PornHub moderators reveal lenient guidelines at the site
Former PornHub moderators have lifted the lid on life at the world's largest online adult entertainment website, currently being sued for $80million over 'sex trafficking'.
Workers at MindGeek, PornHub's parent company based in Montreal, Canada, would watch up to 1,200 videos a day, spending hours categorizing and tagging sex acts and fetishes as well as reviewing 'suspicious' content, from puppies being kicked to death, to child abuse, rape and incest. Pornhub, which had 42billion views in 2019, was considered the 'breadwinner' in a group of adult sites owned by MindGeek including YouPorn and RedTube.
The ex- staffers claimed that PornHub's guidelines were the most lenient and their job was 'to find weird excuses not to remove' videos. Mandatory 400 videos a day quotas were introduced in the spring, leading to 'panic attacks' among staff who were under 'surveillance' and felt unable to watch so much questionable content. Moderators who didn't meet the quota could be terminated whilst others say they suffered from 'burn out' from watching 'a life time' of pornography and upsetting content, with some reporting low sex drive, as a result, and others, higher.
The revelations are the latest in a series of blows to the controversial adult entertainment company in the last few weeks. On December 15
MindGeek was sued for $80 million by 40 women who say the site profited from 'sex trafficking'. In a complaint filed in California, the alleged victims say MindGeek 'knew it was partnering with and profiting from a sex trafficking venture for years'.
On December 14 the site was forced to remove 10million videos from unverified users, following a New York Times report which said it was profiting from videos of child sexual exploitation, rape and revenge porn. PornHub now says it will only allow content from verified users, something other social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter have yet to implement.
Credit card companies Visa, Mastercard and Discover severed ties with the company soon afterwards, blocking customers from making purchases on Pornhub. Users can still pay in cryptocurrency.
Whistleblower 'Brian' told Business Insider the strange, internal logic that his team used to allow suspicious content through. If an incest video title said 'his mother', it was taken down, he said, but if it said 'mother f--- s son', then they could argue she was a generic mother, of no relation to the son, and the video was approved. ' Our job was to find weird excuses to keep videos on our sites,' said Brian.