation.
‘Setting my Tinder to Wuhan so I can get the real scoop on what’s going on’
Tinder has become a coronavirus news service. As the virus spreads around the world, dating app users are setting their location to Wuhan to learn more about life in the initial focus of the epidemic.
Sarah Palin raps Baby Got Back dressed as a furry bear
Quite a few jaws dropped on Thursday when the former Republican governor appeared in a purple and pink bear costume on TV show The Masked Singer. There would have been a time where this would have been the weirdest thing to happen all week. Unfortunately we live in Very Interesting Times; Palin’s performance was just a blip on the increasingly dystopian radar.
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