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Following a Nicholas Kristof Times exposé, Pornhub removed millions of videos. But the
group behind the crusade is an anti-sex-work outfit that’s raising money off the
controversy.
Tarpley Hitt
Reporter

Updated Dec. 17, 2020 5:00AM ET / Published Dec. 16, 2020 4:55AM ET

O
n Monday, Pornhub, one of the largest porn
distribution platforms in the world, announced that it
would remove all content submitted by unverified users
—effectively disappearing some 10.6 million videos in a
single day. Over the weekend, the MindGeek subsidiary
hosted a library of 13.5 million videos. By Tuesday morning, that
number had dwindled to just 2.9 million.

The overhaul came after a controversial opinion piece earlier this

month from New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. The column,
titled “The Children of Pornhub,” highlighted several victims of
statutory rape and their experiences with the platform, calling for
“search engines, banks or credit card companies” to demonetize it. The
article prompted Mastercard and Visa to investigate Pornhub for
illegal material, and subsequently to cut ties with it, along with
MindGeek’s other properties, including Brazzers, Redtube, and XTube.
Part of Kristof’s case against Pornhub rested on the work of an activist
campaign called #Traffickinghub. “Concerns about Pornhub are
bubbling up. A petition to shut the site down has received 2.1 million
signatures,” Kristof wrote, referring to a petition circulated by the
campaign. “An organization called Traffickinghub, led by an activist
named Laila Mickelwait, documents abuses and calls for the site to be
shut down.”

Last week, following the announcement of Pornhub’s policy changes,

Kristof took a victory lap, applauding the campaign again in a second
column. “Visa and Mastercard are reviewing their ties with Pornhub;
there are calls for criminal prosecutions,” Kristof wrote, “activist
groups like Traffickinghub are demanding action.”

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Neither piece elaborated on the origins of the #Traffickinghub

campaign, which The Daily Beast investigated last month. The
movement’s founder, Laila Mickelwait, works for the Christian “anti-
trafficking” non-profit Exodus Cry—a fringe evangelical group with
far-right ties that aims to abolish the commercial sex industry entirely.
The campaign, which germinated in the pages of the Washington
Examiner, was also co-sponsored by the National Center on Sexual
Exploitation (NCOSE), the nonprofit formerly known as Morality in
Media and once the “nation’s loudest voice against adult
pornography.”
 Mickelwait and Kristof did not respond to requests for comment.
Pornhub declined to comment on the op-ed or campaign, pointing
instead to their statement on the organizations. In the statement,
Pornhub fingered the two groups as evidence that the campaign took
issue not with the company’s content moderation but with its business
as a whole.

“It is clear that Pornhub is being targeted not because of our policies
and how we compare to our peers, but because we are an adult content
platform,” Pornhub wrote. “The two groups that have spearheaded the
campaign against our company are the National Center on Sexual
Exploitation (formerly known as Morality in Media) and Exodus
Cry/TraffickingHub. These are organizations dedicated to abolishing
pornography, banning material they claim is obscene, and shutting
down commercial sex work.”

These are organizations dedicated to

abolishing pornography, banning material they
claim is obscene, and shutting down
commercial sex work.
In the immediate aftermath of Kristof’s first piece, Mickelwait started
a GoFundMe fundraiser to raise money for one of the women he
interviewed. The page, which cited the article, set a $20,000 goal,
promising that “100% of all funds received will go directly to victims.”

Three days later, the campaign had raised $38,000, adjusted its goal
to $50,000, and changed its phrasing: “All funds received will go
directly to support victims and will be managed and disbursed by The
Rebecca Bender Initiative, a leading US organization dedicated to
assisting survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking.”
Notably, Rebecca Bender sits on the board of Exodus Cry.

By December 10, the GoFundMe had raised $75,000 and amended the
language to include an organization called “Elevate Academy.” The
organization is also run by Rebecca Bender, and is a partner of Exodus
Cry.

In his follow-up piece, Kristof reported that one of the women he

interviewed had received aid from the GoFundMe. “I’m thrilled to
report that Fleites has been deluged with offers of housing, jobs,
education and counseling, and she and her dogs have moved into a
long-stay hotel with help from a GoFundMe backed by readers,” he
wrote.

Dr. Nicole Prause, a scientist at the research institute Liberos who

specializes in human sexual behavior, found the decontextualized
reference to #Traffickinghub concerning. After co-authoring a high-
profile study on pornography addiction, which challenged the idea that
sex or porn could elicit a neural response similar to drug or alcohol
addiction, Prause became a frequent target of anti-pornography
advocates, several of them linked to Exodus Cry.

She Was 18 and Tricked Into Doing Porn: It

 g

‘Ruined
TESTIMONYMy Life’
Tarpley Hitt

“In the New York Times piece, some of the phrasing was concerning,
just because of my own experience,” Dr. Prause said. “I feel like we’ve
seen some of this in anti-abortion rhetoric, where folks who oppose
abortions will talk about ‘child murder,’ and then when there’s
violence against doctors who perform these procedures they disavow
it. Some of the language in [Kristof’s] op-ed concerned me, because we
[female researchers] are already getting death threats.”

In several concurrent court filings in Texas, Pennsylvania, and

California, Prause has claimed some advocates have sexually harassed
her and sent her death threats. Two of those cases involve the anti-
pornography advocates Alexander Rhodes, who founded the semen-
retention forum NoFap, and neurosurgeon Donald L. Hilton, who has
authored papers like, “He Restoreth My Soul: Understanding and
Breaking the Chemical and Spiritual Chains of Pornography Addiction
Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”

Both men sued Prause for defamation, though according to a

California judge last week, their “path to any truly satisfactory
vindication seems very narrow and difficult.”

Still, #Traffickinghub founder Laila Mickelwait filed letters of support

for both men. “It’s ironic to me that they claim to support women,”
Prause said, “when they’re actively advocating for men who are
sexually harassing and intimidating women.”
 It’s ironic to me that they claim to support
women, when they’re actively advocating for
men who are sexually harassing and
intimidating women.
Pornhub has come under attack in the past year for its inaction against
sex trafficking on the platform. Last year, 22 Jane Does sued a
pornograpy production company called GirlsDoPorn—a former
Pornhub Content Partner—for using fraud and intimidation to coerce
young women into shooting adult videos, promising that the footage
would never be released online or in North America. Pornhub, which
contracted with the company since 2011, allegedly hosted, marketed,
and profited from the videos until as late as 2019, when a federal
indictment shut the website down. The operators of the site were
charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.

“Making the general public register with Pornhub is a good start but
that alone would not have helped my clients,” said Brian Holm, an
attorney who represented Jane Does in the 2019 civil case. “MindGeek
did not sever its partnership with GirlsDoPorn until the people
running it were in jail—a time when GirlsDoPorn was no longer
profitable to MindGeek anyway. It shouldn’t take a four-year civil
lawsuit and an indictment for companies to dump sex traffickers from
their platforms. MindGeek should have had policies relating to who it
lets into its partnership programs and what is necessary to remain in
the program.”

Shortly after Pornhub removed unverified content, Holm and his

colleagues filed a lawsuit against its parent company, MindGeek, on
behalf of 40 Jane Does. The latest suit, filed Tuesday, alleges that
MindGeek knowingly profited from GirlsDoPorns’ sex-trafficking
operation, ignoring the complaints of the company’s victims. The suit,
which has been in the works for several months, requests more than
$80 million in punitive and compensatory damages.

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Sex workers who spoke with The Daily Beast received the news of
Pornhub’s changes with ambivalence. “Everybody was outraged by the
fact that they could lose a significant form of income if a major
platform isn’t taking mainstream forms of payment,” said Curvy Mary,
a performer who participates in Pornhub’s Model Program, “which
could potentially take away a big chunk of our customer base.”

“First of all, if underage girls are being exploited that has to stop,” said
Ginger Lynn, an OnlyFans and Sext Panther worker, whose business is
unaffiliated with Pornhub. “We can all agree on that. ‘How’ is the
question. Mainstream internet companies deal with the same issues.
Facebook reported 84 million instances of child sex abuse material
[Editor’s note: Lynn is referring to a study conducted by English
nonprofit the Internet Watch Foundation, referenced in Kristof’s
initial article]. In the same time, the Internet Watch Foundation
reported only 118 incidents on Pornhub. But credit card companies
aren’t stopping processing on mainstream sites. Porn—as it always has
—garners extra scrutiny.”

The Internet Watch Foundation and the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children did not immediately respond to requests for
comment.

Jasmine Johnson, a sex worker and clinical therapist who produces

sex education videos for Pornhub under the name Jet Setting Jasmine,
said the crackdown was overdue.

“It is going to be a positive impact for a couple of reasons. One is that

to be a sex worker you have to be participating consensually in
whatever work that you’re doing,” Jasmine said. “If people are
underage or unidentifiable or non-consensual, that’s not sex work.
This is delineating people who are truly sex workers versus people who
are exploiting places where sex workers can place their content,
exploiting sex workers’ content, and exploiting people who have
nothing to do with the sex work industry.”

Tarpley Hitt
Reporter
Tarpley.Hitt@thedailybeast.com

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